Bush pledges $50 million to Palestinian Authority

[PanzerJaeger]

You mean like food and water too?

No, they dont deserve a $50 million handout from the US, but we're helping them in an effort to better the lives of everyone in that area. Its funny, i post an article about how were giving them a bucket load of cash and were still the bad guys.

Yep, disposable people. How terribly convenient. I heard some decades back there was a group of people that some others thought didn't deserve anything. In the end though they did at least get special treatment. Lucky them eh?

Thats an especially cheap shot.

And thus ends the good news for the peace effort thread..

[Beirut]

No, they dont deserve a $50 million handout from the US, but we're helping them in an effort to better the lives of everyone in that area. Its funny, i post an article about how were giving them a bucket load of cash and were still the bad guys.

It's not that you're stil the bad guys, but this doesn't exectly make you the good guys either. $50M, in this context, is like letting the Palestinians look at a picture of your cousin while you're letting the Israelis bonk your wife. The US bears a much, much higher responsibility in this affair.

Thats an especially cheap shot.

A nasty one, but not that cheap. After all, there are people on the boards who again and again refer to the Palestinian people as animals. The Palestinians are often dehumanized as a people, both on these forums and elsewhere. They are looked down on and seen as less than equal. This bears a stricking resemblance to events from the past, in different eras, events that had tragic consequences.

Good news? I want to hear Bush say he's granting $500M for starters to build up the infrastructure for the Palestinians. Challenge the other Arab states to match it. Send neutral, third party engineers and doctors, paid for by the Americans, (and other Arab states if they can get off their lazy behinds) to start the process. The US can take the money out of the three billion a year Israel receives. Start a process that snowballs and becomes unstopable. Give the Palestinians a real taste of civilized life, not just a daydream from their prison existence. When they see and experience good hospitals, plentiful water, irrigation for crops, new homes (living in the bulldozed ones is very cramped I hear), neighbourhoods cleared of rubble, parks and greenspace, employment and opportunity, those are things they will not want to let go of too easilly. Those are the things that people need. Even Palestinians.

(Mind you, the Israeli armed forces might see the rebuilding as a sort of mission editior in a flight sim. Someone else creates a scenery file, the Palestinians download it and install it, then the Isreali air force blows it up again. Sorry, been playing IL2 too much. )

[Fragony]

I hope it falls in the right hands, I doubt it. Better not give money, build roads, schools, waterways, etc. These 50 million are destined to dissapear, it is very corrupt there.