How does Palestinian aid compare to Israeli aid?

Submitted by Douglas Ross (United States), Dec 22, 2004 at 14:41

I sent this article to a friend with whom I have a running debate on the topic and got back the following. Any thoughts on his point that Israel receives more aid than the Palestinians?

"As you know, I disagree that this is a productive line of thought. Forcing people to continue to live in desperate circumstances will not lead to their change of heart. The author's approach will lead, I believe, to the ultimate demise of Israel -- not militarily, probably, but demographically and politically.

"I don't have time to run down the facts just now, but I believe they would show that Israel and not the Palestinians receive the most aid of any people in the world. Israel receives a very large proportion of our foreign aid (something on the order of one fifth is what sticks in my mind), and to determine the correct total figure we would also have to get into a discussion about whether to count private contributions, direct or indirect military aid, aid spent on Egypt to buy their neutrality, and so on and so forth. I am pretty confident that, under any analysis, the absolute totals would put Israel far ahead of the Palestinians. The computation the author offers is therefore made on a per capita basis for Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. I would like to see the calculation. I doubt that every man woman and child gets $300 per year. I would guess they get almost nothing and that most of it is siphoned off by corrupt Palestinian officials. Also, if he is dividing total Palestinian aid by the population in the occupied territories alone, it would tend to produce an inflated average figure. One might get a better sense for the relative aid by dividing instead by a number that includes the Palestinian refugees or at least some segment of them."

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".