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Tuesday, June 04, 2019

No, Trump didn't stop aid to Palestinians. Palestinians did. (update)

Joyce Karam, an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University, tweeted:



While the US did cut all aid to UNRWA, which should not exist, did it also cut aid to "Jerusalem hospitals?"

Karam is apparently referring to USAID, which stopped all its services to the West Bank and Gaza at the end of January. USAID wouldn't have given money to fund hospital; it would give funds to projects including medical, infrastructure, governance and education. 

Headlines blamed the US for stopping all aid:


Apparently, Karam is the kind of academic who doesn't bother reading the actual article. Because unlike the headline, the article says:

The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), passed by Congress and then signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, has just come into force.

This allows Americans to sue those receiving foreign aid from their country in US courts over alleged complicity in "acts of war".

At a news conference on Thursday, senior official Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority (PA) had sent a letter to the US state department asking them to end funding because of a fear of lawsuits.

"We do not want to receive any money if it will cause us to appear before the courts," he said.
The US didn't end the USAID program - the Palestinians did.

Just like Israel didn't stop sending tax revenues to the PA - the Palestinians did.

Palestinians want lots of money, but they don't want any responsibility or strings attached. They want to be able to spend the money on salaries for terrorists without interference. They want to be able to receive billions from the US but not to be sued for the Americans killed by the terrorists they support.

The BBC headline, and others, were completely the opposite of the truth. The Trump administration has reduced aid to Palestinians in line with the philosophy that money given should provide some benefits to the US - something every other country does as well, implicitly or explicitly. But the decision to end all cooperation with the US came from the Palestinian leadership, not the US.

It is just one more example of how Palestinian leaders do not give a damn about their own people.

And this is another example of how an academic shows her ignorance - or her willingness to lie.

UPDATE: In fact, the US did cut aid to Arab hospitals last year, before USAID was refused by the PA.

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