16-Jun-07: Asset transfers

As Palestinians - evidently members of Fatah - flee across the Erez Crossing into Israel today, seeking refuge from the massacres carried out by their brother Palestinian-Arabs, we need to recall this:

Our World: The waning of American will
Caroline Glick - The Jerusalem Post (5-Feb-07)
...Fatah forces make no attempt to hide their involvement in terror attacks against Israel. They wear their Aksa Martyr Brigades T-shirts beneath their official uniforms. And yet, this week it was revealed that some $76.4 million of the $86.4 million that the US plans to give to Fatah will go to training 13,500 terror forces. That is, the US is now openly involved in training and equipping Palestinian terrorists who, as Abbas makes clear, are seeking to expand their operations to kill Israelis.

Next this

Congress okays $59m in U.S. funds for Abbas' security forces | Reuters (10-Apr-07)
The Bush administration has been given a green light by Congress to spend $59 million to bolster Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard and for other security expenses, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.
"We are good to go ... we have addressed Congress's concerns and there is good political support for this," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the money, which had been held up by Congress, would also be used for security improvements at Gaza's main commercial crossings with Israel, for logistics and communications equipment, and other security expenses.

And this...

Abbas to use taxes transferred from Israel to pay PA security forces
A senior aide to Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that the Palestinian Authority chairman will use some of the $100 million in tax rebates recently transferred by Israel to pay overdue salaries of the Palestinian security forces.
The announcement came as fighting between the Abbas-allied security forces and Hamas gunmen flared in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, leaving 17 people dead.
In all, Abbas is spending $152 million for salaries of the security forces and other items, such as debt payment and welfare services, his aide, Rafiq Husseini, told a news conference.
In addition to the Israeli tax rebates - money that was frozen after Hamas came to power last year - Abbas has received $30 million from the United Arab Emirates and $22 million from Qatar, Husseini said.

And now this...

Fatah flees, abandoning U.S.-supplied weapons, vehicles to Hamas
GAZA CITY — Friday, June 15, 2007: Hamas has captured thousands of assault rifles and scores of combat vehicles financed by the United States and supplied by Egypt and Jordan to the Palestinian Authority. Hamas seized the weapons, ammunition and vehicles while capturing security installations in the Gaza Strip aligned with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. For the most part, Fatah-aligned PA officers fled the Hamas assaults.
"I would say that they have most of the weapons and armored vehicles sent by Egypt and Jordan over the last year," a PA security officer said.
On Wednesday, Hamas's website posted photographs of the weapons and vehicles seized from PA installations, according to Middle East Newsline. Some of the vehicles were covered with Hamas's insignia. The officer said Hamas seized thousands of U.S.-origin M-16 and Soviet-origin AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles as well as military radios. He said other booty captured by Hamas included trucks, mortars and hand grenades.
Hamas also blew up the headquarters of the Preventive Security Apparatus in Khan Yunis. At least three people were killed.The officer said Hamas forces took over arsenals of the PG and NSF throughout the central and northern Gaza Strip. He said most of the new weapons, particularly armored vehicles, were in PG installations.

Bottom line: Virtually every confidence-building measure, every piece of foreign aid, directed at the corrupt and self-serving Palestinian Authority regime of Abbas for the past several years has benefited no one more than the barbarian gunmen and thugocracy of Hamas. They have now taken possession or will shortly control virtually everything military and strategic that flowed into Gaza in the past two years. The process is not yet complete, and is about to get into high gear in the West Bank.

A persistent failure to understand the nature of the terrorist regime - a wilful failure to look at the plain facts coupled with a steady stream of imbecilic advice from wishful-thinkers - has produced a catastrophe. We now have a well-armed jihadist regime on our southern border, the long-dreaded Hamastan. Its clear intentions are to join with our enemies in the north who waged a full-scale war against our cities last summer and have every intention and ability to do it again in the near future.

Where are the resignations of the long line of "peace activists" and Middle East strategic 'experts'?