Nearly billion dollars direct aid disbursed to Palestinians in six mo

[notfullofit]

Nearly billion dollars in direct aid disbursed to Palestinians in six months
1 day ago
Agence France-Presse

PARIS (AFP) — The international community has paid out nearly a billion dollars in direct aid to the Palestinians in six months, officials of the International Donors' Conference for the Palestinian State said here late Monday, while hitting out at Israeli restrictions on movement by Palestinians.

The chair and the co-chairs of the Paris conference, which last December came up with pledges of donations totalling 7.7 billion dollars over three years, "strongly welcomed" the process of disbursing the funds.

The international community has paid out more than 920 million dollars in six months in direct budgetary support and signed for one billion dollars of bilateral agreements with the Palestinian Authority for development projects, according to a communique from the chair and co-chairs released by the French foreign ministry.

"This unprecedented level and rapid disbursement of contributions demonstrates the strong support of the international community to the Palestinian government," said the statement by Quartet special Middle East envoy Tony Blair, European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and a Norwegian representative who met at the French foreign ministry.

more...
http://www.middleeastprogress.org/2008/07/nearly-billion-dollars-in-direct-aid-disbursed-to-palestinians-in-six-months/

[JDPriestly]

1. The population of the Palestinian Territories is figured to be 3,760,000

So that is about $266 per person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian

For comparison, per capita income estimated at $1,268, but I don't know how reliable the source is.

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5977464/PALESTINE-PER-CAPITA-INCOME-ESTIMATED.html

[azurnoir]

2. There is something the article

doesn't say-just who gets to "disburse" the funds, do they go directly to the PA or are they going to an Israeli bank, who will then follow orders from the Israeli government as to where these funds go? It says direct but how direct?

[notfullofit]

3. According to the

AP $920 million has been disbursed to the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/07/europe/EU-France-Mideast-Donors.php

[bemildred]

4. You can bet your ass the money does not go directly to the individual Palestinians nt.

[azurnoir]

5. No I meant

that I know Israel has control over some Palestinian funds, but did not know if was limited to tax revenues or it was more.

[Vegasaurus]

6. Probably not

it goes into the hands of those in power, and is spent on bomb making, tunnel building, and other terrorist acitivity.

Imagine if a billion dollars were spent on infrastructure, or education.

There are so many better ways to spend aid money than on cronyism or terrorism.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Development projects = bomb making??

Because the article states that the funding is going to development projects, y'know things like infrastructure, health and education...

[notfullofit]

8. Hopefully

they will put it to a better use than did Arafat.

[Violet_Crumble]

9. What do you mean by hopefully?

If you have some sort of evidence that funding isn't being used for development projects as stated in the article, maybe you could share it with everyone here?

And digging up Arafat is lame. After all, corruption also happens in Israel...

[notfullofit]

10. Just saying...

hopefully this time the Palestinian people will benefit from the aid.
With that amount of money involved there should be some kind of oversight.