Israel Matzav

World ditches 'Palestinians,' Egypt next?

Spengler shows that when push comes to shove, the 'international community' has abandoned the 'Palestinians' in the only way that seems to matter (financial support) and wonders whether Egypt will be next. 

"No one cares about the Palestinians," I wrote in this space two years ago [1], and since then the world has stopped funding them. As a result, the Palestine Authority is collapsing, comments Khalid Elgindy, a former PA adviser, on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, about "the wave of Palestinian protests that swept through the Israeli-occupied West Bank this month [and] ... virtually paralyzed life in Palestinian cities, with scenes reminiscent of the first intifada".

The PA can't pay salaries because international donors, including the Gulf States, haven't sent promised aid:

A rapid infusion of cash from the international community and Israel may buy the PA some time, but it cannot kick the can down the road forever - especially if a recently released World Bank report is right that a more severe fiscal crisis will take root if donor countries fail to act swiftly.

Even if the PA manages to hobble along for a few more months or years, a weak and divided Palestinian leadership with questionable domestic legitimacy will be in no position to negotiate a comprehensive agreement with Israel or make that agreement stick. This week's mass arrests of Hamas activists, carried out in the wake of the protests, speaks to the PA leadership's deep sense of insecurity. [2]

International donors are weary of Mahmoud Abbas' sorry little West Bank kleptocracy, while the squeeze on the state budgets of all the industrial nations makes it harder to shake loose money for an unpopular destination. The World Bank warned on September 19 of a "deepening Palestinian fiscal crisis" and issued an "urgent appeal" to donors. [3]

Diplomats and bureaucrats at international organizations will issue press releases, wring their hands, make promises and then break them. No-one is going to write a check to the Palestine Authority.

The question is: when will the world also grow weary of Egypt?

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Egypt, Palestinian Authority corruption, Palestinian Authority donors

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:28 PM