"Progressive" BDS attacks Palestinian environmental activist who met with Israeli counterparts - and guess what happened next?

EcoPeace ME is an organization of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmental activists who work on fixing the water shortages in the region to benefit all.

It doesn't get more progressive than that.

But it breaks a BDS rule. 

So BDS attacked EcoPeace, and specifically Nada Majdalani (center), director of the Palestinian branch, who recently met with her Israeli and Jordanian counterparts in Washington:

BDS issued a statement denouncing the meeting: "What [Nada] Majdalani is doing goes beyond normalization by being completely involved in covering up the crimes of the occupation against our people, and in harmony with the betrayal of Arab regimes that are rejected and fought by the peoples of the Arab region, including our Palestinian people."

This was particularly upsetting to the BDS hate group because Majdalani's father, Ahmed Majdalani, is the Palestinian minister of Social Affairs and Secretary-General of the Popular Struggle Front. Majdalani is also a member of the PLO Executive Committee. Seeing his daughter actually touching an Israeli must have been enraging. 

Of course, they were also trying to shame Nada's father Ahmed with this statement, as they name checked him.  

So what did her father do?

He organized his own "normalization" meeting between Israelis and Palestinians in Al Bireh, under the auspices of the PLO!

BDS Fail!

Other Palestinian factions and media complained bitterly that Palestinian officials are meeting with Israelis sometimes. 

Palestinian journalists also protested a press conference today for Israeli journalists in Ramallah.

This obsession with cutting off all communications with Israeli Jews has accomplished less than nothing, but many Palestinian officials continue to insist on it - either because they are stupid or because they are afraid of their constituents.

You will not find "pro-Palestinian activists" publicly denouncing BDS, even when they are clearly acting in ways that are counterproductive to all Palestinians. For most of the "pro-Palestinian" crowd, hating Jews is a higher moral imperative than helping Palestinians. 

Nada Majdalani should be a hero for people who claim to want the best for Palestinians. Instead, she is vilified. And that tells you everything you need to know about the hypocrisy and regressiveness of the BDS crowd.

---

---

Read More

PA facing "worst financial crisis yet" - Arabs ignore it while Israel tries to help!

From AFP:

The Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank is facing its “worst financial crisis” since its 1994 establishment, the Palestinian labor minister told AFP on Sunday.

Ahmed Majdalani warned that a shortfall in the delivery of aid from Arab donor nations means the PA will be unable to pay employees their July salaries or pay off debts it owes to private businesses across the West Bank.

“It is the worst financial crisis experienced by the Palestinian Authority since its founding,” he told AFP.

“What is available to the Palestinian Authority at the moment in terms of funds is not enough to pay government employee salaries this month, with Ramadan approaching,” he said.

“It is not sufficient to pay the bills that the Palestinian Authority owes to private companies.”

The Palestinian Authority has frequently warned it faces a massive financial shortfall that threatens its ability to pay thousands of government employees on time, or even at all.

A delay in salary payments would be particularly sensitive this month, as the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan begins in mid-July. Muslims often break their daily fast at large communal meals, stocking up ahead of time on plenty of food.

Last July, Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said the government would pay workers half-salaries because it faced a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.

He attended a special meeting of the Arab League to urge Arab donor nations to make good on aid pledges.

Arab nations have been reneging on promised aid to the Palestinian Arabs for years.

What is fascinating is that while their Arab "brethren" have treated the Palestinians like dirt, Israel went to the International Monetary Fund in order to take out a billion dollar loan on the PA's behalf - and to guarantee it for them!

Israel sought a $1 billion IMF bridging loan for the Palestinian Authority earlier this year, but was turned down, an Israeli newspaper said Monday in a report confirmed to AFP by a senior Israeli official.

Haaretz reported that Israel's central bank chief Stanley Fischer approached the International Monetary Fund for the money after discussing the Palestinian Authority's financial crisis with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad.

Sometime after the IMF's annual conference in mid-April, Fischer asked the body for the loan, which Israel would have taken on the Palestinians' behalf.

Israel would then have transferred the money to the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by president Mahmud Abbas, which would have repaid the money to the Israeli government.

Israel would have remained responsible for repaying the loan to the IMF, under the deal, but the institution eventually declined to make the loan available.

Haaretz said it turned the proposal down because it feared setting a precedent of making IMF money available to non-state entities, like the Palestinian Authority, which as a non-state cannot directly request or receive IMF funding.

A senior Israeli official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity confirmed that the details contained in the Haaretz report were accurate.

Israel is willing to go into debt to help the Palestinian Arab leaders while their fellow Arabs promise lots and deliver little.

One aspect of this story that no one talks about, of course, is who exactly is getting paid a salary by the PA.

Some $5 million a month is spent on the terrorists in Israeli prison themselves. Arab car thieves don't get this stipend - only terrorists.

And in 2005, it was estimated that some 10% of the PA budget went towards terrorists and their families.

Moreover, over 60% of the PA budget goes towards Gaza, much of it in salaries for PA workers who aren't working in a vain hope that maybe the PA will one day return to power there. Some 80,000 people in Gaza are being paid to stay home, and the PA has spent over $7 billion on Gaza since Hamas took over.

So the financial crisis can be solved fairly easily, if the PA only paid people who really work and forced Hamas to spend its own money governing Gaza rather than indirectly funding Hamas purchase of weapons.

Read More