Quadruple aid to Hamas : Socratic Rhythm Method

by Matt Barr

Quadruple aid to Hamas

The U.S. and Europe will not send aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, opting instead to "endors[e] help to the Palestinian people themselves." I'm sure that'll turn out splendidly. Perhaps the U.N. can be involved, just to make sure things go off without a hitch.

Predictably, other nations are stepping in. (Predictably, one is Russia. As predictably, Russia initially backed the civilized world before talking out the other side of its mouth to Hamas.) Qatar said Monday it would contribute $50 million -- qite a qeen's ransom -- to make up for the U.S. and European cutoff. Iran said Sunday it would chip in $50 million of its own.

Causing wagons to be circled against us in the Middle East: never actually the best course of action, foreign policywise. Now, foreign aid does almost nothing productive, for us or for its purported recipients, but it seems to me that faced with a party of terrorists winning elections, we should quadruple our "aid," not cut it off. Hear me out.

First, start by acknowledging that "aid" to Hamas is likely to increase, not decrease, when we decide not to send any more. Sunday it was Iran, Monday it was Qatar; today it will be another country and tomorrow another, cozying up to their buddies, offering a hand when the Great Satan gives them the shaft. We've cancelled $240 million in Palestinian aid over the Hamas election (direct payments to the Palestinian Authority were also suspended but none were planned in 2006 anyway); that's all of two more countries if Russia only matches Qatar's contribution. We don't starve the Hamas government out by cutting off aid, we give it a net financial boost.

Realize too that this new "aid" is not going to help lift Palestine out of squalor. Neither would ours. I assume we know this and that's why we're comfortable with cutting it off and this decision is supported almost universally. We're not toying with the lives of the peasants, here, playing with abstract dollar figures while people live or die depending on where we put the decimal point. It simply makes no difference in a "humanitarian" sense how much money Hamas receives from anybody.

So bump it up, don't cut it off. Make it a billion. Say "we know what the election of Hamas means for the Palestinian people and we're saddened and concerned. Here's a lot more 'humanitarian aid.' You're going to need it." Which pisses off Hamas, Iran and their fellow travelers more, cutting off aid or acting like their people need it more than ever? Right.

Of course, a billion dollars is one expensive thumb in the eye. But when this increased "aid" fails to improve the quality of life of the Palestinian people, who gets the blame? A heroic effort will be made to ensure it's us, I know, but realistically. It's the Hamas-run government, which was elected, after all -- George Bush wasn't -- to improve the quality of life for the Palestinian people. If it can't use the excuse that a quarter billion in U.S. aid dried up, it's more on the hook.

If it helps, at the same time, ask yourself who gets the blame, easily as crap through a goose, when we cut off aid and the quality of life in Palestine doesn't improve, which it won't? You see where I'm going.

Cutting off aid to Hamas will embolden it and its allies, like Iran, and simmer resentment against us among the people who, contrary to all evidence everywhere in all of human history, expect that it's their money we're screwing around with. We save some cash -- except we don't, if we're serious about some amorphous concept of "endorsing direct aid" (where's Sally Struthers?) -- and feel all superior, but we get the short end. We really do. It's not worth it.

As an added bonus, as much as this would desperately alarm Andrew Sullivan, there's something fundamentally (bad choice of word) Christian about lavishing more love on your enemy when he starts to rattle his sabre. Make the adjective "moral" if you prefer. You want the high road? It's not cutting off aid.

This approach is not the Bush administration's approach. They've gotten foreign aid mostly right, to hear those who pay more attention to the issue than I do tell it: They set conditions on aid, and make countries meet them before the check is cut. No Country Left Behind.

I think though it's not that difficult to get everyone to agree that Palestine is a special case, a round hole the square peg of our current approach to foreign aid might not fit into. I would rather invest more heavily in a Hamas-led government than less; I would rather demonstrate, boldly, that we're the good guys, and that we have no confidence in the ability of Hamas to live up to the trust the Palestinian people invested in it at the ballot box.

By the way, before you confront me with the charge that "aid" will be used to blow good guys up, that's why I asked you to acknowledge that any "aid" Hamas gets is going to be used for that, and that that "aid" will go up, not down, if we withhold ours. If we're to have these stupid term limits and lame duck Presidents, this is the perfect way for one of them to do the right thing for the long term rather than the popular one for this instant.

We are not undermining or weakening Hamas by cutting off aid. If the point is to feel good about ourselves, you'll feel better if we dramatically increase our aid, not cut it off. We're doing the wrong thing, and it's going to bite us when Palestinian and Arab "undecideds" start lining up against us. Kill them with kindness.

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Tracked on April 19, 2006 10:10 AM

Comments

dymphna posted:

I could buy this -- it's counter-intuitive, which is always appealing -- except for one thing: unless we could also increase aid to Iraq, the Sudan, etc., it would be damaging. Like rewarding bad behavior increases it.

And then there is the Arab psyche to contend with: they'd see it as weakness on our part. Something done out of fear.

What I'd like to see instead of ANY aid to any country is the end of ngo's in their white SUVs and instead the establishment of entreprenurial projects with some reasonable oversight. Like we could offer money and expertise to Hamas to rebuild the greenhouses they destroyed. They would build 'em and guard 'em and be expected to have some product at the end of a specified period.

Kind of like Grameen, only a little larger. Palestine needs businesses. Right now, everyone simply "works" for the gummint. So when they break out in hysteric fits -- as they did when the Jericho jail was breached and the prisoners taken by the Israelis -- many of them went on work strikes. It would be funny if it weren't such sand-poundingly stupid behavior.

I'll bet many Palestinians would love to be helped to begin their own businesses. Think of the ownership mentality...it sure undermines the desire to destroy things.

April 19, 2006 9:38 AM

Dave Schuler posted:

For some reason or other my trackback didn't seem to take, so ping!

April 19, 2006 10:17 AM

MJB posted:

I have no trouble believing it would be spun as an act of fear -- figure out the worst light in which to possibly portray us, and militant Islamists will work out a way to get there. But if we were out front about the fact we're doing it because the Palestinian people are in big trouble, while the "fear" accusation would stick with those predisposed to believe it already, we'd get a lot of mileage out of it. And I think the public relations consequences of shutting off aid are worse than the PR consequences of being even more generous.

Maybe what we should really do is buy Palestine and make it the 51st state. Give them a share of the tobacco settlement and tell them to build an interstate and some strip malls with it.

April 19, 2006 10:22 AM

a superfluous man posted:

You mean get them really addicted to Western aid? So then when they encourage, support, and praise a really bad terrorist act we would have more leverage in threatening to withdraw their lifeblood?

Sounds interesting. But I don't buy it. Withdraw aid now to the Islamic nazis.

April 20, 2006 8:47 AM

MJB posted:

Nah. I have to emphasize that for my suggestion to work it has to be only money, and hardly a dent in our budget -- it's like my deciding whether to give somebody $5 or $20. Does it really matter? The only difference is what you're saying by slinging your money around (or not).

We cut off aid because (I presume) we don't want to contribute to Hamas' well-known hobbies. But if our withdrawal of aid results in a net gain, we've done more harm than good. If the point is to take the high road, then again, I argue you don't do that by cutting off aid.

The opportunity to say "wow, you elected Hamas? You're going to need a lot more humanitarian aid" is delicious. It helps us not get the blame when the Palestinian quality of life doesn't improve under Hamas. More positively, it gives us more of a right to scrutinize Hamas' performance vis a vis improving the quality of life of its people. We become stakeholders. Also, it says they don't scare us. (We mustn't give them money! They'll make bombs! Feh. They will anyway.)

April 20, 2006 9:13 AM

Freedom Fighter posted:

Hmmm. Interesting idea but....

Sorry, I can't agree with this..Any more than I agree with the $600M the Bush Administration has scheduled for `humanitarian aid' to the Palestinians over the next three years.

Unfortunately, you perhaps haven't considered that US aid money to Hamas will not win the Great Satan any friends in the region any more than the billions we gave Arafat did, or cut off Islamist influence..as well as making a mockery of the War aginst Jihad.

Islam, jihad and Jew hatred are the Hamas agenda, and no amount of money is going to change that. Hey, it hasn't already! Hamas could very easily have gone the Arafat route and mouthed a few platitudes in English while saying something very different to their own people in Arabic.

One huge reason Hamas won big was because Fatah was perceived as less than competant in waging the War Against the Jews.

I also have a problem with American dollars financing the murder of innocent people simply because they happen to be Jews. And any `humanitarian' aid to the Palestinians frees up money that Hamas doesn't have to use to take care of their people and can use in the War Against the Jews. And us.

Another issue is that the Palestinians are hardly destitute.

How do you think ramped up aid is going to resonate with our ally Israel? And what kind of message is it going to send in general about how serious we are about the War Against Jihad?

Financing Hamas does nothing to help the USA.

Want Middle East peace? The central issue inthe Arab Israeli conflict is a simple one..the inability of the Arabs to live in peace and equality next to Jews. Solve that one and the other issues fall neatly into place.

April 21, 2006 6:15 PM

MJB posted:

Even if it were somehow possible, I'm not interested in buying friends in the Middle East. I'm antisocial by nature. So's my country. And if it were possible to change people, it wouldn't be with money.

Cutting off aid results in a net gain financially and more wagons circled against us. That doesn't make sense. Weighed against the benefit of... what? A statement along the lines of "you guys elected a bunch of psychos who want to kill people. We don't like that." There are plenty of ways to make that clear. Increasing aid fourfold is one of them. "Man, you elected who? That's rough. You're going to be sorry. Here, go build a hospital." Push.

Again, it's only money. If you want foreign aid decisions to be meaningful in terms of dollar amounts, we'll need some serious fiscal discipline in this country; I won't hold my breath. An increase puts Hamas more on the hook to take care of its people, exposes them as frauds when they don't, and flummoxes our critics in the region. Israel will manage.

April 22, 2006 10:23 AM

Bernard Guerrero posted:

I don't buy it, either. The aid buys us precious little influence to begin with, and I don't actually believe anybody will pony up the actual dough, anyway. (Maybe Iran, but that's just our cash getting recycled, anyway.)

April 26, 2006 5:35 PM

roseanna purcell posted:

i think the freezing of aid is a good idea because as u said yourself we gave them clear goals while he threat hung above them and then finally cut it.....its nit being heartless...in fact they are in total control of the defrost button....they need to cop on to themselves first!!!!!

May 10, 2006 2:17 PM

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