The prospect of ordinary Palestinians starving has the power to cloud men’s minds, and make them forget that any dollar (or euro) sent to the PA will free up another dollar or euro to be spent on the jihad against Israel, and more murderous jihad terror attacks on Israeli civilians. The solution? Remove the Hamas government and replace it with one that explicitly renounces the global jihad and the imperative to destroy Israel. And of course, that will happen around the time that Al-Zarqawi knocks on my office door here and tells me that he has been involved in great evil, and wants to stop fighting jihad and become a crusader (heh) against the jihad ideology.
“France: Chirac Wants World Bank to Funnel Cash to Palestinians,” from AKI, with thanks to Johnathan:
Paris, 28 April (AKI) – France will push for the World Bank to create a fund to pay the salaries of Palestinian officials, French president Jacques Chirac said Friday after he met Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. France will raise the issue during talks on May 9 with the so-called “Quartet” – the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia – the negotiating group which is attempting to revive the stalled Israeli-Palestinian “Road Map” peace plan, Chirac’s spokesman Jerome Bonnafont, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
Chirac’s call comes after France and other EU nations earlier this month cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) government after Hamas’ election victory. The European Union is the largest donor to the Palestinians, with aid totaling more than 600 million dollars a year.
The EU said its decision was prompted by Hamas failure to meet three international conditions: recognise Israel, denounce terrorism and honour previous international agreements made by the PA.
The PA is facing enconomic collapse with the government unable to pay salaries to 165,000 Palestinian government employees.
France believes aid “must be maintained for humanitarian reasons, as well as for political reasons,” Chirac said before going into the talks with Abbas. “And it will push for this continuance (of aid) within the international community and notably within the European Union.”