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.