US cuts aid to Palestinians.

[Averageman]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-palestinians/u-s-to-redirect-over-200-million-in-aid-from-west-bank-gaza-idUSKCN1L923C
The United States is cutting more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians, the State Department said on Friday, amid a deteriorating relationship with the Palestinian leadership.
"We have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer,” the official said in a statement.
“As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza.”
And from a different perspective;
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/cuts-200m-aid-palestinians-180824200738805.html
A senior US official said on Friday that President Donald Trump had ordered the State Department to "redirect" the funding for programmes in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip to unspecified "high-priority projects elsewhere".
Almost echo's the above article, but here's the rub...
Ali Abunimah, cofounder of the Electronic Intifada publication, said Trump's decision on Friday might impact health and food assistance programmes but will not be "as severe as the cuts the US has already implemented for UNRWA, which have really inflicted great suffering on some of the most vulnerable Palestinians".
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Chicago, he said the political message of the cuts "is to tell the Palestinians that the American approach now is of putting essentially a gun to their heads - that they must go along with whatever the Americans and of course Israel dictates or the US will cut their funds.
"It's hard to see how the US thinks this will help them get their way," said Abunimah, adding that Washington's policy was driven by "the logic of bullying and bludgeoning Palestinians".
Relations between the US administration and the Palestinian Authority took a nosedive after Trump announced in December the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
The Palestinian leadership has since suspended contacts with the administration and consider that it can no longer play a mediation role in the Middle East peace process.

I don't believe negotiating from a position of weakness and dependency will get you much. The most we've ever asked from these guys is to end the violence/terrorism. I would suspect the leadership wont go hungry though. I'm surprised they haven't used threats of violence yet.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzGnOwccev8

[FlyingHunter]

Good. That $200M should go back to the taxpayers that earned it.

[TAZ]

Good. US tax $$ should be used to further us tax payer interests. I see no US interest in supporting anyone who harbors terrorists and hates the USA. We have spent the last god knows how many decades paying them off. Maybe that $$ can be used to shoot terrorists in the face wherever they pop up. $$ better spent IMO.

[Averageman]

I'm trying to understand the idea of sending them money in the first place;
Am I paying them to behave, or am I paying them so they don't misbehave and cause problems?
There is an amazing difference there, but I digress, you are correct, money taken from tax payers at the point of a gun, should not be used to pay for someone not to in essence, point a gun at someone else.
There is no little folly here in believing this will get better using the status quo of paying them off. They simply take the money and continue to behave poorly. I have no doubt the same money sent is buying them either weapons, or the time and full belly to pursue buying weapons.

[flenna]

Now to cut off the next group of despots we are sending money to, too.

[Straight Shooter]

Good. That $200M should go back to the taxpayers that earned it.

Or, Israel...in my humble opinion. THAT would chap their asses fo' sho'.

[gaijin]

Good news.
A single, positive step on the journey of ten thousand miles.

[1168]

Now to cut off the next group of despots we are sending money to, too.

I have a long list for that, starting with Pakistan. Screw it, lets just get out of the aid business, altogether, starting with the least grateful of our “allies”.

[yoni]

G-D bless President Trump.

G-D damn the 70% of so called Jews that don't support him.

Trump has done more good for Israel than any President in my life time.

Now if we can just get the President to cut aid to Israel, Trump would be my all time hero.

[SteyrAUG]

G-D bless President Trump.

G-D damn the 70% of so called Jews that don't support him.

Trump has done more good for Israel than any President in my life time.

Now if we can just get the President to cut aid to Israel, Trump would be my all time hero.

More than Reagan? Serious question, just wondering.

Unrelated, hilarious that the Palestinian "leadership" now refuses to mediate in the "peace process." So that would change what exactly?

[Straight Shooter]

G-D bless President Trump.

G-D damn the 70% of so called Jews that don't support him.

Trump has done more good for Israel than any President in my life time.

Now if we can just get the President to cut aid to Israel, Trump would be my all time hero.

Im...bewildered. May I ask, why would you like like the President to cut aid to Israel?

[Moose-Knuckle]

A single, positive step on the journey of ten thousand miles.

And you sir are a wordsmith, bravo. Very well put indeed.

[yoni]

Every president promised to move the embassy, but Trump did it.

Reagan was upset when Israel bombed the reactor in Iraq.

Trump took the evil that obama had done with Iran and reversed it.

I want Israel and the USA to always be friends. But I think the Israeli economy is such that today we can stand on our own 2 feet. Also when you take money, it then limits what you can do. Lastly America is 20 T in debit, so as a sign of friendship tell the American people you need the money more than we do.

If the USA and Israel want to jointly develop a weapon, then fine take the cash, but just to take 3 to 4 billion a year, nope. Israel has a annual budget of $117 billion. So the money we take from the USA amounts to about 3% or so. I think if Israel instituted performance audits of all government we could find maybe 10% waste. So let's make our people work better and in a sign of good will send the American tax payer their money back.

Post 1973 war, we were broke and needed help. In the 1980's we had like 700% inflation, it was hard living. But today we have hi tech and Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Lambo's driving the streets of Israel. In 1982 my brother in law bought a new Subaru and was the subject of gossip for what a show off he was.

The problem is Israel is a psychological junkie, when it comes to the USA. Our leaders use the cash as a sign of how close the 2 countries are.

[flenna]

Another positive step:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/09/02/pentagon-suspends-300m-in-military-aid-to-pakistan.html

[Wake27]

Another positive step:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/09/02/pentagon-suspends-300m-in-military-aid-to-pakistan.html

**** yeah.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Straight Shooter]

Every president promised to move the embassy, but Trump did it.

Reagan was upset when Israel bombed the reactor in Iraq.

Trump took the evil that obama had done with Iran and reversed it.

I want Israel and the USA to always be friends. But I think the Israeli economy is such that today we can stand on our own 2 feet. Also when you take money, it then limits what you can do. Lastly America is 20 T in debit, so as a sign of friendship tell the American people you need the money more than we do.

If the USA and Israel want to jointly develop a weapon, then fine take the cash, but just to take 3 to 4 billion a year, nope. Israel has a annual budget of $117 billion. So the money we take from the USA amounts to about 3% or so. I think if Israel instituted performance audits of all government we could find maybe 10% waste. So let's make our people work better and in a sign of good will send the American tax payer their money back.

Post 1973 war, we were broke and needed help. In the 1980's we had like 700% inflation, it was hard living. But today we have hi tech and Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Lambo's driving the streets of Israel. In 1982 my brother in law bought a new Subaru and was the subject of gossip for what a show off he was.

The problem is Israel is a psychological junkie, when it comes to the USA. Our leaders use the cash as a sign of how close the 2 countries are.

Thank you for that answer, sir. I knew it would be educational.

[SteyrAUG]

Im...bewildered. May I ask, why would you like like the President to cut aid to Israel?

You cut aid, you cut the leash. We give them money then tell them what they can't do. More importantly they don't need it. Their economy is very self sustaining, but free shit and free cash is free shit and free cash.

[SteyrAUG]

Reagan was upset when Israel bombed the reactor in Iraq.



Reagan "acted upset" because he had formed an alliance with the closest thing to a modern, secular democratic state in the muslim world. But he didn't want Iraq to become a nuclear power anymore than Israel did. But for all it's faults, Iraq was the best thing going as far as an oil producing arab state, they even had women in their government. Also they were fighting a war against Iran so of course we were going to form some kind of buddy alliance with them at the time.

Just a shame Bush 41 screwed it all up over the Iraq / Kuwait oil dispute. But I guess cheap oil was more important than recognizing the sovereignty of a declared ally and their borders. Kuwait even got the slant drilling techniques from US oil companies, but we create a lot of our own problems.

[Averageman]

You cut aid, you cut the leash. We give them money then tell them what they can't do. More importantly they don't need it. Their economy is very self sustaining, but free shit and free cash is free shit and free cash.
As it is now, the Palestinians are taking US aid through the UN and refuse to acknowledge the purpose of the payment was to encourage certain behaviours.
There is little reason to continue these payments if we are essentially funding bad behaviour.
This is why the UN and these types of payments are meaningless without behaviours changing to a positive desired result.