U.S. Tax Dollars At Work in Gaza - by: Daled Amos

Daled Amos

FRIDAY, JULY 23, 2010

(What's Left Of) Your Tax Dollars At Work--In Gaza

Those who make a point of making an issue of the US money that goes to Israel, always seem to overlook the money that goes to support Israel's terrorist neighbor. While Israel's defenders can point to the return on investment that Israel provides to the US, no one has tried to make an argument for what the US is getting in return for the money it sends to Hamas and Gaza:

The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress. Bankruptcy filings are nearing the record two million dollar level of 2005, and unemployment is nearly 10%, yet, in mid-June, President Obama pledged a $400M aid package for supposed housing, schools, water and health care system projects in the West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza. He described these projects as a "down payment on the U.S. commitment to the people of Gaza who deserve a chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank."


He must have forgotten that the Gazans first act of "independence," after the Israeli withdrawal from the territory in 2005, was to destroy the lucrative greenhouse industry that the Israelis left behind but that should have served as a reminder about the billions in aid that have been squandered in pursuit of this pipedream.

According to the Heritage Foundation, since Oslo Accords in 1993, the U.S. has showered $2.2 billion in bilateral aid on the Palestinians, in addition to more than $3.4 billion for humanitarian aid funneled through dysfunctional U.N. organizations since 1950. Vast amounts of these aid funds have been diverted to allow terrorist organizations like Hamas to focus on building its war infrastructure -- such as bunkers, fortifying positions and digging tunnels, -- rather than on subsidizing education, paving roads, promoting commerce and industry, or providing for, and advancing, the long-term interests of their people.

Taking the policy of job stimulus that has failed in the US and applying it to a territory whose terrorist government has canceled its elections indefinitely--some down payment.

Technorati Tag: Obama and Gaza and Hamas.