Israel Matzav

Gaza donors have had it?

Moadim l'Simcha, a good holiday to all of you. This is the first time I have been online since the day on which access to the computer is prohibited ended at sundown last night. I was busy with family matters.

A reminder that here in Israel there is only one holiday day at each end on which work is prohibited (rather than the two there are overseas), and therefore, I can be online on Friday afternoon.

It seems that Western donors - who have been asked to finance the 'reconstruction' of Gaza over and over again only to see their money go for weapons - may finally have had it with Hamas and its leadership. The donor countries are said to be suffering from 'fatigue.'

To that end, a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned there was "considerable donor fatigue."

"We have seen infrastructure projects that we have contributed to which have been destroyed," the diplomat said, adding that skepticism had existed even before the recent conflict.

Ample evidence has proven that Hamas uses UN and other aid money, as well as materials, to build terror tunnels into Israeli territory with the aim of attacking Israeli citizens - instead of providing buildings to its own citizens. 

[A] network of over 30 tunnels was found during the ground offensive, with each tunnel costing roughly $3 million to build. For every Hamas terror tunnel, the IDF stated, there was enough building materials to build 86 homes; seven mosques; six schools; or nineteen medical clinics.  

Meanwhile, Hamas has begun to rebuild terror tunnels into Israel on foreign aid money - but despite this, the UN already joined the PA in making a call for $550 million to rebuild Gaza.

But it seems that the West isn't 'fatigued' enough. Despite the 'donor fatigue,' the West is accepting the 'Palestinians' narrative without question.

Earlier this week, Hamas and the PA met in a unity government meeting in Gaza to present the pretext of the PA being in charge of the going-ons in Gaza - a stunt the international community praised - and PA "foreign minister" Riyad al-Malki was confident the message was enough.

"Our initial predictions are that the (donor) conference will be a big success," he said this week.

But a second diplomat, who did not want to be named, said the Gaza cabinet meeting was "not enough to reassure donors" - even if it was enough to reassure the political machine.

Here's hoping that the donors' conference is a resounding failure. 

Labels: European foreign aid, financing terror, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Palestinian finances, Palestinian terrorism, terror tunnels, US foreign aid

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:10 PM