Another $30 Million Sent

NEW YORK – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the Bush administration’s new policy of providing funds directly to the terrorist Palestinian Authority regime.

The first $30-million was sent to the PA this week. Although the funds are ostensibly for construction projects, they will free up other funds for the PA to use in its continuing war against Israel. Until now, the U.S. gave aid only to individual, non-PA building and social service contractors in PA-controlled areas. The U.S. refused to provide aid directly to the PA because of the Palestinian Authority’s long record of sponsoring terrorism and misappropriating foreign aid.

The Bush administration has already pledged to provide $213.5-million to the Palestinian Arabs this year, up from $100-million in previous years. According to the New York Times (July 1, 2003), the new Bush plan is to give the funds directly to the PA, and to give as much as $1-billion.

The aid package will include $300-million in CIA training and assistance, which will help build up the PA’s terrorist “security forces”—even though the CIA previously provided such training to the PA security forces, which then used that training in carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: “It is appalling that a president who has vowed to put an end to terrorist regimes around the world is now giving U.S. taxpayers’ dollars directly to the corrupt terrorist PA regime—a regime that refuses to fulfill the conditions listed in President Bush’s own Road Map plan, such as dismantling terrorist groups and halting anti-Israel incitement.”

A recent poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that 76.% of Americans oppose giving U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs; only 11.5% favor it.