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

Yesterday we talked about how shrill hysterics of PA financial breakdown are a little misleading. The Palestinians are the largest per capita aid recipients on the planet, and yet somehow the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip are hemorrhaging money.

But can it really be corruption and kleptocratic that's driving the Palestinian financial crises? Oh yes, yes it can:

The Palestinian Authority faces a fiscal crisis that could threaten its existence, in large part because it keeps expanding the public payroll despite sharply reduced revenues, the World Bank said in a report. The Palestinian economy declined further in 2006 from an already low level, and the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped by at least 8 percent, said the report, obtained by The Associated Press.

Charming, no? They're increasing their salaries while sobbing to the world about how it's unfair to shun them for threatening to commit genocide against Israel. The rest of the AP article is split between bemoaning the "plight of the Palestinians" and burying figures that prove chronic Palestinian corruption is the cause of that plight.

Except for this part, which is kind of weird:

The decline coincides with an international boycott of Hamas, which came to power a year ago. Since then, foreign aid has been redirected to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or disbursed as direct salary or welfare payments to Palestinians. The overall level of aid has declined, from about $1 billion in 2005 to more than $700 million in 2006. Most development programs have been cut, and the bulk of the money now goes to budget support.

Note the weasel word "coincides", which is always awesome for insinuating causal connections that don't exist. You know what else it coincided with? The election of a Democratic Congress, the rise of Obama, and growing public opposition to the Iraq war. It's the liberals' fault that Palestinians are starving! Proof!

Seriously, two things: (1) it doesn't matter where the funds are going - they should be getting to the street if they're going through Abbas. The part about moving aid from Hamas to Fatah is a hamfisted attempt to mislead; (2) we don't know where the AP is getting those aid figures, but they're almost certainly wrong. The UN on its own has pledged $1.2 billion in response to the US aid cutoff - an increase in 10 percent to offset any funds that the US isn't outright diverting to Abbas.

If the Palestinians were taking a bit of an aid hit because they elected a party of lunatic warmongers - well, it's not like that would be unjustifiable. But that's not even why their GDP is declining: they're more or less getting away with being viciously anti-Semitic, and they're even failing to take advantage of that!

References:
* 'Monetary crisis threatens PA existence'
* The Palestinian Deprivation Myth - Maybe If They Spent More Of Their Massive Aid Packages On Medicine and Less On Suicide Bombings... [MR]
* Foreign Aid To Palestinians Has Increased By 10 Percent Since Hamas Election [MR]

Previously:
* JPost Drops Bombshell: Democrats Illegally Communicating With Hamas Terrorists
* Bloggers' Conference Call With Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
* EU Seeks to Solve Palestinian Corruption by Giving Them More Money