Ranger from the North

Captain Ed comments on the Quartet's decision to send money to the Palestinians through a "temporary international mechanism."

I have no objection to sending food and medicine to the Palestinian people for humanitarian purposes. However, sending money and paying the salaries of those with Fatah and Hamas government sinecures undermines the entire purpose of isolating the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians voted these people into power, primarily because they believed that they would not have to suffer the consequences of electing unreconstructed terrorists as their representatives. Just when that decision started to make a personal impact on the people who made that decision, the Quartet has performed their normal Deus ex Machina role, rescuing the Palestinians once again from their own folly.

And what will be the result of handing cash over to these government employees? The Hamas government will collect taxes from the salaries, and probably in large amounts. The commerce it restores will also generate tax revenues for the Hamas-led government. Freed from the responsibility of paying salaries, just where will all those tax dollars go? It won't get earmarked for Bridges and Trains to Nowhere. And that assumes that Hamas (and Fatah as well) won't simply confiscate a large part of that money up front.

If anyone wonders why this situation still has no resolution, this fecklessness on the part of the West is a prime example. The Palestinians have no stake in negotiating a final settlement in a two-state framework they don't support. They want one state -- theirs. They know that they can defy the West and still get their funding and sympathy. The Palestinians never have to face consequences for their decisions, and so continue to make bad decisions. When that pattern stops, they may finally have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Until then, we can expect a continuation of the post-Oslo dynamic in the West Bank.

I agree completely.

UPDATE: Paul Mirengoff at Power Line makes an excellent point:

Secretary of State Rice calls this move "a response to the needs of the Palestinian people." That it is. But it's also a response to the needs of Hamas. Why not use the money to respond to the needs of other populations in serious distress -- ones that have not selected terrorists to govern them?