Mass wedding in Nablus today

Perhaps taking a page from Hamas, the government in Nablus is staging a mass wedding today. It is meant to save young couples the costs of their own weddings and to help them start out right.

Nothing really wrong about that, except for one thing:

Nablus officials said the local government would sponsor a mass wedding on Thursday at the Jamal Abdul Nasser Park in the center of the city.

Taysir Nasrallah, the general coordinator for the event, said officials were working hard to prepare for the day. He said the event's patron, President Mahmoud Abbas, had pledged cash to each of the grooms, as well as gifts like furniture and home wares donated by local companies.

Is Abbas' cash coming from his own personal funds - which would indicate that he is a rich man indeed - or is it coming from the massive amounts of aid that the PA gets from the West?

For all the talk about how the PA budget is supposedly so transparent, it is difficult to find out details like this. Of course, no Western reporter is even asking the questions.