Monday, March 28, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
The Jerusalem Post reported on March 8:
A United States grant of $5.5 million for two Israeli-Palestinian business partnerships for female entrepreneurs was awarded Tuesday under the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA).It’s a small part of MEPPA’s $250m. five-year program to build “people-to-people” relations through economic partnerships.
This is all very nice. But this next sentence should be troubling for anyone:
Coleman was vague on the details with regard to the grant’s recipients, noting that participants did not want their identities to be known.
Why? Why wouldn't the participants want their identities to be known?
Because Palestinian organizations are at risk for engaging in "normalization" with Israel. The Palestinian Authority itself threatens any organization that deals with Israeli counterparts.
The US wants to help cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians. (So does the EU.) But the Palestinian leaders are dead set against this.
The Palestinian Authority is trying to stymie normal relations between Israelis and Palestinians, in this case for female entrepreneurs but also for sports competitions or agriculture information or anything.
Does anyone see a problem here?
The US and EU want to promote these programs in order to create a culture of peace. The Palestinian leadership is against a culture of peace. Any US efforts are despite the efforts of the PA to thwart them.
Because the PA fundamentally doesn't want peace with Israel. And it never did.
Everyone knows it. No one wants to say it out loud.
(h/t Irene)
