To Haaretz: Hass helps PA pick foreign taxpayers' pockets

Hass helps PA pick foreign taxpayers' pockets

Dear Sir,

While everyone's attention is focused elsewhere, Ha'aretz allows Amira Hass to smear Israel by repeating Palestinian propaganda as fact. [Judge frees NIS 130m in PA funds, Nov 11, 2004]

Hass baldly states as fact that attachment of funds by Israeli courts that are hearing several lawsuits claiming damages against the PA "are largely responsible for a severe budget crisis in the PA."

With headlines about Arafat's hidden billions plastered over every newspaper and website around the world, how can Hass have the temerity to blame Israel for financial crisis in the PA?

Any financial crisis in the PA is caused by historical and ongoing corruption and theft by the PA elite. Additionally, huge sums have been diverted to terror. This corruption, theft and terror has led to what the World Bank describes as the largest per capita foreign aid in mankind's history leaving the average Palestinian trying to manage on a mere $2 a day. It was former Palestinian Legislative Council speaker Rafiq Al-Natshe who said that the PA does not need foreign aid, as there are billions of dollars in the possession of the Authority, ‘but no one knows anything about the funds.'

Arafat was not the only one involved, and unless the international community insists on proper, audited controls, his successors (with Hass' assistance) will continue to cry poor and pick the foreign taxpayers' pockets.

D.F.
Ra'anana

FURTHER REFERENCES: http://www.eufunding.org/

Al Natsheh quote: http://www.countrywatch.com/cw_wire.asp?vCOUNTRY=140&UID=1168833