On Arab Chutzpah, Kurds and Kissinger

From our "Plus ca change" department

--Some 90 nations met in Paris this week to pledge more than seven billion dollars in aid to the Palestinians to help the relaunched peace process. Analysts have pointed out that the new aid promised to the Palestinians, will be of little use if Israel continues to throttle the Palestinian economy with border crossings, checkpoints and the huge barrier wall.

But you’ve got to admit the Europeans who joined the Paris aid effort have to be some of the most masochistic donors on the planet. They’ve already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into various projects in the West Bank and Gaza, only to see them blown to smithereens over the past couple of years by Israeli bombs and rockets.

But why should Europeans even be raising new funds?

If the Arab states really wanted to set the Palestinian economy back on its feet they could do it all by themselves�with both hands tied behind their backs. They’re rolling in new wealth. Right now, just in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, there are more than two trillion�that’s trillion--dollars worth of hotels, condominiums, sky scrapers, artificial ski slopes and islands being built. The Emirates are spending hundreds of billions of dollars more so that each sheikh can have his own airline. At the same time they’re snapping up banks and businesses around the globe�particularly in the United States – at bargain basement prices. .

Instead of buying a chunk of Citi Bank they could have bankrolled all of Gaza.