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Moral blindness, dhimmitude, naivete, and more. Will the recipients of this largesse now realize that the Jews are not as bad as they have thought? No. They will laugh at their weakness and continue the jihad. "How Old Friends of Israel Gave $14 Million to Help the Palestinians," from the New York Times, with thanks to Ruth King:
It was perhaps an odd request to make of a man noted for his commitment to Israeli causes and his fierce criticism of the Palestinian Authority.Please raise $14 million to help buy the Jewish settlers' lucrative greenhouses in the Gaza Strip so that the Palestinians can take them over when the settlers are gone. Oh, and can you get it done by the weekend, before the pullout starts? If not, the settlers will destroy the greenhouses on their way out of Gaza to keep them out of Arab hands.
Last Wednesday, though, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, real estate magnate and publisher of The Daily News, received just such a pitch from his friend James D. Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank, current Middle East envoy for the White House and would-be broker of the deal.
Mr. Zuckerman, who is also former head of the American-Israel Friendship League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the Soviet Jewish Zionist Forum, said he thought about the ironies. But not for too long.
"Despite my skepticism," Mr. Zuckerman said in an interview on Tuesday, "I thought to myself, 'This is perhaps the only illustration or symbol of what could be the benefits of a co-operational, rather than a confrontational attitude.' "
So he in turn picked up the phone and called a few of his friends and fellow billionaires, who also happened to be prominent Jewish philanthropists.
Not all of them shared his enthusiasm. "Some people said, 'Well, if these people are so anti-Semitic, why should we do anything to help them?' " Mr. Zuckerman said.
But Lester Crown of Chicago, whose family owns General Dynamics, said yes. Leonard Stern, the chairman of the Hartz Mountain real estate empire and former owner of The Village Voice, called Mr. Zuckerman back from a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and said yes. A foundation that prefers to remain anonymous said yes.
Within 48 hours, Mr. Zuckerman said, he had his $14 million. And the Palestinians had a shot at inheriting relatively intact the greenhouses whose vegetables and flowers have been a major source of Israeli export income, and, not incidentally, about 3,500 desperately needed Palestinian jobs.
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Posted by Robert at August 18, 2005 3:15 PM
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Might I suggest that the "more" is idiocy, as in the useful idiocy of those whose good intentions invariably help pave the road to Hades.
Posted by: scaramouoche![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 18, 2005 3:34 PM
And, oh yeah, Mort Zuckerman should know better than most that his beneficence is likely to benefit the most reprehensible elements of Palestinian society--that is, Hamas and other terror enterprises.
Posted by: scaramouoche at August 18, 2005 3:37 PM
Mr. Zuckerman and his rich friends can donate $14 million to Palestinians; that's fine with me. What I don't want is for the USA to give anymore of my tax money to the Palestinian black hole. If Mr. Zuckerman has any rich Saudi friends/business associates, he should pass the hat to them for aid money for their fellow Muslims.
Posted by: maryrose at August 18, 2005 4:42 PM
Speaking of charity, have_mercy had a disturbing story to recount of aid drops for the starving Christians in southern Sudan.
Have_mercy posted: The Muslims use this aid drops to catch slaves which the UN agreed to inform the government about the drop zones. The slavers await the wretched souls to come out of the bush to snatch them and force them to carry the food north on their heads toward the slave markets.
Posted by: DP111 at August 18, 2005 5:24 PM
I can think of a lot worthier and more sensible places to park my bucks. Like Magen David Adom and the Israel Soldiers' Welfare Fund and Shaare Zedek Hospital and Bar Ilan University and, and, and, and...
Posted by: scaramouoche at August 18, 2005 6:26 PM
Maryrose, you're right about the money going into a black hole.
Ten-to-one that 1) the Palestinians aren't going to get anywhere near the results out of those greenhouses that the Israelis did;
2) those 3,500 Palestinian jobs will be history and
3) the Palestinians will blame the Jews for their failure in the Gaza strip. Can't you just hear it now? All those years of Israeli occupation, colonialism, blah, blah, blah...
Posted by: 3812Michelle at August 18, 2005 6:37 PM
The Israeli occupation made the plants not grow! Those accursed evildoers! They know not!
/sarc off
Sheik Geoff
Posted by: Geoff at August 18, 2005 7:05 PM
Quote: If Mr. Zuckerman has any rich Saudi friends/business associates, he should pass the hat to them for aid money for their fellow Muslims.
I believe Jews are NOT allowed in KSA and also ppl who've been to Israel are also banned in KSA.
Nother Quote:And the Palestinians had a shot at inheriting relatively intact the greenhouses whose vegetables and flowers have been a major source of Israeli export income, and, not incidentally, about 3,500 desperately needed Palestinian jobs.
Thats all OK BUT who seriously thinks Palestinians can efficiently run those farms. I bet those greenhouses r soon gonna b replaced by Arms factories. I've read some where abt a Saudi plan to build mosques on exactly the smae place tat Synagouges stood in the deserted kibbutzium of Gaza.
They sure kno their priorities...
at August 18, 2005 9:42 PM
What were once beautiful thriving communities with charming houses and pretty gardens will soon be filthy, run down slums as soon as the "palistinians" take over. They would never take advantage of the greenhouses unless it was to house weapons and bomb making. Judging from the scenes that we have seen from the "pali" areas they seem to enjoy living in squalor and filth. They seem to be happy with their failure, easier to sit around blaming the Jewish people for their shortcomings than to actually work.
Posted by: USAgirl at August 19, 2005 6:31 AM
A cursory look at the BBC website and other "usual suspects", i.e., patently anti-Israel media outlets, reveals that the race is on to blame Israel, ex ante, for the Palestinian failure to achieve anything productive with the Gaza strip.
Continued Palestinian terrorism will henceforth be due to:
- Israel's refusal to allow the reopening of the Gaza airport,
- Israel continuing to patrol the Gaza coastline,
- Israel's reluctance to allow Egypt to arm the PA security forces,
- Israel limiting the number of Palestinians with Israeli work permits,
- Israel's failure to provide a land link between Gaza and the WB, i.e., refusing to cut Israel into two.
It seems the world expects the Israelis to provide jobs and commerce to the Palestinians as well as allowing themselves to be murdered by them.
at August 19, 2005 7:12 AM
Greenhouses:He said the Palestinians could take them over, but he did not state who was going to 'own' them.
It would seem that 'taking over', also means 'ownership', but not necessarily. This could be some kind of Zionist plot. Who is the lucky Palestinian who will become the chief hauncho and beneficiary of this enterprise?
Abbas? Hamas maybe? I know that little Abu, a street urchin in Gaza, wont get much out of it.
Maybe Zuckerman just wants to keep those vegies comming no matter who owns them. Food production is kind of important. Hungry people get cranky and sometimes cause trouble, so it's best to keep them fed. I know I feel much better when I eat regularly. Maybe this is not a Zionist plot.
Possibly Zuckerman just see's unnecessary reduction of the food supply as undesirable and is willing to fix it...I still want to know who profits...
at August 19, 2005 8:30 AM
Michelle:
HonestReporting put the number of "Palestinian" jobs at 10,000.
All:
Who knows but that Zuckerman is counting on it that either the Palestinians will run these viable operations into the ground (naturally blaming everyone but themselves) or, worse, convert them into munitions plants as Vikrant suggests.
What better testament to the fraud of Palestinian independence and nationhood than the Gaza once again becoming the armpit that it was before Jewish resettlement. (Hugh: how's that expression for you? Jews as settlers/colonials no more, but resettlers?)
Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 19, 2005 9:09 AM
What's wrong with collecting $14 million and giving it to the owners of the greenhouses, in order to have the Arab squatters neglect and destroy those FOR them?
Sounds to me like a double win for the resettlers.
at August 19, 2005 9:29 AM
My point, Kim. My point. It's a terrible risk that Sharon has taken, vacating the Gaza, but between being pressured to do it and the absense of a responsible representative to hand over the keys to on the other side, he's done it.
Let's just hope that the world doesn't do what it usually does in analysing things -- lower the bar of expectations for the Palestinians so that if things do fail, well, of course, it's the Israelis' and Americans' fault and not the dysfunctional societal behaviours that are so common to the region. (The "makepovertyhistory" types don't seem to understand that the developed world has been pretty generous with foreign aid, but the money is seldom well-used, if not outright stolen.)
Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 19, 2005 10:43 AM
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