Feeding the Hungry
A group of JINSA Board Members, in Israel for a conference and meetings with Israeli government officials, spent an odd but useful hour with an IDF official in charge of liaisons with international NGOs ministering to Palestinians living of the disputed territories. His job, as he explained it, was to ensure that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UNRWA, World Food Aid, and others had continual and unimpeded access to the Palestinian population despite the ongoing Palestinian war against Israel.
A group of JINSA Board Members, in Israel for a conference and meetings with Israeli government officials, spent an odd but useful hour with an IDF official in charge of liaisons with international NGOs ministering to Palestinians living of the disputed territories. His job, as he explained it, was to ensure that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UNRWA, World Food Aid, and others had continual and unimpeded access to the Palestinian population despite the ongoing Palestinian war against Israel.
It occurred to the group that by ensuring the social and economic welfare of Palestinian civilians, Israel and the NGOs effectively absolved the PA of its responsibility. And further, they reassured the PA that no matter how gruesome the acts of terror committed against Israelis, or how virulent the incitement to hatred and violence that spews from official PA sources, or how much money is diverted to military or personal PA accounts, or how little the PA does to improve the lot of its own people, Israel will actively work to ease the suffering of the civilian population even as it fights the terrorist infrastructure supported by the PA. The official agreed.
Shimon Peres once said that the Israeli people were NOT split 50-50 over Israeli overtures to the Palestinians; each Israeli was him/herself split 50-50. We had the same sensation. Part of each us was moved by the evident concern of the Israeli government that innocent Palestinians should suffer as little as possible from their own abominable leadership. In the face of relentlessly negative press about Israel and the “occupation,” it is clear, and we are proud, that the government of Israel is unwilling to deliberately make life harder for them. Few countries hold that standard and we can think of none which holds it in the face of an existential war against a terrorist enemy.
On the other hand, and there is always another hand, Israel bears some responsibility for not forcing Arafat to deal with the well being of his people or the exigencies of a civilian economy. He thus had money for 17 security services, bribes, cash payments to murder bombers, and a slush fund for Suha’s Paris apartment.
International donors – particularly the EU, which gave hundreds of millions of Euros to Arafat – have long pronounced themselves blameless, but it will be harder after MEP Ilke Schroeder told the European Parliament last week: “It is an open secret within the European Parliament and the Commission that EU aid to the PA has not been spent correctly. Everyone knows that the PA created a black budget.” Finally.
When Israel acquired the territories in a defensive war 37 years ago, it found people poor and oppressed through occupation by Jordan and Egypt (Gaza was a duty-free port for the Egyptian military and a prison for the Palestinian residents). International relief was necessary. But in the decade since the PA became the presumed forerunner of an independent state, the situation for the people has gone from bad to worse, not because of Israel, but in spite of Israeli efforts to alleviate the mess the PA exploited for its own ends.