June 18 - Palestine is Our Fault?

MJ Rosenberg over at the Huffington Post believes that the U.S. is to blame for the recent collapse in Palestine's governance. Given the source, this is to be expected, but he makes a couple of statements that really hurt someone who believes in U.S. generosity.

To sum up the piece, Rosenberg say that the U.S. did not give any "carrots" to the Palestinians to encourage them to be civil. Setting aside, for a moment, that one should not have to give someone money to not kill people, he is still flat wrong.

A very little fact finding shows that the U.S. is the largest donor country in foreign aid to Palestine, donating approximately $100 million per year. This has been the case for well over ten years and continues. That the money was not provided in liquid currency directly to Hamas (I don't wonder why) makes it no less a carrot.

Why would Mr. Rosenberg make such a statement?

Having raised the topic, this begs another question. Why is it, with some very wealthy Arabic countries nearby, that the largest donor is the distant, heathen U.S.? It seems to me that The King of Saudi Arabia would simply have to forgo a new yacht this year, or Kuwait and Dubai could simply build a few fewer islands in "The World Islands" to exceed the U.S.'s donations. I wonder why this is? And, given this, the U.S. is nevertheless vilified by the very people they are so generous to.

From that, Mr. Rosenberg concludes that the U.S. is not giving enough. What kind of a person concludes that?

Over time, I've come to learn that that betting on the statement, "The U.S. is the single largest provider of foreign aid to (insert country here)," is pretty safe. The U.S. is the single most generous country in the history of, well, history.