Posted on 03/23/2013 7:42:12 PM PDT by EinNYC
The US State Department announced on Friday that nearly $500 million in aid had been unblocked for transfer to the Palestinian Authority, months after Congress froze the funds in late-2012.
“To date, we have moved $295.7 million in fiscal year 2012 money… and $200 million in fiscal year 2013 assistance,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
The announcement came on the heels of US President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel and the West Bank since assuming office in 2009.
The Palestinian Authority has been in the grips of a deep economic crisis, largely due to promised aid going undelivered. Additionally, Israel has stopped delivering Palestinian tax revenues to the PA — with the exception of a one-time payment of $100 million in January — following Palestine’s approved petition for non-member observer state status at the UN last November.
The Obama administration has been pushing for release of Congressional aid funds for some time, and it was unclear if any conditions were placed on the PA in exchange for delivery.
In a meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday in Ramallah, however, Obama reportedly asked the Palestinian leader to refrain from turning to the International Criminal Court “for any reason,” including settlement expansion. The PA has consistently threatened to address its grievances against Israel at the Hague in recent months.
According to London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Abbas said he would turn to the Court if Israel began to build in the controversial E1 corridor that connects East Jerusalem with the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, but that he would wait two months before doing so. Israel announced plans to build in the area after Abbas’s unilateral move for a status upgrade at the UN.
In an apparent reversal from his first-term policy of supporting a settlement freeze, Obama stated Thursday that Palestinians cannot expect for Israel to agree to preconditions for negotiations. The New York Times also reported a softening in Abbas’s position, citing talking points leaked before the PA leader’s meeting with the US president. According to the report, Abbas is so eager to resume peace negotiations that he is now willing to forgo a public Israeli announcement of a settlement freeze.
Oh, goody, goody. More bucks for missiles, rockets, guns, ammo, chemical weapons, etc.
That will buy a lot of RPG rockets and AK-47 ammo and maybe a few suicide belts as well.
That would buy them a lot of condoms, booze and pork.
China and Russia, I’m guessing.
Obama you are a bad man. The only thing that can defeat you is your own party. You own it all now. Let your decline begin.
But the Communists/Progressives want a Dictator of Obama’s ilk. As long as the free stuff lasts, they’ll go along. But the “stuff” won’t last forever.
$200 million, not 2.
“The Palestinian Authority has been in the grips of a deep economic crisis, largely due to promised aid going undelivered.”
You know, if your economy is dependent on economic aid from other countries, your country has no future. Unless being a parasite is the future you seek.
All the while, I’m sending thousands of dollars in tax to the IRS while my neighbor with 6 kids by 5 different fathers sits at home all day watching TV, lives in a house which is bigger and better than mine, new car in the driveway, 3 flat screen tv’s, and still gets a tax refund without even paying any taxes because of the child tax credit.
What is wrong with this picture?
Yep, that about sums it up. Hard working honest people no longer seem to have a value in today’s Amerika. Illegals, criminals, and thugs both here and abroad seem to be the only “legitimate” receivers of the fruits of the hard working peoples’ labor. Including the Thug in Chief who’s squatting in the White House and his merry minions of absolute kooks (he does seem to have great talent in finding people for important positions who are laughingstocks and outright nutcases in the eyes of everyone else).
They helped fill ole Arafat’s pockets and now they continue to fill the pockets of the so called leadership’s pockets. The actual people won’t see a plugged nickel of that money. Not a penny will go to help anyone of them. The big whigs will get it all.
They take our money and curse us with the next breath.
How much of this money is going to Suha?
Yep, and they’ve been doing that for years. Yet we continue to send money to the contrived “Palestinian Authority” (no such thing!), Pakistan, and other entities who can’t wait to buy arms with OUR money to stab US in the back. Israel has contributed technological wonder after technological wonder to the world. What have the Pallies contributed? Blood, horrific injuries and death to innocent people (including infants and children), the waste of colossal amounts of foreign aid on luxury lifestyles for their “leaders”, and a whole bunch of hot air polluted with lies.
Wow. Thanks, FRiend.
Ah, the great friend of Israel and the scourge of terrorism. Hussein Obama. Is it any wonder US Jews vote in lock step for such a great and wise man?
My thoughts as I plunge down the rabbit hole on my journey to meet the Mad Hatter.
The White House is funding terrorists again......
A once-great nation has been subverted by enemy agents and is now being “used” to empower,arm, and finance its sworn enemies and world-wide terrorists. A good, noble country is being flushed down the toilet of history as its citizenry (largely) applauds (or doesn’t give a dam either way). Or perhaps this is all just a bad dream? After all, who could believe this could ever happen?
$500 million ..... NO PROBLEMO
You all see it as plain as your nose. There is no country. Just how quick can the elites bleed us to 3rd world nation status. It's obvious they have no opposition.
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