Prof Barry Rubin who often appears on Israpundit is the Director of GLORIA which publishes MERIA. He is also the author of The Truth about Syria and many other books dealing with the ME.
Here’s an extract from his latest article.
You Owe Us Bigtime; The Destruction of Palestinian aid politics
My favorite sentence of the week is this one: “Asking for record $5.8 billion in aid through 2010, Palestinians promise fiscal reform.” Karen Laub wrote on this subject for the Associated Press, December 5, 2007, recounting how the Palestinian Authority (PA) asked the world to double the aid it receives.What is funny about that opening sentence is that the PA has been given so much money before and squandered it. Promises of reform have been made and broken for more than 13 years. It is hard—but quite important–to remember the PA has existed that long with so little positive achievement. If Palestinians have such a bad economy it is not due to the “occupation” or to Israel but to their own leaders’ greed, incompetence, failure to end violence, inability to present an attractive investment climate, and unwillingness to impose stability on their own lands.
