This is a suggested letter to President Barack Obama, from Unity Coalition for Israel.
You canceled Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit last week and this week have warmly received Mahmoud Abbas. You promised him another 400 million US taxpayer dollars for Gaza homes, schools and infrastructure. Is the US willing to ignore the 10,000 rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians and the promise by Hamas to wipe Israel off the map and kill every Jew in the Holy Land?
I am concerned that you also appear to ignore the very reason the blockade is necessary – to prevent a terrorist regime from supplying itself. When you remain silent as the IHH terrorist sponsored flotilla attempts to break the defensive blockade, when you refrain from demanding inspection compliance and do not speak out to criticize the armed and brutal attacks on IDF forces in which some of the participants had clearly stated that they sought to achieve martyrdom in this operation, you exacerbate and legitimize the violence.
Video evidence proves the "humanitarian aid" was used as a foil to smuggle terrorists wielding knives, metal pipes, and hatchets on board to greet whatever effort was made to inspect the cargo. They could not possibly allow an inspection without their weapons being discovered.
After your meeting with Abbas at the White House on June 8, you announced that the blockade is not "sustainable" and called for a new "conceptual" solution to be formulated by "European and Middle Eastern leaders". Your rationale escapes me.
What’s the reason for allowing one terrorist regime to supply another? Would you allow the Taliban to resupply Al Qaida?
I question the wisdom of preventing the sovereign Israeli State from conducting a policy aimed at preventing further violence toward Israel. Why is resupplying a Palestinian terror state a priority for the United States?
Twenty-two oil-rich Arab countries with 800 times the landmass of tiny Israel are unwilling to grant the Palestinians entry. Palestinians remain the only "refugees" in the world who have purposely not been resettled. They have instead been maintained in a hostage status in the hands of their fellow Arabs for generations.
The US taxpayer foots the bill for 25% of the annual cost of sustaining the Palestinian refugee camps, while Arab governments pay only 3%. The refugees were created when 5 Arab countries attacked the state of Israel in 1948, and convinced many Arabs to leave.
The Palestinians who abandoned Israel were promised Israelis' property upon their victorious return. But when the Arabs lost the war, the "Palestinian refugees" remained homeless, unable to count on their Arab brethren to rescue them from the camps. The Arabs who did not leave during the 1948 war are Israeli citizens today. They enjoy full Israeli citizenship and freedoms not open to citizens of Arab countries. They vote in Israeli elections and some even serve in the Israeli Knesset.
In 1948, the 850,000 Jewish refugees who were driven penniless from Arab lands were readily welcomed as citizens of Israel. There is a serious double standard here, for the Arabs States have deserted Arab refugees to refugee camps largely supported by US contributions to the UN refugee effort.
What has happened to the $90 million US sent to the Palestinians earlier this year, which was followed by a $200 million contribution? In 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged a total of $900 million - about $300 million in U.S. humanitarian aid for the war-torn Gaza Strip, plus about $600 million in assistance to the Palestinian Authority. To my knowledge there has been no accountability for huge U.S. funding. Palestinians can direct the funds as they please. Why are we expected to pay another $400 million during these hard economic times? Why aren’t the oil rich Arab billionaires helping the Palestinian Arabs? What assurances do we have that money does not and will not end up being controlled by Hamas?
What is astonishing to me is that you work toward placing sanctions against the terrorist regime of Iran – punishing the people of Iran as well as the leadership. But you do not apply the same standard of treatment to other terrorist regimes. Are you fighting a war on terror or are you playing a dangerous political game with Hamas – an organization that raises funds and spreads Islamic radicalism in the US? The US Government has listed Hamas is a terrorist regime – why are we giving a dime to terrorists?
Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees remain in camps maintained by UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). Sadly, these camps have been turned into terrorist education and indoctrination centers, which have become training grounds for terrorism. What possible assurance can we have to guarantee that U.S. money will not end up in an entity controlled by Hamas, including UNRWA? Former UNRWA Commissioner General Peter Hansen admitted in 2004 that EVEN THEN there were already Hamas employees on the UNRWA payroll.
One viable solution to settle the Palestinian refugee problem would be to transfer them under the successful authority and supervision of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to a friendly Arab State(s), providing for human needs during a process that can be achieved very quickly if it is undertaken in good faith by all involved.
Setting up a terrorist state beside Israel is not a long-term solution; it is a recipe for long-term terror. Resettling the refugees to a new home with a clean start would give them a chance to skip the whole agenda of hate and concentrate instead on their own progress.
President Obama, when considering solutions with the Middle Eastern and the European leaders with whom you plan to consult, please do not overlook the possibility of giving the vast and wealthy Arab world the opportunity to be charitable and accept responsibility for the problem they helped to create. The free world will applaud you.
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