One person commented here that the Palestinian people need the influx of $$ and that Hamas, unlike predecessors i.e. Arafat, has historically been instrumental in ensuring funds reach the populace in the form of education, improved infrastructure, etc.
My concern lies more with the Iranian side & inherent symbolism in a donation coming on the heels of the U.S./European aid cutoff, Ahmadinejad's recent rhetoric regarding Israel and the Holocaust, talk of Iran's nuclear progress and the current cut-with-a-knife thick tension between Iran and the U.S. This move sends a clear signal to numerous parties and ups the ante..
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Iran just announced they'll be donating $50 million to the Palestinian Authority since Europe and the U.S. recently cut off direct aid.
I don't even know where to begin vis a vis the implications of this one...Stay tuned.
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3 comments:
It was inevitable, I think, given the close relations and similar ideologies. I've got mixed feelings, though. On the one hand, there is a serious humanitarian catastrophe that has to be rectified somehow, and given that the Western world is less than keen over the possibility of aiding the Hamas government, it is good for the Palestinian people that someone is willing to step up to the plate for them. On the other, I can't imagine that aid from Iran would be a "no strings attached" affair, and whether or not the Palestinian people will see any kind of improvement as a result of this aid is debateable at best. It seems inevitable that at least some of this money will go towards funding terror, though I actually believe that the Hamas government, at least to some extent, is interested in bettering the lives of its citizens, an area in which the previous government was profoundly lacking. Time will tell, I guess.
I think the new government and the old Hamas have merely exchanged places with the new Hamas and the old government...so the conflict goes on and only the names have changed. It's depressing. And scary, because $50 million won't last long.
Clarification: I meant the new Palestinian government, not the new Israeli government.
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