Arab writer admits that Arab leaders only pretend to care about Palestinians for their own purposes

Writing in Alaraby, Hulmi al-Asmar writes that normalization maybe isn't so bad - that perhaps if Arab nations act nicely to Israel, Israel will implode from infighting since it is dependent on aggression.

Setting aside his main argument, al-Asmar gives a brief description of how Arab leaders have used the Palestinian issue for their own benefit, and how they have actually hurt the Palestinians with this cynical pretense.

For years, official Arab discourse used to murmur a heavy [Palestinian] "nationalist" sentiment, to the effect that "Palestine is the Arabs' top issue." From this slogan, a series of canned phrases emerged that affirmed standing by the Palestinian people and calling for their victory. Preachers filled the space with resonant speech in forums all over the world, and printed millions of pages with them. Books, poems, and commentaries were written about it, and they pulled their voices and roared their throats with enthusiastic songs. Millions of statements, and thousands of conferences and summits were also held, all of which threatened the enemy, or at least “confirmed its position in support of the Palestinian people, and their right to establish their independent state and defeat the occupation.” More than that, under the heading of “confronting the Zionist threat,” billions were spent on arming their armies, while morsels of bread were withheld from the mouths of the hungry, in preparation for the decisive battle with the “enemy” to build what they called “Arab national security,” and for that purpose legislation, emergency laws, and martial law were enacted. How can it not, when the nation is in a state of war and on constant alert? Therefore, there is no time for the luxury of “democracy,” nor for the “mockery” of elections, social justice, and other rights. This is not the time (!), as the nation is passing through a “delicate circumstance” and a “turning point.” It is a "dangerous time in history" and a "sensitive stage" that requires not paying attention to these "trivialities", and focusing effort on confronting "the enemy's plans" aimed at tearing apart the Arab ranks, and undermining "national dignity and nationalism!", etc., to the end of this series of great lies that may have passed on the minds of the "masses"... So what was the result?

Israel is expanding and strengthening every day, while Palestine is withering, and its nakba has been “Arabized” and reproduced. It was not limited to the Palestinian people, but the Arab regime produced other versions and more and revised versions of the Arab catastrophes, so that almost every Arab country has its own nakba. 

This is stuff we've been saying for many years.  It is rare indeed to see these words in Arabic:

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Arabs sick of Palestinian issue

From Ma'an:

The results of the Arab Summit in Doha were unrealistic and lacked any practical measures to ensure goals are met, said Palestine’s Islamic resistance movement Hamas on Tuesday.

A special statement from Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said the summit failed to deal with the Palestinian issue, and neglected the suffering of Gazans following Israel’s three week war on the Strip.

“We were expecting that this summit would be different than the other summits and put practical steps to protect the Palestinian territories, especially Jerusalem and to help Gazans; but it is all the same,” Barhoum’s statement read.

The focus of the Arab summit turned to Sudan's President Omar Al-Beshir, who was strongly supported by Arab states against the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hauge. Al-Beshir stands accused of committing war crimes in Darfur.

Xinhua adds:

For the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the Arab summit only called on Israel to lift its siege on the territory. Hamas had hoped that the Arabs would do more than calls to overcome the blockade.

"We were hoping the Arab leaders would move to lift the siege by acts, not by words," Barhoum added. "We also hoped they would use their pressure cards against the Zionist occupation."

All together now:

"Awwwwwww!"

In recent years, Arab countries seem to be sick and tired of Palestinian Arabs. While they keep saying that it is their highest priority, in reality they only use the issue to blame their own problems on Israel and shield themselves from criticism. Decades of incessant whining and, worse, demands from the Palestinian Arabs have turned them off, and the Hamas/Fatah infighting has accelerated their anger. They'll tell the world that the Palestinian issue must be fixed before any other unrelated Arab problems, but privately they don't give a damn.

Yet the West has not yet picked up on this, as clueless Europeans and Americans keep insisting that fixing the unfixable Palestinian Arab problem is a magic key to solving all the problems of the Middle East.

Doha, where the only solidarity the Arabs had was to show support for a genocidal dictator, proves otherwise.

UPDATE: This post from last year shows even more conclusively that Arabs do not consider Palestinians to be a good investment.

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Why are the Arabs not funding the PA?

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that Arab pledges to the Palestinian Authority have, by and large, not been paid:

Out of 22 Arab nations that made pledges, only three -- Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- have contributed funds this year, while oil-rich countries such as Libya, Kuwait and Qatar have sent nothing and still owe the Palestinian government more than $700 million in past-due pledges.

The WaPo implies that Arabs refuse to fund the PA may be because the PA is not adequately radical:

The situation is deeply frustrating to U.S. and Palestinian officials, especially because the aid spigot appeared to turn off after the collapse of a unity government that had included Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. The new government is headed by moderate Palestinian leaders who favor peace talks with Israel. After it was formed in June 2007, it received only $73 million from Arab countries in the second half of 2007, compared with $371 million given by the Arabs to the unity government in the first half of the year.

One senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said that Arab nations could be doing much more to support the peace process launched at a conference in Annapolis last year and that "their effort falls short in every category." He said he is puzzled by their failure to meet their pledges in a period of phenomenal oil wealth.

"The one thing I find hard to explain is why they don't contribute more financially," the official said, noting that the Palestinian government is "really operating hand-to-mouth." He added that more than 50 percent of the money goes to the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas, so even people living under Hamas rule are suffering from the Arab failure to pay pledges.

This US official is making the assumption that the Arab regimes want to fund Hamas and not fund the PA, but that analysis doesn't work either....except, possibly, in the case of Qatar:

One country, Qatar, appeared to cut off all funding to the Palestinian Authority once Hamas seized Gaza and the unity government collapsed. Qatar, where some top Hamas officials own homes, had tried to mediate between Hamas and the Fatah faction headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Qatar had dramatically increased its contributions when Hamas was in the government, after years of providing little or no money.

The real reason is given later on in the article:

Arab diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there is little trust that the Palestinian Authority will use their contributions wisely, even though Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is a veteran of the International Monetary Fund and, during his time as finance minister, introduced new standards of accountability and financial management. Arab diplomats said they also resent the tight grip that Israel has maintained on the Palestinian territories during the peace talks.

"Most of them make the pledges reluctantly, on the basis that the United States wanted them to do it," said Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland. "There is frustration that nothing is happening in the peace process, and so they would be throwing good money after bad."

This is the crux of the issue, one that the US, EU and media just can't figure out:

The rich Arab oil barons do not consider the PA to be a good investment.

Even though oil prices have gone up sixfold in the past six years, that it not the issue for the Gulf nations: it is that there is little chance that anything is going to change. Hamas and Fatah remain split and there cannot be a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the PA while Hamas controls Gaza.

As the article mentions, some Arab states do directly fund things like ambulances and schools. But they see no reason to throw money at the bloated PA payroll where "security officers" sit around and do nothing and the PA continues to pay even their employees in Gaza who cannot work under Hamas.

When people invest money, even to charities, they want to get as much bang for the buck as possible. This is why Bill Gates spends more of his foundation's money on preventive vaccines rather than on hospitals - a few dollars invested wisely today can save many thousands in the future.

The Arab nations know the mentality of the Palestinian Arabs better than the West. They have already spent money, time and rhetoric on the PA. They have seen the Palestinian Arab leadership consistently shoot itself in the foot rather than act pragmatically and in ways that are best for the PalArabs themselves.

They have had enough.

The Arab nations see what all their efforts and money have bought them. They will publicly blame Israel, as always, but their true attitudes can be seen in their wallets. They'd rather buy New York real estate than help their Palestinian Arab "brothers" because these brothers have wasted their money in the past and will continue to do so. Rather than compromise and start building a real state, a real economy and creating real jobs, the PalArabs remain stuck in their welfare mentality, railing at the world for not doing enough for them while they do nothing for themselves.

When will the West demand real accountability from the PA as well?

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Conditional - or conditioning?

In 2003, the Financial Times reported about EU aid to the Palestinian Authority:

The EU has worked throughout the bloodstained months of the intifada to keep a Palestinian administration alive and to drive a process of reform within it. Often in the face of sharp criticism at home and abroad, the EU supported the Palestinian Authority with direct budgetary assistance at a time when its revenues were withheld by the government of Israel. Between November 2000 and December 2002 the EU granted nearly Euros 250m ( £170m) to keep the administration alive and to sustain the most basic of public services. Without our assistance there would have been no Palestinian interlocutor for the negotiations now under way.

At every step, the EU's help was made conditional on reforms that would make a viable Palestinian state a reality one day and in the short term make the Palestinian territories a better, safer neighbour for Israel.

It is largely because of such leverage from the EU that the Palestinian Authority now has a credible and transparent internal accounting system, that its budget can be controlled throughout its departments and that the recruitment of staff has ceased to be a covert form of social security. It is thanks to conditions that the EU imposed that a law was passed granting independence to the judiciary, and that progress is being made towards a legal base for the elections foreseen in the road map. Today we have a Palestinian Authority making a serious effort to reform itself and determined to continue doing so.

The EU was quite self-congratulatory about how well it had reformed the PA in 2003, while Arafat was still alive and stealing money. As Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote later that year:

How is it possible that the International Monetary Fund, CBS, the BBC, and even the PA itself were all able to document the PA's misuse of funds while Commissioner Patten failed to acknowledge it?

Despite thousands of the PA's own documents — some signed by Yasser Arafat himself — Patten, Swoboda, and many other MEPs not only continue to deny that European tax money has funded Palestinian terrorism, but also claim that the PA documents, authenticated by American, German, and Israeli experts — and even by the Palestinians themselves — are "forgeries produced by Israel."

The IMF report "Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions," released last September in Abu Dhabi, was based on the same PA documents that the Israeli government had earlier provided to Patten and the European Parliament. The report concludes that at least 8 percent ($135 million) of the PA's annual budget of $1.08 billion is being spent by Arafat at his sole discretion — and does not even take into account Arafat's control of 60 percent of the security-apparatus budget, which leaves him with at least $360 million per year to spend as he chooses. In addition, the report states that $900 million in PA revenues "disappeared" between 1995 and 2000, and that the 2003 budget for Arafat's office, which totaled $74 million, was missing $34 million that Arafat had transferred to pay unidentified "organizations" and "individuals."

Patten and many of the MEPs constantly deny that EU funds have been misused. They refuse to acknowledge that the PA leadership is corrupt and uses its aid money to fund terror, choosing instead to grant the PA ever more aid. According to the IMF report, much of this money continued to be misappropriated even under the PA's reform-oriented finance minister, Salem Fayyad.

The EU's moral standing and fiscal accountability are also questionable. For the ninth year running, the EU Court of Auditors refused to approve the EU's €100 billion annual budget because the auditors could not account for 90 percent of the funds to the PA. The MEPs claimed that it was not the EU but the IMF and the CIA that supervised the PA budget. But the IMF has publicly denied this responsibility many times, and there is no evidence that the CIA has had anything to do with EU funds to the PA.

As for evidence that aid money was used to pay homicide bombers, Swoboda insisted that "there is no proof that any terrorist acts they committed were ordered by the PA — they may have been acting alone. Only if the DNA of the suicide bombers will match the DNA of those who received euros will we accept it as evidence."

But still the EU insisted that its program of "conditional" aid was paying off big time. It reported in 2005:

Conditional aid drives reformThe EU’s financial package for 2005 totals nearly € 250 million. The main focus remains on reforming and strengthening Palestinian institutions including the judiciary, fighting corruption, supporting the democratic process through elections, and addressing emergency and humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. As before, it will carefully monitor the aid to ensure there is no abuse.

The EU also set up in April 2005 an EU Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support to assist the Palestinian Authority to assume responsibility for law and order and improve its civil police and law enforcement.

Since then, of course, the PA's wonderful police that the EU assisted so much lost Gaza with barely a gunshot, continues to employ moonlighting terrorists and is used as a jobs program where the workers do not have to work.

But the aid was "conditional"!

Rewarding the no-longer democratically elected "emergency" government of the PA, which still refuses to disarm its own Fatah terrorists, has become a habit, and today the EU added another $650 million in aid to the billions it has already wasted on the PA.

Apparently, the Palestinian Authority has managed to train the world to give it money whenever they ask for it. The aid isn't conditional - it is conditioning.

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