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Contributors
Daniel Pipes- Contributor
Daniel
Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum, a member of the
presidentially-appointed board of the U.S.
Institute of Peace,
and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The
Jerusalem Post. His most recent book, Miniatures:
Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction
Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org,
the single most accessed source of information specifically
on
the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and a chance
to sign-up to receive his new materials as they appear. [go
to Pipes index]
 Palestinians
Don't Deserve Additional Aid
Fueling the problem...
[Daniel Pipes] 12/23/04
Yasser Arafat
died last month. This month, his death is prompting plans for
a foreign aid bounty of $500 million to $1 billion a year for
the Palestinian Arabs.
That's the
scoop Steven Weisman published in the New York Times on December
17. He revealed that Western, Arab, and other governments plan
to add a 50% to 100% bonus to the $1 billion a year they already
direct to 3.5 million Palestinian Arabs in the territories,
contingent upon a crackdown on terrorist groups and the holding
of credible elections in January 2005.
(Asked about
Mr. Weisman's report, White House spokesman Scott McClellan neither
confirmed nor denied it. But President Bush did subsequently
make some hugely ambitious statements about
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: "I am convinced that, during
this term, I will manage to bring peace" and "Next year is
very important, as it will bring peace."
Aid-wise,
residents of the West Bank and Gaza have hardly been neglected
until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them,
per capita, the world's greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid.
Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired
efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize
it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the
Palestinian Arabs' bellicose propaganda machine, their arsenal,
their army, and their suicide bombers.
This, however,
does not faze international-aid types. Nigel Roberts, the World
Bank's director for the West Bank and Gaza, blows off past
failures. Addressing himself to donors, he says, "Maybe your
$1 billion a year hasn't produced much, but we think there's
a case for doing even more in the next three or four years."
Mr. Roberts
is saying, in effect: Yes, your money enabled Arafat's corruption,
jihad ideology, and suicide factories, but those are yesterday's
problems; now, let's hope the new leadership uses donations
for better purposes. Please lavish more funds on it to enhance
its prestige and power, then hope for the best.
This la-la-land
thinking ignores two wee problems. One concerns the Palestinian
Arabs' widespread intent to destroy Israel, as portrayed by
the outpouring of grief for archterrorist Arafat at his funeral,
the consistent results of opinion research, and the steady
supply of would-be jihadists. The Palestinian Arabs' discovery
of inner moderation has yet to commence, to put it mildly.
The other
problem is blaming the past decade's violence and tyranny exclusively
on Arafat, and erroneously assuming that, now freed of him,
the Palestinian Arabs are eager to reform. Mahmoud Abbas, the
new leader, has indeed called for ending terrorism against
Israel, but he did so for transparently tactical reasons (it
is the wrong thing to do now), not for strategic reasons (it
is permanently to be given up), much less for moral ones (it
is inherently evil).
Mr. Abbas
is not a moderate but a pragmatist. Unlike Arafat, consumed
by his biography and his demons, Mr. Abbas offers a more reasonable
figure, one who can more rationally pursue Arafat's goal of
destroying Israel. In this spirit, he has quickly apologized
to the Kuwaitis and made up with the Syrians; compared to this,
reaching out to the Americans is easy.
But, no less
than his mentor Arafat, Mr. Abbas remains intent on eliminating
Israel. This is evident, for example, from his recent comments insisting
that millions of Palestinian Arab "refugees" be permitted to
enter Israel so as to overwhelm it demographically; or from
his keeping
the virulent content of the Palestinian Authority's press
in place.
To give additional
money to the Palestinian Arabs now, ahead of their undergoing
a change of heart and accepting the permanent existence of
the Jewish state of Israel, is a terrible mistake, one that
numbingly replicates the errors of the 1990's, Oslo diplomacy.
Prematurely rewarding the Palestinian Arabs will again delay
the timetable of conciliation.
As I have argued
for years, money, arms, diplomacy, and recognition for
the Palestinian Arabs should follow on their having accepted
Israel. One sign that this will have happened: When Jews
living in Hebron (on the West Bank) need no more security
than Arabs living in Nazareth (within Israel).
Until that
day of harmony - which I predict is about thirty years off
- the outside world should focus not on showering money or
other benefits on the Palestinian Arabs, but on pushing them
relentlessly to accept Israel's existence. tRO
This
piece first appeared in the New
York Sun
copyright
2004 Daniel Pipes
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