Thursday, January 24, 2013

Is There an Elephant in the Room? A Failing Palestine: What to do with a Palestine?

Nadene Goldfoot
There seems to be an elephant in the room and  nobody knows what to do with it.  It's the Palestinian Authority who faces a worse financial crisis than the USA has been.  They have 150,000 employees for their 2 million population!  That is a little less than the whole state of  Oregon which has 291,100!   State employees in Oregon are 18% of the work force in this 97,073 square mile  state of 3,871,859 people.    Palestinians have received only half of their November salaries and nothing since then.  They owe local banks more than $1.3 billion. Nobody works.  They're all getting financial aid from the UN.  What are they doing with the money?   They should be going over the fiscal cliff soon.

On top of that they owe hundreds of millions of dollars to private businesses like suppliers to hospitals.  Poverty rate is expected to double to 50% of the total Palestinian population in the territories (Judah, Samaria).  This may be why Abbas threatened to give the who shebang to Israel.

Perhaps they claimed their independence too soon in the UN.  It caused Israel to stop transferring about $100 million a month in collected taxes for the PA.  which brought an end to Palestinian piracy because for years the PA hadn't paid its bills to the Israel Electric Corporation.  Israel took it on the chin, but not now.  They can't say they weren't warned by Israel.  Israel told the UN and the PA they would collect.

The USA Congress withheld about $450 million in aid-all because of the UN bid.  The Arab states promised to cover the shortfall in case anything happened but have failed to do so.  Saudi Arabia pledged one month's salary but the money hasn't come.  They have a habit of defaulting on promises.

The PA themselves have mismanaged money they have had from billions of dollars.  Their habits are such that they have continued booking first-class tickets and five-star hotels for 22 Arab foreign ministers to attend its UN day in November and what happened?  Most never even showed up.

Not to mention, but the Palestinians have no economy going.  What skills do they have other than bomb making?  Israel had left businesses ready to run when they left Gaza in the name of peace, but Palestinians tore them down.

Ever since 1948 Israel has offered peace and statehood alongside Israel.  They could have had a good friend, but they refused.  Pride and hate have gone hand in hand and are getting the Palestinians very little.
It would help if the world would show them how peace with Israel is in their best interests instead of aiding and abetting them by agreeing that Israel is so bad.  Europe never has asked the PA to make any concessions.  They have just fed this appetite of all take and no give.

Judea and Samaria take up about 2,270 square miles and 350,000 Israeli Jews live there, as well who have some form of economy going on.

Resource:  The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) by Evelyn Gordon from Gerard Robins.  
http://www.qualityinfo.org/olmisj/ArticleReader?itemid=00006781
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/41000.html
http://www.city-data.com/states/Oregon-Location-size-and-extent.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area

2 comments:

  1. This is so racist it makes me sick.
    -A Fellow Pacific Northwestern Jew

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  2. It has nothing to do with racism. It has to do with being the longest period of all time of being refugees. It has to do with a people who only decided they wanted Israel as a state of their own after 1967's war when so many states attacked Israel and lost in trying to destroy this tiny state. This is a political battle. You can't call the racism card because Israel contain 1.7 million Arab citizens who didn't leave their homes when their Arab leaders told them to. Do you really think that after all the planning our leaders went through to create Israel and after all the racist sorrows they themselves went through in being Jewish that they would turn around and treat others for that reason? Race? Religion? You don't know much about your own religion if you think that, my dear.

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