A conference in Brussels on the struggling Palestinian economy has ended with Israel presenting a plan that would offer $1 billion in aid projects centered on the Gaza Strip, conditioned on the Palestinian Authority taking control of the strip.
The Palestinian Authority is already in the process of taking over the Gaza Strip, as part of an Egypt-negotiated unity deal that would bring Hamas and Fatah into a deal for free elections across Palestine.
Israel, ironically, has angrily opposed the unity deal repeatedly, though when couched in terms of what the unity deal would result in, it’s exactly what Israel now says they want to see happen. The unity deal is going slower than was expected, but no one has withdrawn from it yet.
Aid programs within the Gaza Strip, including desalinization and electricity infrastructure, are extremely rare, with Israel having made a policy of cutting off even the most basic aid to Gaza for years. Heavily criticized internationally for this policy, Israel’s offer may suggest a substantial change in policy.
Sure, get Gaza under the PA so when the PA collapses and Israel takes over en masse, they’ll already have infrastructure in place for the incoming settlers.
The last Israeli left Gaza 13 years ago, you really need to keep up with current events if you don’t want to come-off as a total ignoramus.
Your friend and mentor,
Kirby One.
Gaza is a little beach town that was turned into a refugee camp when the Zionist trash forced the people off their land. Hamas was created by Israel to run that refugee camp.
Actually the reality is Gaza had the potential to be a tourist destination for beach enthusiast that turned into a terrorist state when the local Palestinian elected Hamas.
When the last Israeli troops left the area Sept. 12, Palestinians began looting and destroying anything they could get their hands on, including some 4,000 greenhouses. It was a serious moneymaking enterprise, with nearly $100 million a year in revenue from tomatoes, flowers and fruit sold in Israel and exported abroad.
Wolfensohn wanted the Palestinians to use the greenhouses to kick-start Gaza’s new economy. But the Palestinian Authority refused to buy the greenhouses from the settlers, or to let the Israeli or U.S. governments pay.
He convinced Daily News owner and prominent Israel supporter Mort Zuckerman to join the effort. “He threw in about half a million of his own and raised the rest,” Wolfensohn told the Jerusalem Report.
The total was $14 million, enough to buy 3,000 of the greenhouses. Some of it came from the likes of Chicago billionaire Lester Crown and Leonard Stern, the chairman of the Hartz Mountain real-estate empire, as well as the Aspen Institute, whose chairman is Walter Isaacson.
For the PA to take over Gaza, it would be necessary to establish traffic corridors between Gaza and the West Bank. And there are no commercial airports to allow anyone to get between the two entities. Also, the Israelis need to keep their grubby little hands off Palestinian tax money.
What the Israelis want is to be able to say to PA is, “Your Gaza subjects are not servile enough, straighten them out or instead of just bombing Gaza, we are bombing the West Bank, too. You figure out how to get past our check points between you both”.
“For the PA to take over Gaza, it would be necessary to establish traffic corridors between Gaza and the West Bank. ”
Really? Cause I’m pretty sure they ruled Gaza before, without the traffic corridors you mentioned.
No, they never did rule Gaza. Never, not one day.
Correct. Not one day. About 3,650 days, from the 1996 election, which in which Fatah won 55 of 82 seats, until the 2006 election, in which Hamas wrested power from Fatah/PA.
The Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was completed by September 12, 2005.
Until then, the PA did not rule Gaza, the Israelis did.
The Palestinian election was held on 25 January 2006, and Hamas won it, not “wrested power.” After that the Israeli stooge Dahlan tried an armed coup against the elected government of Gaza, and he lost in his attack.
Between the Sept 12 withdrawal and the Jan 25 election, Arafat was dead, and Abbas was not yet elected. He was elected in January.
It is a reach to say that the leaderless PA prior to its elections was in charge of Gaza. Sharon for the Israelis was quite open about and proud of the unilateral action of Israel in leaving without talking to the PA and without turning anything over to the PA, to having no agreement with the PA.
That’s nice. Israel lies again. They’ll talk about it, but never deliver. They’ll come up with some excuse, lame but enough for them.
If they keep this up, they’ll get rid of Hamas and the PA by putting in place ISIS instead. Enjoy that.
I assume the money will come from American taxpayers. More like will.
Change for the better in Israeli policy? under Netanyahu/Lieberman???? LOL
The Israelis made what sounded like a good deal in 2005, allowing ports, Gaza airport, export/import ….. but as usual kept to NONE of their promises and were infuriated by the results of the free and fair election of 2006. How dare you elect a Party not consisting of our puppets?
Both sides should recognize the value of peace in bringing both societies to greater prosperity. Old hatreds dies slowly, but each side should see the futility and the immorality of leaving their children with a legacy of hate and conflict.
You talk like there’s some kind of moral equivalency between the jailers and the jailed.
The truth is Israel has no legitimate claim on Palestine and should leave on their own or be driven out.
No justice. No peace.
nothing has changed
Right.. 81 years later and the Israelis are still lying.
81 years latter and Israel is thriving and Arabs are still in denial.
81 years later, Israel is still riding the US gravy train and Palestine is denied justice.
US forces have been put in harms way for underserved Arabs. Taliban, ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Quida all come from the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
The only “undeserving Arabs” are the Saudis – Israel’s BFF in the region and co-architect of ISIS, which has been driven out of Syria by Hezbolla.. So much for your unified fiend theory.
Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudis, Jordan – all undeserved.
“Internal conflict”?.. ISIS and Hezbollah are implacable foes.
Israel provides logistic and medevac services. That’s why ISIS never attacks them.
As for crappy coinage – the only one shaking us down for big bucks are the Zios.