Israel Matzav

The UN shills for Hamas as Hamas tries to expel Jews from the Negev

UNRWA, an agency of the UN that is financed by your tax dollars, issued a report yesterday on the economic impact of international sanctions on the 'Palestinian Authority.'

The overview also said that the period since the outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000 has seen "unprecedented" contraction of the economy, declining incomes and high rates of unemployment and poverty.

Which, of course, has everything to do with the 'Palestinian' war against the Jews and nothing to do with the international boycott of the Hamas-led 'Palestinian Authority.'

The study on the socioeconomic impact of the financial crisis in Palestinian areas, authored by American-raised economist Salem Ajluni, was sponsored by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Ajluni projected that there would be an immediate 10 percent reduction in the "deep poverty" rate if international aid were restored to the PA. He also said that politics generally play a key role in the Palestinian economy. "As political circumstances improve, growth increases," he explained.

Since Hamas came into office this spring, international funding to the PA has been all but halted. According to Ajluni, the PA's 165,000 civil servants, of whom about 70,000 are in the security forces, received only around 40% of their salaries in the first half of 2006.

Well, who told them to elect a terror organization to lead them? Oops, I forgot, Fatah is also a terror organization....

"This is an induced crisis, and these are the consequences," said UNWRA Deputy Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi at Wednesday‚s press conference on the report. 'The pressure on the Palestinian Authority has been mainly a policy choice of the international community."

Yes, the crisis has been induced - by the 'Palestinians' themselves. It is the 'Palestinians' who elected Hamas, and it is Hamas and Fatah who choose to spend the resources they have on weapons rather than on the their economy, and it is Fatah that refuses to open its billion-dollar trust funds in Europe to alleviate the 'crisis' that has been wrought by Hamas.

Aljuni added that if the withheld customs and VAT were taken out of the equation, GDP would actually have risen 1.6% in the first half of 2006. He attributed that to continued growth in the public sector and a 15 to 20% raise in salaries of civil servants - even if they have yet to see most of that money. But that, he said, has created such a relatively large public sector that it would be "unsustainable" even under better financial conditions.

In other words, there are other causes for the 'crisis' aside from the international aid boycott.

And what is Hamas doing about this? Ordering Jews out of towns that border on the Gaza Strip of course.

"Only the departure of residents from Sderot will stop the rocket fire," Abu Abaida, spokesman for Hamas' so-called military wing, said in a statement to reporters.

"There are no limits on our rocket attacks and we will prove that in coming days. We advise residents of Sderot to evacuate," the Hamas spokesman said.

Asked by WND if his statement was rhetoric or whether the Hamas leadership actually sanctioned a call for Israeli residents to evacuate, Abu Abaida replied, "We are very, very serious. The evacuation can be done in the next days or even up to several weeks, but it must be done. And after that, we will stop all rocket fire unless the Zionists continue more military operations in Gaza"

Abu Abaida said Hamas is seeking to impose "a new equation in which the Zionists understand that for every incursion into Gaza, we will use our rockets to bombard your towns and cities until more and more are forced to evacuate. Our rockets have already improved, as Sderot residents know. We keep working on (the rockets) to improve deadliness, force and distance."

And lest any of you have forgotten:

Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer, hundreds of rockets have slammed into Sderot and other nearby Jewish communities fired by Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip.

Then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose administration carried out the Gaza withdrawal, promised the Israeli public the Jewish state would "not tolerate a single rocket attack on Israel after the disengagement goes through."

Sharon said if Israel needed to invade Gaza, the international community would understand.

But Sharon is in a coma, and Olmert, Peretz and Livni have been so effective that they may as well be comatose too. The three of them continue to fiddle as Sderot, the Negev and all of Israel continue to burn.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:27 PM