The Times quotes James Wolfensohn, a special envoy to the Middle East, as warning the Palestinian Authority that it could face a cash crisis within days if Israel and other donors stopped their funding: “The crunch time is next week. The Palestinians are basically bankrupt.â€
WHO GIVES WHAT
The Palestinian Authority (PA) was allocated $1.1 billion last year by international donors, a rise of 20 per cent on 2004.
Arab League countries pledged $197 million, down from $388 million in 2001.
At Gleneagles in July the G8 committed itself to raising $3 billion for the Palestinians over each of the next three years.
Humanitarian aid is handled by UN agencies, projects by donor countries and support for wages and running costs through a trust administered by the World Bank
The leading donors are:
US $368 million
EU $338 million
Britain $43 million
Italy $40 million
Sweden $32 million
Germany $27 million
Spain $17 million
You are leaving out the estimated $50 million in tariffs and local taxes collected by Israel and remitted to the Palestine Authority.
Somehow, I don’t think these princely sums mattered to Palestinian voters. By some estimates, as much as 90.5% of foreign provided dollars were diverted to private accounts by the kleptocrats.
Another difference I don’t think the voter took account of is the difference between the local armed gangs. Both Fatah and Hamass have armed wings. We western sophisticates recognize a difference because Arafat coyly winked and nudged his way through a succession of U.S. Presidents before sayin in English at Camp David, “Well, maybe” and then going home to say in Arabic, “Kill! Kill!” To the Palestinian voter, the only difference is that one gang wears black headcloths and the other wears black and white checkered headcloths.
The Palestinians voted to “throw the bums out”. I think there is much danger in reading any more than that into the election results.
Marc: All I can say after looking at these incredible figures is: “Oh Good God!”
Inquiries by Stephen Schwartz, Dr. Loretta Napoleoni, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Doug Farah, and others, make it clear that the PA is very far from ‘bankrupt,’ with mega-billions salted away in secret bank accounts and a huge investment portfolio.
Perhaps Mr. Wolfensohn is merely stating the cash flow from ‘legitimate’ donated aid sources; the annual revenue ‘off the books’ flowing into the PA from illegal sources is enormous.
It’s interesting in all the hand-wringing and punditry about the Hamas electoral victory in Palestine, no one is mentioning the actual winner: Saudi Arabia.
Yasser Arafat years ago diversified his income sources away from reliance upon Arab kings, and in retaliation the House of Saud stopped funding Arafat’s Fatah, and started to fund the literal jihadist Hamas. The election victory of Hamas is the first practical example of the success of spreading the Saudi-Wahhabi doctrines of hate and death by democratic means.
Thank you Marc for giving me the perfect retort when a liberal complains about all that money spent in Iraq.
The German edition of Fincancial Times (01/27/06) gives other numbers for Europe: EU total 500 million – half of it from EU budget, the other half bilateral. Germany gives 50 million via EU and 50 million directly.
P.S.: In Euro, not in Dollar. Maybe that explains the difference.