Via the AP/NYT: Rice Wants Nations to End Hamas Aid.

This is hardly a surprise, and, indeed, I am not sure that there is any other course of action to take until Hamas is willing to make the needed transition away from terrorism and is willing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Of course, the degree to which sufficient international agreement will emerge on the topic is another matter.

One would like to think that the stark realities of the situation, such at the Palestinians’ need for funds and the glaringly obvious fact that Israel isn’t going away, whether Hamas wants it destroyed or not, would eventually take hold in the minds of Hamas’ leadership and lead to some level of moderation. However, that amy be too much to hope for.

Here are some figures:

U.S. aid is a small part of the $1.6 billion annual budget of the Palestinian Authority.

About $1 billion comes from overseas donors — more than half of that from European nations. The rest is a mix of funds from international donor agencies, Arab and Asian governments, and the U.S., which gave $70 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority last year.

Separately, the U.S. spent $225 million for humanitarian projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, and gave $88 million for refugee assistance.

Those figures bespeak of the lack of a functioning government and economy in the PA, given that such a substantial amount of the money has to comes form abroad. Further, it reminds ones of the massive amounts of cash that have flowed in, but that have then flowed out to Arafat and his cronies, rather than into the building of institutions and infrastructure.