Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has seen through this charade for months. Back in May, about a week after Fatah and Hamas announced their intention to form a unity government, Ros-Lehtinen was emphatic about refusing to release taxpayer funds to “whatever hybrid marriage, whatever Rubrik’s cube” is used to rationalize such funding. The particular rationale the Obama administration is trying foist on Congress? As long as Hamas doesn’t “control” a unity government, American taxpayer dollars can keep flowing. Ros-Lehtinen wasn’t biting. “That’s not what the law says,” she explained. “I don’t care if there is one or five or hundreds of members of Hamas, no U.S. funds can go to the PA. Call it what you want…Be fools if you want. But we will hold the Obama administration’s feet to the fire.”
As of the beginning of October, the funds remain unreleased, something characterized by the Palestinian Authority as “collective punishment” in response to Abbas’ bid for statehood at the U.N. “It is another kind of collective punishment which is going to harm the needs of the public without making any positive contribution,” said Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), member of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, was unimpressed, telling a group of congressmen and Jewish organization leaders that “there may need to be a total cutoff of all aid to the Palestinians for pursuing [the U.N. route to statehood] which is very dangerous and ill advised.”
Bradley Goehner, communications director of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs confirmed Congress’s stance on the issue. “There is an informational hold on the funding,” he noted. “The Chairman (Ros-Lehtinen) and other Committee Members are seeking further details about how funds have been used in the past, how they will be used, safeguards, and the system in place to phase the Palestinians away from dependency on the U.S. This is a tool of Congressional oversight.” Goehner then spoke directly to the issue. “Members believe that the funding cannot be considered in a vacuum, and that the PA’s activities at the UN, its arrangement with Hamas, and its failure to recognize Israel’s right to exist as Jewish State must all be taken into consideration,” he said.
Yet the Obama administration remained adamant. “We still have some money in the pipeline but the concern is that if we don’t get this going with the Congress in short order there could be an effect on the ground,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. Former president Bill Clinton also expressed the idea that Congress should allow the Obama administration to call the shots on funding. “Everybody knows the U.S. Congress is the most pro-Israel parliamentary body in the world,” said Clinton. “They don’t have to demonstrate that.”
Perhaps not. But considering the level of Israeli support demonstrated by an Obama administration willing to countenance the funding of a federally-designated terrorist organization, as long as they don’t control a Palestinian unity government, Congress remains a counter-weight to the kind of faculty lounge, pseudo-intellectualism that afflicts the president and his enablers. All one has to do is substitute the word “Nazi” for “Hamas” and consider if funding a Fatah-Nazi unity government–as long as the Nazis are in the minority, of course–would make any sense. As to the inevitable comparison that progressives will make about the fact that we give foreign aid to Israel, thus it is only “fair” that we fund Palestinians, the response is simple: as of now, neither Fatah nor Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and the latter’s charter of existence calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state and the extermination of Jews.
U.S. taxpayers helping to provide cellphones and cash to facilitate that ambition isn’t fair. It’s obscene.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.
Pages: 1 2
If they bought cell phones they bought them from some non Muslim phone maker. Could it be we were smart enough to rig the phones for informational purposes only?
Since rigged cell phones are used to remotely detonate explosive suicide vests and IEDs, doesn't this mean that the Obama administration is indirectly supplying the tools of terrorism?
What is there to talk about? We have a law making it illegal to provide support for ANY Organization that cooperates with any known terrorist Organization. HAMAS is a TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. The "Palestinians" have united with them. Let the pound sand. When they stick out their hand tell them to ask Hamas for the aid. We are the fools if we give them one more cent. Anyone that does (Obama) ought to be up on charges. It is illegal.
We need to start obeying our own laws. We need to stop funding those that will kill us.
Isn't there anyone with some imagination, in this process? My vision …
Terrorist gets cellphone. Terrorist turns on cellphone. Terrorist dials number and puts phone to his ear. C4 inside phone detonates. No more terrorist …
Stephen – I like that idea very much!!!!!…maybe Mobama needs a new cell?
FIGHT TERRORISM – KILL AN ARAB.
That is racism
I have no doubt that some of the greatest Christians are Arabs. If any group has suffered at the hands of muslims (in muslim nations) certainly, they have.
Being a muslim has nothing to do with race. Anyone can be a muslim. With a statement like "KILL AN ARAB" – you do more harm than good. That's the mentallity of the muslims who obey their koran.
Bosnian Muslim terrorists attack US Embassy
Read more: http://searchlight-germany.blogspot.com/2011/10/b…
These filthy terrorist killers lived like rock stars in Israeli jails with many special privileges, and ate the best food. Even studying for university degrees. I'm surprised these serial killer monsters were not all issued with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades when they were set free. They were given everything else.
Excellent!!! report Arnold Ahlert. I find it sickening that U.S. tax dollars are going to murderers – continuously. (they are vile murderers – not freedom fighters). How much of that money went into blowing up buses with unsuspecting people riding them? or night clubs filled with young people?
We need U.S. leaders who are appalled at murderers.
Bravo on this report! (which should be reported by the 'drive-by' media – shame on them. If you support a murderer – you are one)
Stop calling them terrorists. They are murderers.
Reading this article and the comments it is very apparent to me how much PC multiculturalism completely pervades our society, dominates its lexicon, and totally shapes the way in which we view the world. Even among most people that consider themselves to be anti-jihadists.
Indeed, jihad and terrorism are two mutually exclusive and completely different manifestations altogether. Yet thanks to PC multiculturalism that pervades our society, jihad is always conflated as being terrorism. Thus, what are really deliberate acts of war are not recognized for being what they really are, instead they are seen as desperate acts of extremists.
Thus, in the context of discussing Islam and Muslims, PC multicultural loaded terms such as terrorist, terrorism, moderate, extremist, extremism, radical, etc., should be avoided like the plague because all they do is reenforce false PC multicultural fantasies, myths, and assumptions. For instance, jihad is not the desperate act of political extremists who are terrorists, instead it's a deliberate act of war, as jihadists are soldiers of Allah fighting unbelievers in the cause of Allah to make Islam supreme.
"jihad is not the desperate act of political extremists who are terrorists, instead it's a deliberate act of war" – Exactly!!!
I wish I had just a little of your talent (the ability to write well)
I refuse to accept the idea that the leaders of non-muslim nations are ignorant of the facts. Most likely, there is a long money trail. The voters really need to acert that blessed power (to vote) to get rid of them.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/europe_glo…
From the Article" Europe, Globalization and the Coming Caliphate"…
"Bat Ye'or says, Europe has effectively facilitated its own Islamization"
America is following suit.
continued:
"Multiculturalism has also resulted in rapprochement between Islam and Europe, a multilateral partnership between the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the U.N., and the Palestinianization of European policy to delegitimize Israel and cast it as the occupier/victimizer of Arab-Palestinians."
Explains perfectly, who and what that u.n. is all about.
continued….
"In summary, in Europe, Globalization and the Coming Caliphate, Bat Ye'or observes that the EU experience, which began as a bulwark for security and defense, a means to fuel its economy and a quest for global empowerment, has become a foolhardy enterprise that has led to Eurabia, the subjugated status of dhimmitude. Under Eurabia, Europe is now experiencing the gradual eradication of human rights, the legitimization of jihadist terrorism and the demise of the democratic values of freedom, justice, tolerance and equality."
Wake Up America.
(thank you for that link ObamaYoMoma)