US Policy Changing Rapidly, Why?

[Annie]

http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/02/rewarding_palestinian_terroris.php

Rewarding Palestinian Terrorism
February 16, 2008 1:00 AM

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen argue that a Palestinian security plan backed by Washington calls into question President Bush’s commitment to secure Israel’s safety.
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by By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen

Unwavering U.S. determination to fund, train, and arm more than 50,000 Palestinian “soldiers” raises serious doubts about the repeated promises President George W. Bush has made to secure Israel’s safety and bring peace to the Middle East.

If the Bush administration gets its way, $4.2 billion to $7 billion in American taxpayer dollars over the next five years may fund training and purchase arms for tens of thousands of seasoned Palestinian terrorists. Many are veteran murderers, released from Israeli prisons in “confidence building” measures repeatedly demanded by the U.S.

It’s as if the U.S. proposed sending money, arms, and military instructors to help Sudanese strongman, Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, assist Darfur refugees — against whom he openly pursues genocide.

Rewarding Palestinian terrorism began in earnest in September 1993 with the Oslo Accords. Closely examining funds and propaganda mechanisms that facilitated PLO persuasion of the West should have indicated how al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations operate financially and otherwise. Alas, the U.S. and the West paid no attention.

Instead, in 1994 the U.S. helped establish the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by one of the most wanted criminals in the world — the Muslim Brotherhood member and Soviet-trained jihadist Yasser Arafat. His comrade in arms, vizier, and chief negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, follows in Arafat’s footsteps — albeit without the trademark kafiyah and beard — even more successfully.

Ignoring $10 billion (PDF) in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) loot that Arafat already controlled, plus more than $2 billion in illegal annual income, the West showered millions more on Arafat. The West assumed that giving the PA legitimacy, funding it, and persuading Israel to cede territory would convince Palestinians to stop targeting Israel and the West.

As the world recognized the PA, however, Palestinians abused their new status. They expanded their illegal activities and terrorism. The more violent the Palestinians became, the more money and concessions they exacted from the West.

In 2001, a year into the second intifada, official donations to the PA jumped over 80% from $555 million to $1.002 billion (PDF)— including at least $114 million from the U.S. Sure enough, that year hundreds of Israelis were murdered and thousands injured in at least 121 attacks.

The U.S. distributes funds to the Palestinians through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Until now, the U.S. funded only selected projects, which were expected to be vetted and certified by the USAID to ensure recipients used the funds only for their allocated purposes, and did not “commit, threaten or support terrorism.”

Yet, in dozens of cases the USAID mission for the West Bank and Gaza failed to enforce federal laws requiring they bar organizations and individuals that threaten, support, or are affiliated with terrorism. The USAID also failed to certify that recipients have not provided material support for terrorism...

Even though Fatah took joint responsibility with Hamas for a suicide bombing that killed an Israeli shopper in Dimona on February 4, the Bush Administration may be considering a PA request to intervene on its behalf in U.S. courts against the families of Palestinian terror victims awarded compensation for the loses.

“Frankly, the Palestinian authority, which is corrupt and cavorts with terror, is not the basis for a Palestinian state moving forward,” said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on June 24, 2002.

The more the PA changed, the more it stayed the same. Incredibly, the only thing that changed was U.S. policy.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. She is director of the American Center for Democracy and member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Alyssa A. Lappen, Senior Fellow at the ACD, is a former editor for Forbes, Corporate Finance, Working Woman and Institutional Investor.

 

[eots]

uhhhh....because never ending war and conflict is in the best interest of the military industrial complex