DoD wrote:

European and American governments have threatened to halt funding to the
Palestinians as soon as Hamas takes over the government. And yet for
years
they have known that the billions of dollars in funds they continue to
sink
into the PA's coffers have been embezzled or squandered. President Bush
and
the EU have chosen to view Abbas the honest alternative to Yasser Arafat,
a
man who will safeguard the funds being poured into his government.
Hamas's
recent victory in the government is a direct result of the Western
community
's deliberate refusal to acknowledge and put a stop to the corruption
they
helped fund.

It is well known that Arafat was corrupt. In David Samuels' September
2005
biographical article on Yasser Arafat in The Atlantic Monthly, Samuels
writes: "The amounts of money stolen from the Palestinian Authority and
the
Palestinian people through the corrupt practices of Arafat's inner circle
are so staggeringly large that they may exceed one half of the total of
$7
billion in foreign aid contributed to the Palestinian Authority. The
biggest
thief was Arafat himself."

Abbas was seen as the solution to Arafat. He was a man of his word who
had
waited in Arafat's shadow to emerge as the one person who could fight
terrorism and clean up the corruption, and in doing so revive the
Palestinian economy. In his inaugural speech, Abbas said he was aware of
the
urgency in implementing a plan of reform, and that the preservation of
public funds was "a national and moral duty." On the day he was elected,
the
Hamas welcomed Abbas, but warned in their news weekly al-Risala, that
fighting corruption was "more important than negotiating with Israel,"
and
that "if the people think he is serious [about this], they will support
him."

But Abbas immediately focused on trying to coerce militant groups into
giving up their guns and joining the PA security forces when he should
have
been focusing on the corruption that fueled the militants' anger. As a
member of the Jenin Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas's Fatah party advised,
".if Mr. Abbas's government was clean and strong, militant factions would
no
longer need to exist."

In the last year, Abbas has ordered symbolic, ineffectual measures to be
taken in order to placate the angry public. Last April, when gunmen were
routinely raiding Fatah offices and shooting at his residence in protest
of
high unemployment and low salaries, Abbas fired several security chiefs
for
"failing to halt lawlessness" and ordered the prosecutor general to
investigate three finance ministry officials and one of Arafat's former
aides for the embezzlement of millions of dollars in public funds.
Nothing
was ever heard of these investigations again.

In recent years, Abbas's investigations and calls for transparency have
been
enough to convince the international community that the funds are safe.
The
numerous calls by US congressmen and members of European Parliament to
investigate the use of financial aid in the territories have been met
with
ineffectual probing and the continued transfer of funds.



Now, Hamas has won the majority in Parliament because of its clean
government platform, and Fatah gunmen are still storming Abbas's
headquarters, demanding that corrupt officials in the top eschelon, who
have
still not been fired, resign. The president's impotence is evident. Now
he
waits for his Western benefactors to save him. And eventually, they will
come around.



Once the US and Europe begin talking to the new Palestinian government,
which they will, they will use Abbas as their buffer, feeling better that
they are funneling money through an "honest" individual with democratic
values, rather than a terrorist entity. But this time, if Hamas keeps its
word, the money will not be put into Swiss bank accounts or companies
that
do not exist. Some of it will very likely be put towards the betterment
of
the average Palestinian's life, but it may also show up in the purchase
and
production of new missiles and more weapons to be used against Israel. If
the West had not ignored the distress signals coming from the Palestinian
people and from within its own ranks, then Hamas would not be cleaning
house
today.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21347

Fools.