My first question:-
01-03-2008 09:05:43
YMedad: The Palestinian Authority has a bad economic reputation. Many hundreds of millions in aid were lost through corruption, theft and misappropriations. In 1997, the PA received $548,727,000 from the international donor community. It also received more than $800 million in tax revenues collected by Israel from Palestinian Arabs. At the end of 1997, when the PA released its annual financial report, $323 million - nearly 40% of the annual budget - was "missing." The situation since then has only gotten worse. Members of the U.S. Congress have expressed concern that the aid package support does not contain enough effective oversight measures to ensure the money doesn't end up in the wrong hands. Congressman Gary Ackerman was quoted saying, "The administration's proposal lacks any kind of performance-based conditionality". Why is the post-Annapolis economic scheme to be different? And if it isn’t, will the US and EU continue to throw good money after bad?
Yisrael Medad, Shiloh
His answer:-
Thomas Goldberger: Hello and thank you for the excellent question to get us started. You are certainly right that international asssistance has not been effectively used by the Palestinians in the past. This time, we think things are different for two reasons: the Palestinian Prime Minister has developed, and the international community has endorsed, a comprehensive economic plan and budget. This plan is transparent and open to review, and it sets priorities like any government budget.
Secondly, the United States has put stringent internal and auditing controls in place to ensure that money does not end up in the wrong hands.
My second question:-
01-03-2008 09:08:18
YMedad: According to a recent report published by CAMERA, statistics on Palestinian homicides and on foreign aid to Gaza and the West Bank reveal that as aid increased to the Palestinian government, so too did the numbers of people (both Israeli and Palestinian) killed by Palestinian militants. At the same time, there was an inverse correlation between an increase in foreign aid and Palestinian economic growth. Increased budgetary aid to the Palestinian government after the start of the second Intifada in September 2000 was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number of Palestinian homicides in 2001 and 2002. The argument for increasing foreign aid stems from the belief that the way to defeat radicalism is to eliminate its ostensible cause — poverty and ignorance. Claude Berrebi of Princeton University analyzed Palestinian terrorism and determined that "if anything... those with higher education and higher living standards are more likely to participate in terrorist activity" ("Evidence About the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism Among Palestinians," Rand Corporation, 2003).
Given this research and data, how will the U.S. assure that a further input of aid money will not result in a similar increase in violence and terror?
His second answer:-
Thomas Goldberger: This question seems similar to the one I just responded to. There is no question that economic conditions for the Palestinians have deteriorated severely in the past seven years despite foreign assistance. There are controls in place to ensure that U.S. and international money is not misused, and the PA's budget is transparent an open to monitoring.
I keep trying.
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