Palestinian Authority and Where Did the Euros, Dollars, and Pounds All Go?

 

The Arabs are blaming Israel and the occupation and colonial oppressive rule for their money woes. Initially their audit by Tariq Dana, a senior research fellow at Birzeit University, as reported in the Arab Palestinian Authority (APA) news service, Ma’an News Agency, reported that the APA suffers from deeply ingrained corruption. But perhaps the APA is not entirely to blame as after all the APA was birthed from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which itself suffered from the very same deeply ingrained corruption. Of course it almost goes without saying that the PLO passed their tradition and systemic deeply ingrained corruption on into the very similar structure adopted in the whole flesh by the APA. According to the report, the APA corruption is, in effect, a self-enforcing system dependent upon the graft and deceit formed through what the report named, “patron-clientelism” which pretty much mimics what in the Western nations is called crony capitalism except that there is little to any capitalism in the APA ruled areas. The report claimed that all this ingrained corruption which will be near impossible to weed out as it is simply the way things get done, will get done and always have gotten done ever since during the management by the PLO used a system, “during the 1980s, the PLO leadership used the Sumud (steadfastness) Fund…which was formally channeled through the Palestinian-Jordanian joint committee…to award their supporters and exclude others.”

 

In the report Dana noted that, “After the Oslo Accords, the patron-client regime was unsurprisingly inherited by the (A)PA and constituted the backbone of its institutional base.” It was mentioned that the corruption was “associated with the personalized and unaccountable style of governance of late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian political leadership.” Using the first audit of the APA back in 1997, because, after all, every organization waits for four years after their inception to submit to a formal audit as why find out what is wrong at the start when maybe it could be repaired, found nearly forty percent of the APA budget, equaling around three-hundred-twenty-six-million dollars, was misappropriated. Dana continued pointing out that there is a continued system of corruption which has been strengthened through a massive public sector of “over 165,000 civil servants who are fully dependent on salaries guaranteed by international aid to the (A)PA.” The report further pointed to another problem area spawning from, Dana explained, “The dysfunction of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and the complete absence of legislative monitoring of the governmental budget have freed the presidency and the executive from institutional checks-and-balances and public accountability.”

 

 

Yasser Arafat takes oath to be the greatest of all when it came to setting up a culture of deeply ingrained corruption as head of the PLO. When the PLO was granted authenticity as the (A)PA, Yasser Arafat brought that culture of deeply ingrained corruption with him. Upon the death of Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, his faithful second in command all these years, proved to be no slouch when it came to continuing the culture of deeply ingrained corruption. Now the world continues, especially the Europeans, contributing the billions of Euros, Dollars, and Pounds we can never ask as to where they all have gone. We know, but must never speak or the whole house of cards will fall and all will be wearing the blame.

 

 

The report went into an area which seemed unusual for an audit but proved interesting to read, at least more interesting than any of the numbers and other banalities. The report cited an explanation that the APA public sector may be massive and corrupt, but it also is very fickle for employees. It gave the following example, “If employees express criticism of (A)PA policies, they are likely to be forced into early retirement, denied salary payments, or arbitrarily removed from their posts. They may also face a series of punitive measures, including denial of promotion or transfer to distant areas.” Special mention went to the Ministry of Local Government which is an interesting way by which the APA uses money distributed to those recognizes mukhtars, tribe heads and heads of influential families allowing them to speak on behalf of those who they control thus extending further the propagation of the corrupt hierarchical system.

 

But the best part of the entire report are the conclusions as to who is to blame and from where this deeply ingrained corruption was imposed upon the APA and the PLO likely before them. Yes, you guessed it, Israel. The only way to explain this stretch is to quote the report as given in the article. According to the report the APA corruption “played into the hands of the Israeli government, whose intention in signing the Oslo accords was to create a client state that they could continue to control through the rents distributed to the (A)PA via international donors, coupled with a strategy of territorial fragmentation and containment.” Even worse, “Israel has repeatedly contributed to and exploited corruption in the (A)PA. It has done so in order to place the blame on the Palestinians for their economic ills and to distract attention from the devastating impact of its colonial policies on Palestinian social and economic development.” And further, even if the corruption was not any base for the economic problems, the report concludes, “Although corruption within the (A)PA is undoubtedly harmful economically, it is worth noting that its effects are a distant second to the impact of systemic Israeli destruction of the Palestinian economy.”

 

The conclusion that the systemic deeply ingrained corruption being caused by Israel must be caused by the Israel Electric Company (IEC) charging the APA for the electricity provided to the areas under their autonomy where the IEC provides electricity for the Palestinian electric provider. The only problem is that the electricity provider is government owned by the APA and they have fallen years behind in their payments. Actually, records show that the Arab Palestinian electric company has not paid for the electricity they have received for at least the past decade, if ever. Further, when the Israeli government has attempted to divert tax monies due the APA to cover their overdue electric bill the European Union and numerous European governments, NGOs and European financed Israeli NGOs go into apoplectic shock decrying the possible end of the world being upon the earth as the APA is being held to normal rules and forced to actually pay for the electricity they have already consumed. The IEC gave notice to the APA that if they made no effort to mitigate their outstanding balance then the IEC would be left with no alternative but to cut off the power provided by the Israeli company. You would have thought that the IEC had threatened to steal all their children’s toys or some other diabolical horrific act by the reactions from all quarters starting with the United Nations, United States State Department and the European Union among other NGOs and nations from every continent reacting with shock and amazement that the Israeli government would permit this private company from cutting power to a group who had not made any effort for over a decade to pay for the electricity they had consumed. The Israeli government instead of turning a deaf ear to the whiners from the world over instead threatened the IEC and then cajoled them and twisted their corporate arms pressing them to continue to provide electricity to the APA free of charge.

 

If anyone believes that the APA in Judea and Samaria are not meeting their obligations, they have nothing on Hamas and friends in Gaza. Israel provides Gaza with most of its potable water and over half of its electricity and receives no payments for these provisions. Additionally, Israel sends a full trainload of tractor trailer rigs with full loads across the border crossing every single day, even on the Sabbath and, believe it or not, even every day last summer including during the Operation Protective Edge. The Israelis continued to transport tons of food and medical supplies every day during the weeks of war with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups every single day despite the fighting. Israel also continued to provide electricity and water as if nothing was different and in complete disregard for the state of war. Why would Israel do something so completely counterintuitive? Oddly enough the reason you would receive from the Israeli government, the IDF or any official in the Israeli government would be that while the people of Gaza elected Hamas to be their government the people cannot be held responsible for that same government they elected and anyways, Israel is not at war with the people of Gaza, just the terrorist groups which conduct rocket attacks and other violent acts against Israelis. Does any of this make one iota of sense? Of course not. Why would the Israeli government do such a thing? Fear of what the world would think and that somebody in Europe, especially in Brussels at the headquarters of the European Union might throw a hissy fit and say mean and nasty things about Israel and that would hurt Bibi’s feelings and we know we must not hurt Bibi’s feelings or that of anybody in Europe, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or at the next meeting of the Arab League or the United Nations Human Rights Council. It sure is not to receive any credit for doing what is right and humane even when it works in direct contradiction to the good of Israel and her people.

 

What can we deduce from all of this? Well, first thing is if the APA has some systemic financial difficulties, it must not be ascribed to the APA as they are the ones who must never be held responsible. Well, if it cannot be the APA, who can we as the powers of the world blame? Well, the United States claims, “not us,” the European Union says, “don’t look at us,” while the United Nations disputes their complicity and the Arab League suggest, “Let’s blame Israel, they did it,” and the others all look knowingly at each other nodding and they all blame Israel. How can Israel fight the world powers, the world media, especially the mainstream media and leftist media and fight the combined power of every United Nations organization, the world’s majority of NGOs and a general sense of anti-Semitism which holds the Jewish Nation as the scapegoat for all the ills of the world? The fight is an uphill fight and it is about to take a particularly nasty turn when Israel goes from being blamed for any and all opposition to the current Iran Nuclear Deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 and soon after Iran turns nuclear then Israel will likely be blamed for not opposing Iran with sufficient stridency and for not taking the necessary steps to prevent Iran from acquiring the necessary tools and abilities to produce nuclear weapons. Then the world will look to Israel and demand what they plan to do about the Iranian nuclear weapons and then demand to know when Israel plans to act. The realty comes down to Israel is demanded to stand down and not act and then blamed when nothing was done. Israel is pushed to act to repair a grand mistake made by other nations and then condemned for acting. It is the old situation of, and we will use blasted for a better and more familiar term; blasted if they do and blasted if they don’t, can’t win for losing. Take it as you wish but the thing the world had best understand, Iran needs Israel as the monster behind the Iranian governments every unsolved problem, that position does not transfer as well to the United States or Europe, so Israel has an upside down insurance policy; in it is the safety which Iran can blame for all its ills while Iran has little use for the Great Satan when the little Satan will do and once the United States is rendered muted as the great Satan then Europe becomes the next Great Satan. Anyway, Israel is well practiced at taking the blame in stride and will depend on being blamed as everyone else tries to explain why they were targeted. Must be wonderful to be any of you.

 

Beyond the Cusp