"UN faults Israel for halt in funds to Palestinians," from Reuters, with thanks to Report:
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy to the Middle East raised objections on Monday to Israel's decision to withhold tax funds from the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority after a Hamas-led parliament was sworn in.Special Envoy Alvaro de Soto called the decision unhelpful and premature. Israel has long regarded the U.N. as a minor player in the Middle East peace process compared to the United States, which gave a low-key response to Israel's move.
"These are monies that belong to the Palestinians and should not be withheld," de Soto told Reuters one day after Israel's cabinet announced a permanent halt to the monthly transfer of about $50 million in tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians.
Israel's government made the decision after Washington, the Jewish state's biggest ally, asked the Palestinian Authority to return $50 million of its own aid to ensure it does not reach Hamas. The Islamic group is sworn to Israel's destruction.
But de Soto said Israel's decision to withhold the money ran counter to the position taken last month by the so-called Quartet of major peace mediators — the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.
OT: From the American Expat
http://american-expat.livejournal.com/
Its a real shame but it was bound to happen. If Freedom of Expression is under real threat in the West how much more so for the Expat.
And of course, Jimmy Carter, in his advanced stages of senility, believes this money belongs to the palestinian arabs.
Don't punish the Palestinians
Carter believes the private, oppressed and innocent citizens that elected Hamas should be rewarded instead.
The United Nations? Who are these?
A bunch of governments that today would do whatever to hurt the U.S. I think that it is time for the US to withdraw from that bastion of Anti-Americanism. After the fall of the Soviets, the UN serves no purpose at all. It is a cave where the enemies of USA meet. I predict that it will take not much longer before we see the UN imposing sanctions in the US because it does not control ANY opposition to the dimmitude in the world.
The Mafia must be kicking itself for not having had the foresight to form themselves into a political party.
Then the U.N. would now be telling reluctant shopkeepers, restaurant owners and anyone else who was refusing to pay their "protection" money to the la Cosa Nostra bosses to "pay up!".
And Jimmy Bin Carter could ride along on the back of the first mob-owned trash truck to collect the first symbolic "jizya"... er, I mean blackmail money, uh... make that "taxes".
Can't we deport him to Gaza?
I can just picture him in a soiled turban.
"Allah akbar, ya'al!"
profitsbeard: "The Mafia must be kicking itself for not having had the foresight to form themselves into a political party."
But they did. It's called Islam.
When I think of the Palestinian political spectrum, I think of something I read somewhere, about white America from a black perspective. In the north, people might be bigots and they might not, but they will never be honest about it. In the south, people are quite upfront about their feelings. Sometimes they are even polite about it.
Hamas is a bit like the southern bigot, except instead of racial supremacy, they have Sharia. There are reasons to believe that openness about the Palestinian aim of destroying Israel could be a good thing. So skillfully did Arafat and his minions deceive, speak one line in Arabic and one in English, dispense accomodation with one hand and terror with the other. At least Hamas is honest about it. When Hamas talks about a long-term truce, I believe they are serious; we all know what they mean to happen at the end of that truce. It might be in Israel's interest to concoct long-term truce conditions that preclude the Palestinians from ever gaining the power to destroy them. Fencing them in completely, and retaliating with devastating force against "over the fence" attacks would be a good start.
As for the end of the long truce, however long it lasts? The Palestinians might not have the stomach for the final battle. It just has to be abundantly clear that they will lose everything. This is what is behind the withdrawls. Let's hope it works.
Israel also gets a semantic power over the Palestinians, in the Hamas charter. As long as the fiction of a "peace process" could be maintained, the Palestinian representatives were welcome everywhere, even the White House. Now the long knives, long-term knives maybe, are drawn. The world may split between those who are willing to shake hands with Hamas and those who are not, but at least there will be a right side.
Quijybo
"UN faults Israel"
That's about as newsworthy as "The sun rose this morning".
This is of a piece with the notion that the Israelis "owe" it to the local Arabs to supply them with jobs. Why? Most of these local Arabs, far from being some kind of since-time-immemorial peasantry, in fact arrived between 1920 and 1940. mostly form Iraq, and Egypt, and others are descended from troops of Mehmet Ali or of Abd el-Kader who arrived in the 19th century, or from Muslims who were transplanted by the Ottoman government from Europe when the Ottomans left Bulgaria in the 1880s. This whole business of a "Palestinian people" ignores the demographic data and is a post-1967 fabrication, but one which has become the central belief of the U.N., which has chosen over the past 30 years to devote more than one-quarter of its total time to the so-called "plight of the 'Palestinians.'" Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, pollution, the exploitation of women, the enslavement of child workers, the changes in the earth's climate -- all of these subjects have been scanted by those within the U.N. bureacracy, part of the Islamintern International, who have steadily focussed attention and used up time on the "Palestinian problem." It is time to see that for what it is: a Jihad, using military means, economic boycotts and bribery, propaganda, and diplomatic pressure and maneuvering, to weaken and demoralize the Israelis, and to force them to make concession after concession. It is a strategy that has worked, and worked largely because the Israelis themselves have been unable to define what threatens them as a Jihad (the Lesser Jihad), because of their unwillingness to give up hope for better relations with some Muslim states. They were fooled by the temporary possibility of alliances with still-secular Turkey and with the Shah's regime in Iran, into thinking that the problem was not Islam. But it was, and is -- and the only reason that, for a while, both Turkey and Iran were not hostile to Israel was thatboth countries regarded the Arabs as a threat, and both were still under secular regimes, and both were tied into the American system of defense. None of that is true any longer. But Israel still is taciturn on the subject of Islam -- after all, it would like to believe that the aggression against it has some kind of end. It doesn't. And it won't. But that does not mean that the camp of Islam cannot be demoralized and divided, as Soviet Communism became demoralized and its adherents divided. It is a question of waiting it out, and doing one's damnedest to present things correctly, based on an accurate analysis of the nature of the threat. This the government of Israel is refusing to do -- though here and there individual Israelis have done it.
This means that Israel's presentation of its own case must be supplemented, or re-interpreted, in a truthful manner -- for even if Israel does not dare to say it faces a Jihad (and why not, exactly?) those of us outside Israel are free to describe it as exactly what it is.
And had that description, that analysis, been widely disseminated thirty years ago, when Europe had not yet had its collective mind poisoned in the press and television against Israel, it might have helped warn the people of Western Europe about the danger of Islam and of Muslim immigration.
These are monies that belong to the Palestinians and should not be withheld...
Ahhh, that Moslem work ethic. And their entrepreneurial spirit is the stuff of legend. Well, legend in the Moslem Mind, at least.
... for even if Israel does not dare to say it faces a Jihad (and why not, exactly?)
Given the beating they've taken for admitting to the Holocaust, probably they are too terrified to admit to the awful truth at their doorstep, too fearful to come to terms with the horrible scowling clingy moochy Moslem sitting on his dead ass on Israeli Welcome Mat, at once condeming the Jew and in the same breath demanding free money.
If I were a Jew, I'd refer all further Moslems inquiries about free money onto Condi. She's obviously a Moslem sympathizer, and loves giving hard-earned taxpayer dollars to them.
Hugh Israel has done some rift exploiting to weaken the Jihad.
At home Israelis have changed the allegiance of the Bedouins, and the Druze to their side, making them identify as Israelis, rather then Arab or Muslim, in Iraq they have done a fine job encouraging the Kurds and making their rebellions viable by providing Persh Merga Units with free training and equiptment (Although Israel doesn't want to admit it because it would make the US Furious, but you can go to any Israeli Kurdish Friendship website and be assured that Kurdish Praise for Israel is sincere), and although the Alliance with Iran has crumbled into ruin, and the Turkish Israeli Alliance is in it's last days, Israel has prepared for it and is making increasingly warm relations with the Greeks, Armenians, and Serbs to make up for it.
On the outside it may look like Israel is in denial, but on the inside you will see a dillegent nation doing a fine job creating and exploiting Islamic Rifts.
Mark Twain was 100% correct when he stated that one thing the world can always count on is for the jews to survive.
'Most of these local Arabs, far from being some kind of since-time-immemorial peasantry, in fact arrived between 1920 and 1940. mostly form Iraq, and Egypt, and others are descended from troops of Mehmet Ali or of Abd el-Kader who arrived in the 19th century, or from Muslims who were transplanted by the Ottoman government from Europe when the Ottomans left Bulgaria in the 1880s.'
Dear Hugh,
I never suspected that my country (Bulgaria) contributed to the Middle Eastern crisis by providing a part of its Turkish/Muslim population as the backbone of the 'Palestinian' people. Could you provide a source for that statement? Anyway, Bulgaria did a balancing act in 1948 when it allowed all Bulgarian Jews to do the Aliyah. About 90 per cent of Bulgaria's 50 thousand Jews did that. The Bulgarian Olim are considered a valuable asset in Israel.
OT
on the subject of warm feelings on munching on the forbidden danish cheeses banned by the Muslims.
To gain contracts in Middle-East countries Danish firms have signed contracts not to trade with Israel for several years.
Arla - the danish dairy firm - says today - that such contracts are pure routine.
http://hodja.wordpress.com/2006/02/19/buy-danish-but-not
"Mark Twain was 100% correct when he stated that one thing the world can always count on is for the jews to survive."
Not if the west abandons them in our quest for political correctness and submission to islam. Israel may be strong, but they still need support from a free western world to keep surviving.
Strictly speaking, the money _is_ the property of the arabs in the territories.
However, why not simply use the cash to compensate terror victims?
"Strictly speaking, the money _is_ the property of the arabs in the territories."
Yeah, thats the unfortunate detail here, because that gives dhimmis a valid reason to complain that Israel is withholding the money, and in the end that only serves to gather sympathy for the poor oppressed terrorists.
Maybe they should just have refused to help collect those taxes in the future? I bet the palestinians dont have the kind of infrastructure and organisation needed to do it. Otherwise, why have they needed help from Israel until now?
The UN, having failed repeatedly to deal with Arab and Palestinian contraventions of all sorts of UN resolutions has absolutely no authority, moral or otherwise, to demand that Israel do anything other than place these monies in proper escrow accounts were they can be held until such time as Hamas and Fatah both amend their charters and recognize the country that the UN voted into existence in 1948 as the State of Israel.
Rumor has it that biological experiements which have been secretly conducted for years in the basement of the Vatican are beginning to yield results. Vatican insiders have hinted that the research focused on miraculous breakthroughs which may permit the generation and growth of spines in holy prelates where formerly there were none. Recent pronouncements from the Vatican seem to indicate that the research may have already yielded positive results among certain clergy -- while some skeptics maintain that nothing has changed. Others believe recent pronouncements from various Vatican spokepersons simply indicate that the clergy is finally waking up from a long slumber, opening its eyes, and seeing the Muslim Menace the way it truly is, not the way Christians would like it to be...