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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Trump administration transfers $20 million to PA for wastewater projects |
| 2017-09-21 |
| [IsraelTimes] White House redirects funds for West Bank use that were originally designated for economic aid to Egypt The Trump administration has directed an additional $20 million for the Paleostinian Authority, to go to wastewater projects in the West Bank, a White House official told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. After funds initially allocated for an economic aid package to Egypt were frozen in August over that country’s poor record on democracy and civil liberties, the State Department and National Security Council decided six weeks ago to re-distribute that money toward West Bank initiatives, the official said. If those specific funds ‐ which were part of a Fiscal Year 2016 budget allocation ‐ were not transferred, they would have evaporated at the end of September, when the fiscal year ends and such an appropriation would expire. The White House source denied that the looming passage of the Taylor Force Act, which is set to be voted on in December, was the impetus for re-directing that money. The source cited the administration recently saying it "strongly supports the Taylor Force Act" and signaled that the president would sign it into law. Jewish Insider, which first reported the re-allocation, had quoted an unnamed Congressional aide who said the White House "is trying to get money out of the door before Taylor Force goes into effect." "The $20 million in question was part of the reprogramming out of the Egyptian account, a decision that was made on a totally different level," the official said on Wednesday. "The urgency was the end of September date, not the Taylor Force Act." The source also emphasized those funds would be routed to specific programs that were supported by Israel and designed to enhance West Bank Paleostinians’ quality of life. "To be clear, this is not money that we are giving unfettered to the Paleostinian Authority" of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... . "This is money that’s going to be used to complete very important sanitation projects that benefit the Paleostinian people," the official said. "These projects that specifically improve the lives of the Paleostinian people are supported by the Israelis, because the wastewater issue is an issue for them, too." The Taylor Force Act, which passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month, would cut US funding to the PA if it doesn’t cease what critics call its program of compensating gunnies and their families. The Paleostine Liberation Organization has condemned it, saying shortly after its committee passage that legislation was "unacceptable" and would violate Paleostinians’ human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. Named after a former US army officer who was stabbed to death by a Paleostinian assailant when visiting Tel Aviv in March 2016, the bill was added earlier this month onto a larger appropriations bill slated for a December vote, in a bid to increase its chances of passing the Senate during the current legislative session. In a talk Monday to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee’s annual meeting at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Trump’s special peace envoy Jason Greenblatt spoke about the administration’s hope to get more water and better sanitation in the Paleostinian territories. An "area on which the United States and our partners are focused is wastewater treatment and reuse in the West Bank and Gazoo," he said, although he did not explicitly mention the $20 million that was being funneled for such projects. Earlier this year, Congressional Republicans were highly critical of a similar B.O. regime decision to quietly authorize $221 million for Paleostinian programs during the former president’s final hours in office. Trump officials went on to inform the Paleostinian Authority that it had frozen the funds just days after he entered the White House. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #8 Only 20 millions? That's an improvement, if it was Obama or Bush I'm sure it would be in the hundreds of millions. |
| Posted by: Charles 2017-09-21 22:29 |
| #7 Of course, since money is fungible, the 20 million "earmarked" for waste water projects means the PA has 20 million it can spend on ammunition. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2017-09-21 12:22 |
| #6 Well, the waste part is obvious.... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2017-09-21 10:36 |
| #5 what guarantees are there that the money won't find it's way into the pockets of the crooks who run those places? I thought there were specific provisions to assure that it would? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-09-21 10:35 |
| #4 How can you lower taxes and cut the federal debt when you're squandering money on Third World hell holes? And what guarantees are there that the money won't find it's way into the pockets of the crooks who run those places? That's money that was collected from American citizens who would be better off if they could keep it for themselves and couldn't care less what happens when Palestinians flush their toilets. For all we care they can shit in sand and wipe their butts the old Arab way with their left hands because they hate us whether we give them the money or not. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-09-21 09:45 |
| #3 This is money that’s going to be used to complete very important sanitation projects Like flushing the tunnels of dead jihadis...and their sheep. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2017-09-21 07:14 |
| #2 "USA foreign policies are not determined by the US president, but by the people with briefcases in DC" -Vladimir Putin. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-09-21 03:20 |
| #1 You had better be real this time Abu Mazen, because we have been around the same tree with you fucking useless assholes too many times. You are now named DR Occupy, and your profession is squatting on Israeli Land and calling them "occupiers" This is not a flash in the pan for you DR Occupy. One more hezbollah or rocket barrage from you pieces of satan shit will result in annihilation and expulsion of you and all your paliassholio friends off of ISRAELI LAND. Do you hear me? |
| Posted by: newc 2017-09-21 02:11 |