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Friday, April 18, 2014

How did Jews build a state without tons of money from the EU and NGOs?

Here is an entire article from official PA news agency Wafa:

A public information coordination committee to oversee a group of sub projects funded by the European Union in support of the livestock subsector was recently formed, under which the communication efforts between the institutions implementing projects in the Livestock-based Livelihoods (LbL) programme, said a press release on Thursday.

The full LBL project, worth approximately EUR 11 million, was launched in 2013 in order to support the development of the Palestinian the livestock subsector. This committee will work in parallel with the project coordination framework and Project Steering Committee, which includes the Ministry of Agriculture and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and CARE and Oxfam Italia in addition to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Union (EU).

The three sub-projects constituting the LbL programme are ; (i) ‘Moving herders from aid dependence to self-sustaining growth through livestock husbandry development and market expansion (SULALAH)’, implemented by UAWC and the consortium (ii) ‘Strengthening Livestock Holders’ Livelihoods in Area C (Rawasi)’ implemented by CARE International and the consortium; and (iii) ‘Support Livestock-based Livelihood Programme of Vulnerable Populations in the oPt, the Institutional Level Component’ (LbL-i) implemented by FAO. In addition to, (IV) 'Regional Bedouin Governance (RBG) implemented by Oxfam IT, which is also made possible by the generous support of the EU.

The committee will organize and arrange the strategic implementation of visibility and communications efforts between the projects, to export a unified message to reach the largest possible audience, in addition to publishing news that reflects the joint work between the projects.
So a communications committee is being formed to coordinate between three or four disparate EU-funded programs to help the Palestinian Arabs raise livestock. The EU is pouring millions of euros into these initiatives, which seem vitally important.

Now, how did a bunch of Jews manage to build an entire state without having the equivalent of such wonderful institutions as the Public Information Coordination Committee? Somehow, with limited knowledge of farming and raising animals, Jews managed to put together a modern, relatively efficient agriculture-based state during the first 20 years of Israel's existence, while at war with every neighboring state, with little or no support from NGOs and governments.

Here we are, 20 years after Oslo, and about 18 years after the PA first gained autonomy to govern its own day to day life, and they somehow cannot survive for a week without huge injections of aid for so many projects that new projects have to be created to coordinate the older projects!

Now, how could the Jews (who we are constantly being told were outside colonialists with no ties to the land), without outside help, manage to build their infrastructure under British rule and catapult from there into creating an impressive, modern state in so little time? And how could the Arabs (who we are constantly told are indigenous to the area) not know how to even raise livestock without serious injections of cash and having their hands held every step of the way?