Golda Meir, who served as Israel’s Prime Minister from 1969–1974, once made a rather controversial statement, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” The average Palestinian or Arab parent loves their children the same as we do. But in today’s Action Update, you’ll see how a variation of that quote makes sense: Peace will come when the Palestinian leaders love their people more than they love themselves.
Attempted Murder
This past weekend more than 40 rockets were fired from the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. And in Jerusalem, there were violent clashes between Palestinian extremists and Israeli police. These events exemplify the big lie of the Middle East, that Israel controls the fate of war and peace in the region. Lest anyone forget, Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, in what then Israeli Ambassador to the United States Daniel Ayalon called “a test case for peace.”
The Palestinians failed that test. And the Israelis got rockets, not peace, in return. This reminds us of a rather famous quote from current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more
Israel.”
Aborted Elections
We’ll be honest. At the beginning of the year when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “decreed” that the Palestinians would hold
elections in May, we here at the Action Fund were a bit skeptical. The general consensus around the office was that Abbas, who has held onto power for 16 years despite having only been elected to a 4-year term, would eventually find an excuse to delay/postpone/cancel the elections. And that has now come to pass.
His pretext for once again denying the vote to the people he purports to love and represent doesn’t actually matter. If it wasn’t a fabricated dispute over who in East Jerusalem gets to vote in the elections, it would’ve been some other concocted crisis. Abbas wants to live out his days
in his multi-million-dollar mansion serving (if we can so abuse the word) as President of the PA. For Abbas, the civil rights of the Palestinian people are an afterthought at best.
This series of events reminds us of a statement made some years ago by former Israeli diplomat Amb. Reda Mansour, “The freest Arabs in the Middle East reside in the Jewish state of Israel.”
Failed Approach
Despite all of the above, and the PA continuing its pay-to-slay program, the Biden administration has reinstated US aid to Ramallah. And, as we discussed last week, despite the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) continuing to teach hatred in its schools to
Palestinian children and perpetuating the conflict by conferring refugee status on every generation of Palestinians, the Biden administration has similarly decided to reinstate aid to that organization.
This approach brings to mind Albert Einstein’s famous line, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
The time has come for Congress to step up and deal with the Biden administration’s regression to old, failed policies. The US must demand the Palestinians institute true democratic reforms and end their pay-to-slay program before receiving any American aid. Congress can make that happen by maintaining their hold on any US dollars headed to the PA. Likewise, Congress should seek to advance legislation that requires the administration certify that international entities receiving US taxpayer dollars do not teach children bigotry or support for terrorism.
Certainly, these bars are not too high. But if they are, then perhaps the Biden administration should consider how far they’ve fallen from the liberal principles they purport to defend.
Sincerely,
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