Corruption And Cavorting With Terror Is Now Officially A Basis For A Palestinian State

In June 2002, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said:

Frankly, the Palestinian Authority, which is corrupt and cavorts with terror ... is not the basis for a Palestinian state moving forward," Rice told the Mercury News editorial board.

So why does the PA under Abbas--which is still corrupt and still cavorts with terror--now a basis for a Palestinian state?

In Rewarding Palestinian Terrorism, Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen at Pajama Media list other indications of the US change in policy:

The U.S. distributes funds to the Palestinians through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Until now, the U.S. funded only selected projects, which were expected to be vetted and certified by the USAID to ensure recipients used the funds only for their allocated purposes, and did not “commit, threaten or support terrorism.”

Yet, in dozens of cases the USAID mission for the West bank and Gaza failed to enforce federal laws requiring they bar organizations and individuals that threaten, support, or are affiliated with terrorism. The USAID also failed to certify that recipients have not provided material support for terrorism.

...The USAID mission argued that the prohibition against cash assistance to the PA is “technically an anti-corruption measure and not an anti-terrorism measure.” Thus, they claim they violated no anti-terrorism clause.

Such clever manipulation of U.S. laws to prevent funding terrorist and corrupt regimes seems equivalent to the irrational Bush Administration rationale for giving $150 million in cash directly to the PA within a new $555 million aid package.

This would be the first time the U.S. gives the utterly corrupt PA cash to use as it likes, even to share with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

...Even though Fatah took joint responsibility with Hamas for a suicide bombing that killed an Israeli shopper in Dimona on February 4, the Bush Administration may be considering a PA request to intervene on its behalf in U.S. courts against the families of Palestinian terror victims awarded compensation for the loses.

Read the whole thing.

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