Maybe he thinks that if we throw enough money at Fatah, it really will become moderate. "Aid Request Emphasizes U.S. Support of Palestinian Authority Leadership," by Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post (thanks to Pamela):
President Bush has proposed a sixfold increase in aid to the Palestinians, including $150 million in direct cash transfers to the Palestinian Authority, in an effort to bolster the government in advance of a Middle East peace conference planned for later this month in Annapolis.The $435 million in additional aid, on top of $77 million requested earlier this year, has attracted little notice in the president's $45.9 billion supplemental request last week to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, if approved, it would constitute the administration's largest amount of direct aid to the Palestinian Authority. Previously, the administration had limited cash transfers to $50 million at a time.
The Bush administration largely cut off aid to the Palestinian government when the militant group Hamas unexpectedly won legislative elections in 2006. But earlier this year, a unity government deal between Hamas and its Fatah rivals collapsed. Hamas forcibly took over the Gaza Strip, leaving the Fatah-led government in charge of only the West Bank.Since Hamas seized Gaza, the Bush administration has sought to demonstrate support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and new Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The Annapolis conference is designed to show that the Fayyad government is on track to create a Palestinian state, with the backing of Arab leaders, and State Department officials said the money sought by Bush is designed to signal that substantial aid will flow to leaders who reject terrorism.
Great, except for the fact that they haven't rejected terrorism. But the facts have never gotten in the way of Bush's fantasy-based foreign policy.
Bush is a friggin moron.
al-Qaeda translated means 'the base'
Islam is the al-Qaeda, not bin Laden's group. Until we come to terms with that the world won't make sense. I used to get confused with various things people said, with the positions and demands of terror groups and those of gov'ts in the Islamic world. I used to wonder why things turned out the way they do in Bosnia and so on. Then I studied the base of it all - Islam.
It is all consistent if you understand 'the base'. It doesn't make much sense if 'the base' is not considered when making decisions and handing out monies.
We need to change the common understanding of which 'al Qaeda' we need to fight. It's not bin Laden's group or the 100s like it. They all grow from the true base, sprouting like eyes on a potato, which produces the most when left alone in a dark cellar corner.
We need to remove all people in leadership positions with a stake in the old world views and who still use 9/10/01 models. The world has shifted now and its time we realigned ourselves to reflect a new understanding of the world. Until we do all of this will seem disjointed and confusing. It's not. All of this da'wa, money favoring, jihad, terrorism, fake cease fires, the conflict over Israel and so on -- all of it fits into place and is 100% consistent if a person superimposes the image of the true 'base' over all the seemingly disjointed data points.
It all lines up if you put the true al Qaeda into the model. The base must be diminished, discredited and eventually destroyed.
Hey Bush, you butthole-quit wasting my money on the ummah's worst losers!
Bush is no different than any of the other politicans as far as I am concerned. The others are not making a fuss in the money being approved for the monies being sent to the Palestinians because they are ok with it. If they were not they would be on it like a fly on... well, you know.
On one hand we got Pelosi going over there and showing her dhimmitude position, and now we got Laura Bush doing the same. Laura Bush might not be a Senator or other elected official - she is in a position of high esteem none the less.
Me thinks I want Thomas Jefferson back to show these knotheads how to crack open a koran.
Ugh
Must I actually go to my Chicago Democrat House Representative and urge him to fight this....
I hate the positions that Bush is putting me in.
How about a vote on this sh**?
I do not want to give my hard earned money to people who want to kill me!
Earth to Washington DC, we are sick and tired of being robbed to finance your folly!
My kid's school need a new roof.
Haven't you guys heard? We can't pay the coming generation all the benefits they have paid into the government....seems as though the Social Security we have all paid into has been used in the General Fund. Doesn't it warm the cockles of your heart to know that the paleos will be able to buy lots more explosives to blow up Jewish pizza parlors and buses with our money?
Bastards!
This is almost as incredibly stupid as the “peace process” itself. It’s clear that most Palestinians (they did vote Hamas) believe as a matter of their deep cult beliefs that Israel should be wiped out, not coexist with. Israel is intolerable to Islam as most any imam will tell his Muslim flock – Israel was once part of dar al-Islam and MUST revert. There can never be the dual state fantasy. Palestinians have a visceral hatred of Jews and only Israeli military power saves Israeli heads from being cut off.
How can Bush & Condi be so stupid & wasteful of taxpayer money! Just leave the Palestinians alone to their chosen destiny of poverty & oppression by Hamas, Fatah & Islam.
Geez, about time. We need to try giving them money, to see if that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. This bold and innovative new plan shows just how much more brilliant and sophisticated our leaders are than mere un-informed laypersons such as ourselves. Stay the course! Give peace a chance! Peace in our time!
Why is it that the US is the only country giving money to these people? Where is China, Saudi Arabia and the other nations of the world? I believe no more American funds should go to support that area of the world. Even after we give them money they will still hate us...why bother!
"Geez, about time. We need to try giving them money, to see if that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. This bold and innovative new plan shows just how much more brilliant and sophisticated our leaders are than mere un-informed laypersons such as ourselves. Stay the course! Give peace a chance! Peace in our time!"
LOL!
Remember, we gave peace a chance...
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index_files/GavePe
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index_files/GavePeace.jpg
It is so obvious that Bush feels pressured (for political reasons) to offer this aid. His decision projects weakness and will garner no respect among the Arabs in the Middle East. The "Palestinian" eternal malcontents certainly won't appreciate this gesture, their inflated Muslim sense of entitelement demanding so much more.
Can somebody send the White House a tape or DVD with the footage of "Palestinian" men, women and children celebrating in the streets soon after 9/11?
President Bush declined OBL's invitation to convert to Islam. Instead, he chose to pay *Jizyah* to Fatah.
Republican candidates must publicly disassociate themselves from the flailing and failing policies of the Bush Administration,, of which this handing out money to the Lesser Jihadists, the corrupt collaborators of Abbas who was himself the corrupt collaborator, over many decades, of the late Yassir Arafat, is only one obvious example. The other is the continued, baseless, dreamy belief that if more American money is poured into Iraq (and how many Iraqis are now living the high life in southern France, or in Belgravia, on the money supplied by American taxpayers?), and "freedom" brought to "ordinary moms and dads" in that country, something -- something never quite explained -- will happen to lessen the menace and malevolence of Islam. What the connection is between, for example, diminishing the money power of Muslims, and limiting campaigns of Da'wa in the West, and halting or reversing what appears to be inexorablly demographic conquest in many parts of Western Europe, is unstated, and unclear, and impossible to believe.
If Giuliani, for example, thinks that he can win any points, or inspire confidence, by relying on the invocation of such names as that of Norman Podhoretz, he hasn't discerned the shift in opinion on Iraq -- a shift that includes most of those who now oppose that war, not because they do not recognize Islam as a menace, but because they do.
MP said "My Kids' school needs a new roof"
Well, I can tell you first had that our roads are falling apart too. There are only so many band-aids you can do on the Interstate until you HAVE to reconstruct. Got news for you: THERE IS VERY LITTLE FUNDING for magor highway reconstruction. So here we have a leadership that has bent over backwards to maintain the status quo of dependence on foreign oil. We should be building nuclear power plants and moving freight and people by electric powered rail and high speed rail. But ALL politicians, Republican and Democrate alike are too consumed with greed to notice that we have already lost the future of our country. There are no visionaries, only Dhimmis like Bush.
We funded Palestine under Arafat and look what it got us. A rich widow and an improvished people. We funded Palestine under Abbas and we still have an immprovished people. Isreal gave up Gaza and the Palestinians looted it. I think the cure is being wasted on the disease.
Here's a novelty suggestion, why not make the money available on the condition that women are given equal rights to men.
Wouldn't cost a dime then.
Hmmmn. When Palestinians see Abbas bulging with U.S. cash, that will only confirm them in the belief that he's a tool of the U.S., a sellout...making it more likely that they'll turn to the 'authentic' Hamas. Am I missing something? It looks as if the Bush strategy will have an effect exactly opposite to the one he intends. Help me here, someone - ?
...that does it!...I am sending Bush a new Burka....
So they can buy more bullets?
How bitter and hurtful it is to know that there are people in this country:
-Indigent mothers with young children
- War Vets
- Homeless
-Just Plain poor- the majority children
right here in this country, and the Arbusto, chooses to send OUR money elsewhere.
Bush - Public Enemy No. 1