Soccer Dad: It depends on what the word "main" means

May 31, 2006

It depends on what the word "main" means

According to Agence France-Presse Saudi King Abdullah is going to Egypt for talks with President Mubarak.

Those talks are due to focus on efforts to bring the Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiation table, according to an Egyptian presidential spokesman.

And what role does Saudi Arabia play in the Middle East?

Saudi Arabia, a main aid donor to the Palestinians, has good relations with Fatah leaders but has also hosted Hamas officials since the movement's election victory.

Main aid donor? This didn't exactly sound right and my searches weren't giving me the relevant information. So I asked Elder of Ziyon. He had some success and e-mailed me this article that lists the donors to the PA

Major donors

EU and individual European nations: $570m - $270m for salaries of Palestinian workers and $300m for development and infrastructure projects.

US: $300m exclusively for development projects

Saudi Arabia: $46m

The figures were apparently for 2005. I suspect also that the Saudi contribution is the main contribution from the Arab world, but hardly significant compared to the Western contribution.

And of course that American money has acquired loads of goodwill among the Palestinians. Hamas enforcer rails against U.S. gov't tells us

In a back-alley interview, the top Hamas enforcer in the Gaza Strip railed against the U.S. government, said he's happy whenever American soldiers are killed and vowed not to take Hamas' 3,000-strong militia off the streets.

Jamal Abu Samhadana, a 43-year-old explosives expert, is a key target for Israel and moves stealthily, switching cars and hideouts, despite his promotion to security chief by the Hamas-led government.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Abu Samhadana called the U.S. and Israeli-led boycott of the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority "cheap extortion" and said it will only serve "to make our people more attached to the government."

"The American government and people will pay a dear price for this aggressive and criminal policy against the Arab and Muslim people," he said.

Oh he's an explosives expert. What exactly is that a euphemism for? At least the AP does bring up (if only to dismiss) the most damning charge against Roseann Roseann Samhadana and his expertise

Sitting before a photo of an Islamic Jihad militant killed by Israel, the black-bearded Samhadana, himself one of the most renowned militants in the Palestinian territories, denied old allegations he was behind a deadly 2003 bombing of a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza that killed three American security guards.

I suspect that reporters have never seen the available evidence against Samhadana, but it's probably substantial and the allegations are current, not old.

(Question: Would any American reporter have accepted an invitation to interview Eric Rudolph when he was on the run? And if a journalist did would he/she have failed to divulge everything he/she knew about his whereabouts to authorities? I don't have an answer to the second. To the first, I suspect that most reporters would have considered Rudolph too repugnant to interview.)

Nor is Samhadana the only terrorist to get a nice promotion. Israel Matzav tells us that the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas has recently promoted a terrorist, Mahmoud Damra, to his security forces too.

Technorati tags: Palestinian Authority, Terrorism, American aid.