[Apparpsmose]

The Palestinian Authority is facing a budget crisis. It has reached its borrowing limit and has a 585 million dollar deficit. So naturally its leaders are asking the West for another handout.


Back in 2007, 7.4 billion dollars was pledged to keep the terrorist edifice of the Authority running. The PA claimed that it needed 3.9 billion for budgetary shortfalls alone. And after pissing away far more than that, the men who give the suicide bombers their marching orders are back passing around the plate.


Even as the Palestinian Authority pushes forward on a statehood bid at the UN, not only is it unable to pay its own bills, but its only real revenue stream is foreign aid. Few states can claim to have failed, before they are even declared– but the PA is on its way there.
But do “Palestinian People” really need billions more in aid? The World Bank report for 2011 found that only 16 percent of the West Bank under PA control was living below the poverty line.


How serious is a 16 percent poverty rate? It’s better than the poverty rate in Washington D.C. which hit 18.9 percent. That means that politicians in Washington D.C. are diverting money that could have been used to help needy Americans a few miles from their offices, to help the comparatively better off terrorist populations in the West Bank.


Contrary to the barrage of news stories on the suffering of the Palestinians, the poverty rate for America and the West Bank aren’t that far apart. The California poverty rate is at 15.3 percent. And the national average at 14.3 percent is hardly that much better.

If a 16 percent poverty rate requires billions in international aid– then where is Washington D.C.’s international aid. Why isn’t there a UN aid facility distributing food near Foggy Bottom? And if being a failed state with no budget discipline requires international aid, then where are California’s aid pledges?


Many of the PA’s chief donors have poverty rates in the same range. Some are even worse off. Greece’s poverty rate is at 20 percent. Spain’s is nearly as high. And 17 percent of the EU population is considered to be at risk of poverty. Even Germany’s strong economy still has a 15.5 percent poverty rate. A few percentage points away from the West Bank.


But most damningly Israel’s poverty rate is nearly 24 percent. Worse than in the Palestinian Authority. About half those numbers come from its Arab population, which unlike their cousins in the Palestinian Authority, aren’t the beneficiaries of vast amounts of aid.

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/08/t...im-money-hole/

[Kragh]

http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2011/0...gnize.html?m=1

Palestinian financial institutions are ready for statehood, an International Monetary Fund report praising Palestinian fiscal reform said Tuesday.

"The PA is now able to conduct the sound economic policies expected of a future well-functioning Palestinian state,'' the report said.
Ma'an News Agency, IMF: Palestinian institutions ready for state, April 8, 2011Now, 3 months later, the prospects for UN recognition don't look quite so rosy as it turns out the Fayyad may be just as corrupt as the rest of the PA:

Bassam Zakarneh, chairman of the Palestinian Authority Workers’ Union, launched a scathing and unprecedented attack on Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Tuesday, accusing him of squandering public funds and refusing to take action against corrupt ministers.Squandering funds may explain why the New York Times reported a budget crisis in the PA at the beginning of this month:
The Palestinian Authority will pay its employees only half their monthly salaries in July, the prime minister told reporters here on Sunday, because of what he said was “the failure of donors, including our Arab brothers, to fulfill their pledges.”

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad added that the salaries would be paid in full when the promised funds arrived.According to the article, Fayyad blamed the lack of money on both Israel for the delay in giving over tax revenue and on the Arab states for failing to deliver on funds promised.

But now it seems there may be a different reason
:“We’ve discovered that some ministers and officials are receiving financial aid in their wives’ names,” Zakarneh told the paper. “Most of the aid authorized by Fayyad to the ministers and officials is in the context of support for the poor and families of martyrs. The money is paid to the wives [of the ministers and officials].”

Calling for an investigation into the allegations, Zakarneh pointed out that in one case the wife of a top official received more than $10,000 to purchase new contact lenses.Keep in mind that these accusations are not coming from Hamas, which opposed the idea of Fayyad holding an official position--it is coming from Fatah.