Mere Rhetoric: The Palestinian Deprivation Myth - Maybe If They Spent More Of Their Massive Aid Packages On Medicine and Less On Suicide Bombings...

Let's not kid ourselves. Life in Gaza sucks. A large majority has chosen to embrace a death cult of viciously Jew hating terrorists, and in response Jews have decided that they don't want anything to do with them (how unreasonable, right?) The result is that Gaza is overrun with armed gangs and systemic poverty because - well - let's just say that the Palestinians aren't particularly good at the civil management side of their glorious Israel-destroying revolution. But people aren't going to wrap their minds around what's going on until journalists ditch their pathos soaked depictions of economic deprivation. We're looking at you, New York Review of Books:

"Nothing is changing," says Dr. Jamil Suliman, a pediatrician and now the director of Beit Hanoun Hospital in Gaza. On a quiet January morning, he shows me a clean and well-equipped emergency room, modern X-ray facilities, a pharmacy, and a basic yet functioning laboratory. Dr. Suliman oversees a medical team of more than fifty doctors. But the outlook for the health and well-being of his community, three quarters of whom live in accelerating poverty, is not good.

One might wonder about the juxtaposition between "accelerating poverty" and fifty-plus well-equipped, trained doctors. It might have something to do with how the Palestinians are the largest per capita aid recipients on the planet:

Since the Palestinians elected a government dedicated to wiping out the Jewish State, aid to them has actually increased by 10 percent: It’s not that the Palestinians have been subjected to any cut in aid - quite the contrary: As the United Nations under-secretary general for political affairs reported on the recent anniversary of Hamas' election victory, international aid to the Palestinians increased in 2006 by nearly 10 percent, amounting to a staggering $1.2 billion. Indeed, Palestinians are today the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.

So is it misleading to imply that the Palestinians's problems come from economic deprivation rather than chronic corruption, mismanagement, and misallocation of resources? Yes. Is that going to stop the swamp of self-righteous blather that passes for depictions of the "plight of the Palestinians"? Obviously not.

References:
* Palestinians: The Crisis in Medical Care
* Foreign Aid To Palestinians Has Increased By 10 Percent Since Hamas Election [MR]

Previously:
* US Cuts Aid to Palestinians - But Only Kind Of
* Not Content With Not Cutting Off Palestinian Aid, US Will Actually Increase Funding to Supporters of Terrorism
* Technical, Academic Description of EU Justifications for Palestinian Aid