Oxfam survey: Financial boycott pushes Palestinians into poverty and essential services to meltdown

[Tom Joad]

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-728LJB?OpenDocument
A survey commissioned by international development agency Oxfam International and released today, highlights how the suspension of Western aid and Israel's refusal to transfer money owed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) has led to grave humanitarian consequences for Palestinians.

The survey by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion (PCPO) found that more than four out of five of the 677 families interviewed have seen a drop in their income following the year long boycott of the Palestinian Authority. Half of all the families reported losing more than half their income.

The PCPO also interviewed 67 senior managers running schools, hospitals and water services across the West Bank and Gaza. Nine out of ten managers said that services had been negatively affected by this boycott. Half of the essential service managers reported that they have cut their vital services by 50 per cent or more because of insufficient funding.

Palestinians had already been struggling to make ends meet when key Western donors including the US, EU and Canada suspended direct aid to the Palestinian government in April 2006. The move came in response to the victory of Hamas in parliamentary elections. Israel halted tax and customs revenue transfers it owed to the PA shortly afterwards.
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Comment: Starving people is never a good idea. Used as a weapon to force political change, it is a form of terrorism.
Break The Seige!

End US support for Israeli occupation.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/

[JDPriestly]

1. So, why don't the Palestinians crack down on their terrorists,

treat Israel like a neighbor and live happily ever after in a more peaceful world.

I assure you that if the people of New Jersey started sending suicide bombers into New York City, NYC would soon react just like Israel has. The people of New Jersey would soon find themselves isolated and probably, yes, hungry since a lot of people from New Jersey depend on jobs in New York for their livelihoods.

Even the Palestinians have to live with reality. No matter how "right" they think they are. No matter how wronged they have been, they have to live with their reality. The best way for them to change the reality that Israel is their neighbor is to live as good neighbors to the Israelis. However wronged they have been, the Palestinians are their own worst enemies. They have spent over 50 years trying to right wrongs and blaming the Israelis. I just don't buy their sad story anymore. You know what they say about people over 50 -- they are responsible for their faces and their lives. Palestine is over 50 years old and needs to start acting its age.

The minute that Palestinians start to act like responsible world citizens, the world will come to help them out. No one really wants to help a nation that harbors suicide bombers.

[Tom Joad]

2. Israel occupies Palestine. that is NOT neighborly.

Children are hungry due to the sanctions and punishments placed on the Palestinian people by Israel and US and its "allies".

I do not believe in holding children hostage to the political dictates of military oppressors.

[rodeodance]

3. so----suffer the children because of adult problems???? Jimmy Carter was

right---there is a form of apartied going on in Palestine

[Tom Joad]

6. It is worse. The world did not place sanctions on the Black population of

South Africa.

[breakaleg]

4. self delete

[breakaleg]

5. And what reality does Israel have to live with? The fact that they have a stronger

military so they can take whatever they want, whether it belongs to them or not?

[papau]

7. Is Oxfam in a different realty world? - the story is wrong on its facts

Two truths- grave humanitarian consequences for Palestinians and Israeli non-transfer-
just are not related.

Indeed buried in the story is the fact of western payments to PA government offices and workers, as the ReliefWeb story noted that the poverty goes on and is up 30% in a year, despite that money flowing.

And Oxfam is also guilty since it notes that "aid alone is not a panacea for Palestinian poverty, nor will it deliver peace: that requires intensified efforts by all parties to seek a two-state solution. However, Oxfam has witnessed a rapid rise in suffering and insecurity as a result of the boycott of the PA. Many programmes operated by Oxfam and its partners in the water, health, and agriculture sectors have been placed in jeopardy." but does not tie any of the problem to the the second Infitata costs, and Hamas' decision to favor guns over economic development.

Have these folks lost it as to cause and effect - and now need only to dump on Israel to justify alternate reality posts? Oxfam is a great org and does great things for the poor, but it really hates Israel and lets that hate color its reports.

As Hamas has noted, aid from the West and Arab countries has doubled via the skill of Hamas in pointing out the evil Israeli action and getting all the giving speeded up, despite the US's non-giving that one would think would have decreased the total received below prior years levels. Plus transfer to Abbas from everyone - including Israel - is occurring - it is just not to the Hamas controlled government.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/815543.html
20/01/2007
Israel transfers $100m in frozen Palestinian tax funds to Abbas
By News Agencies

Israel transfered $100 million in frozen tax funds to Palestinian Authority hairman Mahmoud Abbas as promised on Thursday, an official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said Friday.

"The money has been transferred," said the official. The funds are part of the customs duties and Value-Added Tax that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

[Jim Sagle]

9. There you go again, you damn spoilsport - ruining a good Israel-bashing thread with pesky facts.

You're just so pesky! ;-)

[papau]

11. I hate the occupation as much as any and want a Taba/Geneva peace now- but I hate non-truth also n/t

n/t

[madrchsod]

8. on what right does israeli claim it`s right

to force a people off of their land? where is it written that god gave the israeli`s the right to return?

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sabbat hunter]

12. how about

seizing the assets of the arafat estate, seeing that he stole his money from the palestinian people.


the money in that estate alone can solve a great deal of the financial problems.