Daniel Pipes on money for Palestinians

Simply one of the very best assessments of this issue ever written.

Quote:

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).

Christians need to understand this very well. Americans need to understand this very well.