Put A NICKEL On The PA Drum,
Save another Arab terrorist Bum!
Little JACK ABBAS pulled OFF a Plum,
Now PA will prove again WE are Dumb!
At meeting the US gives a 900 million Sum,
Gaza FOLKS from Aid Conference get Crumbs,
As HAMAS get their CUT covered with PA Cream!
March 4, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Benjamin Netanyhu makes a good point in the second of two excerpts which follow.
Begin Excerpt 1 from DEBKAfile
Some home truths about the Gaza aid conference
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
March 2, 2009, 8:17 PM (GMT+02:00)
Israeli air force bombs empty Gaza buildings
Amid a global economic meltdown, high-ranking delegations from 75 countries met at Sharm e-Sheikh Monday, March 2, and approve $5.5 billion for rebuilding the Gaza Strip ravaged during Israel’s 22-day anti-terror operation last month.
Hillary Clinton will announce at her debut Middle East appearance as secretary of state a $900 million donation: $600 million for the Palestinian Authority, $300 million for Gaza.
Germany too is expected to pledge 100 euros in addition to a European Union package, but the primary donors are Arab nations led by Saudi
Arabia.
Egypt will share the kudos with the Obama administration, which will use the occasion to reassert Washington’s role as lead Middle East peacemaker.
After they leave the Middle East, their donations will eventually be streamed to three destinations: The Palestinian Authority, Hamas in Gaza and… Tehran.
The donors are undecided over where to deposit the funds once they are delivered, understanding that not a cent can be spent on rehabilitating this Palestinian enclave without going through its ruler, Hamas. Some advise depositing the money with Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, some suggest the World Bank, others a special mechanism (whose bureaucracy would eat up large sums).
The truism that Hamas controls everything that moves in Gaza was amply borne out by the Quartet’s envoy Tony Blair. He postponed entering Gaza for months over threats to his life. He finally went in – albeit not too far in – Sunday, March 1 under the protection of an armed Hamas escort.
While there, he may well have heard the whistle of the five missiles Hamas and its ilk fired into Israel that day, one destroying an Ashkelon school.
For eight years, the Israeli cities, villages and businesses ravaged by Palestinian missiles have been repaired at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer, who turns out ironically to be one of the Gaza donors.
Jerusalem has been transferring hundreds of millions of shekels per month to Gaza because the International Monetary Fund’s hold Jerusalem responsible for its banks – an anomaly when the US, the EU and World Bank have all agreed that by evacuating the Strip in 2005, Israel had no more responsibility.
Blair’s demand that Israel lift its embargo on the terrorist-ruled enclave to allow cement and iron to go through because “food and medicines are not enough” is far from innocent.
He knows that the cement would be used to fortify Hamas installations and the iron on weapons.
By following the donors’ money trail, DEBKAfile’s sources have found out exactly where the international aid for Gaza ends up: At the corruption-ridden Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, feeding Hamas’ military might and paying its armorer, Iran.
The pro-West Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, who is credited with bringing order to Palestinian Authority finances, regularly diverts to the Gaza Strip funds from all PA revenues including donations. Israel and the donor-states agree to their transfer, purportedly to pay the wages of PA officials serving there.
Before Hamas’ seized the enclave two years ago, 35,000 officers served with the security services; today, allocations are transferred to cover wages for 70,000.
Since both figures were fictitious, it does not need a mathematician to figure out that Hamas is using the money as a war chest. Some well-informed Israeli sources have confided to DEBKAfile that had Israel carried out an economic Operation Cast Lead against Hamas, the military operation might have been superfluous.
DEBKAfile’s sources disclose how Hamas apportions the incoming donations:
Less then 15% for the Palestinian populace – badly hurt during Israel’s military offensive but chronically jobless, poverty-stricken, lacking schools and medical facilities since the Hamas takeover.
About 30% supports Hamas’ political and religious hierarchies.
Another 25% is spent on maintaining Hamas “security forces” including Izz e-Din al Qassam and its rocket units.
Some 30% purchases an assortment of missiles and rockets, weapons and explosives as well as fortifying military installations and command bunkers – some snaking under the Israeli border packed with explosives and suicide bombers or smuggling tunnels carrying Iranian supplies of improved rockets, explosives and weaponry through Sinai.
The most carefully hidden factor is the portion which pays for Hamas’ weapons supplies from Tehran.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose how these transactions work:
Iran delivers the hardware to the Bedouin smuggling gangs of Sinai, who transport the merchandise to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which is charged bargain basement prices. The money (initially put up by Western donors and Israel) is handed to Tehran after the smugglers rake off their commission. Cairo’s pledges to stop the smuggling are cant. Egyptian officers and troops in Sinai are on the take.
The free world and its donors are not contesting their division of labor with Iran – they put up the cash, part of which is diverted to this terror sponsor par excellence for missiles. The delegations meeting in Sharm e-Sheikh prefer to go home feeling virtuous, having shown their support for the most fashionable international aid cause in the world.
Hamas and its sponsors stay behind. They can drop their public pose as victims and have a good laugh over the Western world’s gullibility, after maneuvering the US, Europe and Israel into shelling out to make Hamas stronger and footing the bill for its Iranian weapons.
Tehran has already celebrated its success in pulling the wool over 75 pairs of international eyes by asking Interpol, created by the West to internationalize the policing of crime, to arrest what it says are 15 Israeli “war criminals” who were involved in the conflict in Gaza in December and January.
This champion of human rights has even set up a court and launched its own “investigation.”
Begin Excerpt 2 from Jerusalem Post via Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA)
Netanyahu: Why pour money into Gaza before rockets stop?
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST
March 2, 2009
Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu voiced serious reservations
during recent meetings with foreign leaders about money going into the Gaza
Strip for reconstruction before the rocket fire on Israel has stopped, The
Jerusalem Post has learned.
After hearing in one meeting that European taxpayers were concerned about
investing in Gaza only to see further destruction at the hands of the IDF,
Netanyahu explained that Israel tried hard to avoid civilian casualties and
targeted only those areas used by terrorists.
He then reportedly said he was
not willing to sacrifice Israel’s security “for a smile.”
Sources close to Netanyahu said it would be critical for humanitarian aid to
bypass Hamas, especially with the Islamist group continuing to fire rockets
into Israel.
One Netanyahu aide said that with the Gaza reconstruction conference, it
seemed as if the world felt that attacks
on Isr ael were
a thing of the past,
when they were taking place daily.
Representatives of some 80 countries – including US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton – are gathering in Sharm e-Sheikh on Monday to pledge
billions of dollars to rebuild the damage from Operation Cast Lead, with the
US reportedly ready to invest $900 million in the enterprise.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday
that “should the firing from the Gaza Strip continue, it would be met by a
painful, sharp, strong and uncompromising response by the security forces,
led by the IDF.”
Gazan terrorists continued their attacks on Israeli civilian areas on Sunday
night, firing two rockets at the western Negev. One of the Kassams hit the
yard of a Sderot home, causing light damage.
Minutes later, another rocket struck an open area in the Sdot Negev region.
There were no casualties in either attack.
Earlier, terrorists fired a rocket that landed south of Ashkelon, near where
a rocket hit overnight on Saturday. No one was wounded and no damage was
caused.
Olmert said Israel could not countenance the continued attacks, and that the
response would not be what the terrorist organizations expected.
Later in the day, Olmert met with Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon,
who was on his way to the donor meeting.
The prime minister told him that
Israel supported aid for the Palestinians in Gaza but that ways had to be
found to ensure that the support did not strengthen Hamas.
The important thing was not just to pledge money, Olmert said of the
expected $2.8 billion in pledges, including $1b. from Saudi Arabia. The
important thing was to see how the aid was to be delivered, and what
monitoring mechanism would be set up so the money didn’t end up helping
Hamas.
Like Netanyahu, Olmert said it would be a mistake to believe that the matter
of rockets from Gaza was over.
The assumption that there was now quiet in
the South and that all efforts could be focused on reconstruction was
faulty, he said.
In the run-up to the conference, Quartet envoy Tony Blair became the latest
in a parade of international figures making their way to the Gaza Strip,
going there Sunday for the first time since taking up his post in the summer
of 2007.
“This money will not have a lasting impact unless there is a political
solution,” Blair said. “It is ultimately in the politics that the solution
lies.”
At a UN-run school in Beit Hanun, Blair said, “I wanted to come to hear for
myself first-hand from people in Gaza, whose lives have been so badly
impacted by the recent conflict.
These are the people who need to be the
focus of all our efforts for peace and progress from now on.”
Britain’s International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander also visited
Gaza, and pledged GBP 30m. to rebuild homes, schools and hospitals damaged
or destroyed in the recent IDF offensive.
During his visit, Alexander urged Israel to relax restrictions on items
allowed into the area.
“There is a desperate need for tough restrictions on the supply of goods to
be relaxed,” he said. “Gaza needs money, fuel and construction materials,
and whilst these goods are turned away at the borders, repairs to homes,
water systems and the electricity network will remain impossible. Israel
must do the right thing and allow much-needed goods to get through to those
men, women and children who continue to suffer.”
In a statement released by the British Embassy, Alexander did not relate to
Israeli concerns that it could not allow construction materials such as
steel and concrete into the region for fear they would be used to build
rockets and rocket factories.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.
We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.