Friday, August 24, 2007

I caught this ad in today's JPost:-




And here are my questions,

a) Does USAID have a parallel program for Jewish residents of the "West Bank"?

b) If so, what? where? when? who?

c) If not, why?

d) If not, is this discrimination based on race and religion by not extending financial aid to residents of the geographical entity (note: the aid goes to the WB/G not to the Palestine Authority).

e) If not, are any elected officials, senators or congressmen or their aides, reviewing this ad to ascertain if my assumption, that it is discriminatory (I am pretty sure that non-citizens in American states (like California and Texas, for example) are being aided by US government funds. Why not Jews living in Shiloh, Ofrah, Efrat, etc.?

f) If I am an American citizen, can I then qualify?

g) Could someone like Shlomo Fischer, Director, Yesodot - The Center for Torah and Democracy in Jerusalem, apply? (Yesodot has received US monies in the past and money from Keren Abraham and other funders). Or does the job really mean "Arab"? Or "Arab Muslim"?

h) What type of "knowledge" of the Arab-Israel conflict is needed? Why not ignore the conflict and just deal with democracy - civil rights, accountability, transparancy of government activity, freedom of the press, human liberties, no terror (oops, sorry about that. it just creeped in and I can't figure out how), etc.

i) Is this a CIA plan to overthrow the PA? (just kidding. they don't do those things anymore, do they?)

j) Wouldn't it be democratic to recognize the right of Jews to live in their historic homeland and figure out how that could be accomplished without anybody resorting to violence?

k) And why Tel Aviv? Jerusalem takes care of Judea & Samaria (aka WB) where as TA deals with Gaza (well, they still have a score to settle, no?).

I could go on, but it's Friday and I have other things to do and write about.

1 comment:

Soccer Dad said...

Why don't you apply to be the Senior Democracy Specialist? After all as a press critic you could make sure that the Palestinian media was hewing to Western standards of professionalism. It looks like the job might be in Tel Aviv. Since it's civil service you'd probably be paid in dollars. Go for it!

You wanna bet that USAID has a hand in assisting with those olive harvest?