When you have a big mouth and lies come out of it and what you say and do costs constituents a ton of money and brings pain and anguish and you are a pandering, dangerous politician you often are forced to rethink:
Biden Builds Back
Obama’s Middle East
That didn't take long.
One week after piously and erroneously repudiating the
Commission on Unalienable Rights established by his predecessor Mike Pompeo,
Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed the hollow selectivity of this
administration's commitment to human rights and democratic reform.
On April 7, Blinken said
he was "pleased to announce" the reinstatement of tens of millions of
dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza and of some $150 million to support
the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "All assistance will be provided
consistent with U.S. law," Blinken added.
Easier said than done.
The Taylor Force Act, signed into law in 2018,
withholds aid from the Palestinian Authority until the State Department
certifies that the ruling party of the West Bank has terminated payments to
family members of terrorists. It hasn't. That was one reason the Trump
administration slashed the aid in the first place. Nor is there evidence that
suddenly the Palestinians have curtailed the so-called pay-to-slay schemes that
incentivize the murder of civilians and the perpetuation of conflict. On the
contrary: They bristle at the idea of changing their corrupt and
self-destructive ways.
A second law from 2018,
the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act,
holds beneficiaries of foreign assistance legally and financially responsible
for terrorism committed against U.S. citizens. This notion—that the Palestinian
Authority might actually have to pay a price for its incitement to anti-Semitic
violence—so terrified the leadership in the West Bank that it sent a letter to the Trump
administration in February 2019 renouncing U.S. aid. I must have missed the
make-up note postmarked Ramallah.
UNRWA long ago abandoned
its original mission for anti-Israel activism. According to Pompeo, there
are fewer than 200,000 Palestinian
Arabs who remain displaced by the 1948 war. Rather than work to resettle this
dwindling population, UNRWA devotes its resources to the delegitimization of Israel and
to the perpetuation of a mythic "right of return" that obstructs
peace. UNRWA also operates in the Gaza Strip, where its
facilities were used by Hamas operatives and
other terrorists during the 2014 war with Israel.
"Obviously, there
are areas where we would like to see reform," State Department spokesman
Ned Price said at a recent briefing. That's the understatement of the year. But
what hope is there for reform of UNRWA when the Biden administration rewards it
for doing nothing?
A conceit of President
Joe Biden's foreign policy is that involvement in corrupt multilateral
institutions somehow gives the United States an opportunity to improve them.
"By resuming this assistance today, not only do we have that dialogue, but
we have a seat at the table," Price said. "We can help drive UNRWA in
the ways that we think it is in our interest and consistent with our values to
do." That was also his argument for rejoining the World Health Organization
and the U.N. Human Rights Council. He has little to show for it. The results so
far: A propagandistic and misleading investigation into
the origins of the coronavirus, and four anti-Israel
resolutions. Having a seat at the table doesn't matter when everyone ignores
you.
What was particularly
galling about Blinken's announcement was its disconnect from the nature of
Palestinian governance. Here is an administration that says the conflict
between democracy and authoritarianism will define the 21st century. Here is an
administration that prides itself on its support for human rights. And here is
an administration that says it will be able to prevent millions in taxpayer
funds from directly benefiting the Palestinian Authority, and thereby breaking U.S.
law, by taking into account
the intended primary
beneficiary or end user of the assistance; whether the PA is the direct
recipient of the assistance, of course; whether the assistance involves
payments of Palestinian Authority creditors; the extent of ownership or control
the PA exerts over an entity or an individual that is the primary beneficiary
or end user of the assistance; and whether the assistance or, in some cases,
the services provided directly replace assistance or services that the PA would
otherwise provide.
Good luck. The renewed
assistance, remember, will be circulated in a polity whose president is in the
16th year of a 4-year term, whose official corruption is legendary, whose 2.7
million subjects are policed by no less than six internal security forces, and
whose entry in the 2020 State Department Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices reads as follows:
reports of unlawful or
arbitrary killings, torture, and arbitrary detention by authorities; holding
political prisoners and detainees; significant problems with the independence
of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious
restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including
violence, threats of violence, unjustified arrests and prosecutions against
journalists, censorship, and site blocking; substantial interference with the
rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including harassment of
nongovernmental organizations; restrictions on political participation, as the
Palestinian Authority has not held a national election since 2006; acts of
corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for violence against
women; violence and threats of violence motivated by anti-Semitism;
anti-Semitism in school textbooks; violence and threats of violence targeting
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex persons; and reports of forced
child labor.
The entry for Hamas is
no better.
For all of his
"transformative" ambitions at home, Biden's Middle East policy is
remarkably backward-looking and uninspired. By denying aid to the Palestinians
and UNRWA, the Trump administration recognized that the Israeli-Palestinian
peace process had become a counterproductive sideshow, and that U.S. aid wasn't
contributing to the resolution of conflict, but incentivizing it. The more
urgent problem is Iran, which is why Trump was able to broker the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain,
the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Morocco.
Now Biden has pivoted
away from the anti-Iran coalition and toward the pro-Iran deal European allies.
He's distanced himself from Israel and moved toward the Palestinians. He's
rebuked the Saudis and coaxed the Houthis. He is trying to reconstruct, ever so
slowly, Barack Obama's Middle East. But he hasn't really explained why this
time will be different. After all: When you reward bad behavior, you get more
of it. And that is exactly what Biden is doing.
And:
++++
In a world where values count for little, Prager keeps plugging.
Fireside Chat Ep.181
You guys have been asking us for YEARS to make kid-specific content. We heard you! PREP is up and running, and it is already bringing thousands of kindred spirits together. Parents across the country are standing up and speaking out against Critical Race Theory and other toxic curricula in their schools. Click here to watch.
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