The Only Thing We Have to Fear ...

If you set aside the war in Iraq, terrorism has in fact gone way down over the past five years.
Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 11:49 AM ET May 24, 2008

You know that we are living in scary times. Terrorist groups are metastasizing all over the globe. Al Qaeda has re-established its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hizbullah, Hamas and other radical Islamic groups are gaining strength. You hear this stuff all the time, on television and on the campaign trail. Amid the din, it's hard to figure out the facts. Well, finally we have a well-researched, independent analysis of the data relating to terrorism, released last week by Canada's Simon Fraser University. Its findings will surprise you.

It explains that there is a reason you're scared. The U.S. government agency charged with tracking terrorist attacks, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), reported a 41 percent increase from 2005 to 2006 and then equally high levels in 2007. Another major, government-funded database of terrorism, the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terror (MIPT), says that the annual toll of fatalities from terrorism grew 450 percent (!) between 1998 and 2006. A third report, the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), also government-funded, recorded a 75 percent jump in 2004, the most recent year available for the data it uses.

The Simon Fraser study points out that all three of these data sets have a common problem. They count civilian casualties from the war in Iraq as deaths caused by terrorism. This makes no sense. Iraq is a war zone, and as in other war zones around the world, many of those killed are civilians. Study director Prof. Andrew Mack notes, "Over the past 30 years, civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Bosnia, Guatemala, and elsewhere have, like Iraq, been notorious for the number of civilians killed. But although the slaughter in these cases was intentional, politically motivated, and perpetrated by non-state groups—and thus constituted terrorism as conceived by MIPT, NCTC, and START—it was almost never described as such." To take just two examples, Mack pointed out that in 2004, the Janjaweed militia killed at least 723 civilians in Sudan (as documented by independent studies). The MIPT recorded zero deaths in Sudan from terrorism that year; START counted only 17. In Congo in 1999, independent studies identified hundreds killed by militia actions. The MIPT notes zero deaths that year from terrorism; and START, seven.

Including Iraq massively skews the analysis. In the NCTC and MIPT data, Iraq accounts for 80 percent of all deaths counted. But if you set aside the war there, terrorism has in fact gone way down over the past five years. In both the START and MIPT data, non-Iraq deaths from terrorism have declined by more than 40 percent since 2001. (The NCTC says the number has stayed roughly the same, but that too is because of a peculiar method of counting.) In the only other independent analysis of terrorism data, the U.S.-based IntelCenter published a study in mid-2007 that examined "significant" attacks launched by Al Qaeda over the past 10 years. It came to the conclusion that the number of Islamist attacks had declined 65 percent from a high point in 2004, and fatalities from such attacks had declined by 90 percent.

The Simon Fraser study notes that the decline in terrorism appears to be caused by many factors, among them successful counterterrorism operations in dozens of countries and infighting among terror groups. But the most significant, in the study's view, is the "extraordinary drop in support for Islamist terror organizations in the Muslim world over the past five years." These are largely self-inflicted wounds. The more people are exposed to the jihadists' tactics and world view, the less they support them. An ABC/BBC poll in Afghanistan in 2007 showed support for the jihadist militants in the country to be 1 percent. In Pakistan's North-West Frontier province, where Al Qaeda has bases, support for Osama bin Laden plummeted from 70 percent in August 2007 to 4 percent in January 2008. That dramatic drop was probably a reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but it points to a general trend in Pakistan over the past five years. With every new terrorist attack, public support for jihad falls. "This pattern is repeated in country after country in the Muslim world," writes Mack. "Its strategic implications are critically important because historical evidence suggests that terrorist campaigns that lose public support will sooner or later be abandoned or defeated."

The University of Maryland's Center for International Development and Conflict Management (I wish academic centers would come up with shorter names!) has released another revealing study, documenting a 54 percent decline in the number of organizations using violence across the Middle East and North Africa between 1985 and 2004. The real rise, it points out, is in the number of groups employing nonviolent means of protest, which increased threefold during the same period.

Why have you not heard about studies like this or the one from Simon Fraser, which was done by highly regarded scholars, released at the United Nations and widely discussed in many countries around the world—from Canada to Australia? Because it does not fit into the narrative of fear that we have all accepted far too easily.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/138508

'Iran Preparing Graves for Its Enemies'
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
June 30, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - A senior Iranian commander on Sunday said his country would prepare 320,000 graves to accommodate its slain enemies in the event of an attack on the country. The remark was a veiled warning amid increasing tensions over Tehran's controversial nuclear activities.

The Mehr news agency quoted Gen. Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh as saying the graves would be dug in Iran's border provinces, to provide for the burial of enemies in line with the Geneva Conventions.

"The burial of slain soldiers will be carried out decently and in little time," said Bagherzadeh, a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who heads a propaganda body called the Sacred Defense Foundation.

"We do not wish the families of enemy soldiers to experience what Americans had to go through in the aftermath of the Vietnam War," he added, apparently referring to the ordeal faced by families of MIAs during and after that conflict.

Although couched in humanitarian terms, Bagherzadeh's comments come as top Iranians step up belligerent rhetoric in the face of reports suggesting that Israel or the United States are planning to attack Iran, and specifically its nuclear facilities.

The head of the IRGC, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, at the weekend delivered stern warnings to Iran's enemies, telling the conservative Jam-e Jam newspaper that Israel was within easy range of Iran's missiles.

"Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime -- despite all its abilities -- cannot confront it," he said.

Jafari told Iran's neighbors that they would also be held responsible if they allowed their soil to be used to launch attacks against Iran.

He warned that Iran could strike back at its foes through Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Sunni and Shi'ite terrorist groups in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon respectively.

"Revolutionary Muslims, whether Shi'ite or Sunni, see the U.S. and Israel attack against Islamic Iran as an attack on the Islamic world and thus defense will be on their mind without a doubt," Jafari was quoted as saying.

Other Iranian retaliation could come in the form of disruption to Gulf oil supplies, transported to world markets through the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz, he said.

"Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy. Regarding the main route for exiting energy, Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz," Jafari said, adding that the price of oil would rise dramatically in such circumstances.

Terror support

Meanwhile, Iranian media gave extensive coverage to a new report claiming that congressional leaders late last year okayed a request by President Bush to fund covert operations against Iran.

Sunday's report in The New Yorker magazine, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources, said cross-border operations were being run into Iran from Iraq, and that members of the IRGC's Quds Force had been seized and taken to Iraq for interrogation.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on Sunday "flatly" denied that U.S. forces were operating across the border in Iran. He told CNN that Iran's influence in Iraq was declining, mostly because of Iraqi security force successes against Iranian-backed militias.

U.S. military officers in Iraq have long accused the IRGC, and specifically its Quds Force unit, of supporting and supplying anti-coalition Shi'ite militias in neighboring Iraq.

The Pentagon in a report to Congress last week said it had evidence that anti-coalition insurgents in Afghanistan were getting help originating from Iran, although it said it was "unclear what role, and at what level the Iranian government plays in providing this assistance."

The Bush administration last October imposed sanctions on the IRGC, the Quds Force and other entities to punish Tehran for its support of terrorism and its nuclear activities.

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at the weekend reiterated Iranian denials of U.S. claims of Iranian support for militias in Iraq.

Speaking on al-Jazeera, he said the U.S. would not likely attack Iran since the repercussions "would be disastrous for the entire region." Any Israeli attack, he said, would draw "massive and fatal" retaliation.

Rafsanjani is currently chairman of the Expediency Council, a consultative body appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The former president is wanted in Argentina for alleged involvement in a deadly 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.

'Iran must be dealt with urgently'

While claims of Iranian involvement in terrorism have added to regional tensions, the nuclear dispute is the key factor. The U.S. and its allies believe Iran is using its nuclear energy program as a cover for intensive efforts to develop a weapons capability.

Tehran has repeatedly ignored U.N. Security Council sanction-backed demands that it suspend uranium enrichment, saying it will never relinquish its inalienable right to access civilian nuclear energy. It says it is currently considering the latest offer of incentives by the UNSC permanent five members plus Germany in exchange for compliance, but has rejected previous such proposals.

A "sense of Congress" resolution before the House of Representatives and cosponsored by more than 200 bipartisan lawmakers states that "preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, through all appropriate economic, political, and diplomatic means, is vital to the national security interests of the United States and must be dealt with urgently."

Although it does not use the word "blockade," the non-binding resolution says steps should include "prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."

The resolution explicitly says that it should not be construed as authorization of the use of force against Iran.

Iran's Press TV on Saturday accused the U.S. Jewish lobby of being behind the House resolution and a companion one in the Senate, and said they were "considered a tacit declaration of war against the Islamic Republic.

The Young government of Iraq continues to show area of great weakness in taking control of security.
=================
IRAQ: DIWANIYAH SECURITY HANDOVER CANCELED

The transfer of security for Iraq's Diwaniyah province from U.S. to Iraqi forces has been canceled, Agence France-Presse reported June 30, citing a spokesman for Diwaniyah's provincial council. The handover has been postponed indefinitely, the spokesman said, because of a lack of coordination between U.S. forces and Iraq's central government. The U.S. military also confirmed the cancellation. Diwaniyah would have been the 10th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be handed over to local security forces.

Does Foreign Aid Fuel Palestinian Violence?

by Steven Stotsky
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2008, pp. 23-30
http://www.meforum.org/article/1926
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On December 17, 2007, eighty-seven countries and international organizations met in Paris and pledged to provide $7.4 billion over three years to the Palestinian Authority[1] (PA), an amount far in excess of any previous level of U.S. or European aid to the Palestinians. The conference participants justified the aid as a means of providing "immediate support to the entire Palestinian population,"[2] and as a reward intended to strengthen those Palestinians who favor peaceful coexistence with Israel.[3]

In the midst of the effort in Paris to bestow unprecedented sums of foreign aid on the Palestinians, there was little discussion of the unintended consequences — often deadly ones — of previous aid regimens. The recent history of foreign assistance shows a distinct correlation between aid and violence. Perhaps aid itself does not cause violence, but there is strong evidence that it contributes to a culture of corruption, government malfeasance, and terrorism that has had lethal consequences for both Israelis and Palestinians over the past decade.

The Paris conference aid package continues fifteen years of international funding that has established the Palestinians as one of the world's leading per capita recipients of foreign support (see Table 1). Figures published by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development for 2005 show that Palestinians received $304 per person in foreign aid,[4] second only to the war-torn Republic of Congo among entities with populations larger than one million. Unlike the Congo, though, the Palestinians have received such subsidies for decades.

Table 1

Largest Recipients of Humanitarian Aid per Capita, 2005
(with populations exceeding one million)
Entity
Aid per capita (US$)
Republic of Congo
362
West Bank and Gaza
304
Timor-Leste
189
Nicaragua
144
Serbia and Montenegro
140
Jordan
115
Macedonia
113
Source: Calculations based on data from
World Bank Development Indicators Data Base, 2005

Amidst the internal turmoil of 2006 and 2007, aid to the Palestinians increased by more than 50 percent,[5] and in July 2007 the Israeli government handed over $300-400 million in import taxes it had collected on behalf of the PA.[6] This revenue windfall came despite the 2005 warning by George Abed, head of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, that "if you poured in a lot of financing at this time, it would not have a big impact. It would not be very effective … It would be wasted."[7] International organizations and diplomats acknowledge Palestinian misuse and diversion of aid money,[8] but they remain reluctant to study the deeper implications of how such aid affects Palestinian political culture.

An examination of key measures of violence reveals a troublesome correlation between the number of homicides committed by Palestinians and the level of funding provided to the Palestinian Authority. As aid to the Palestinian government increased, there was a corresponding increase in the number of people, both Israeli and Palestinian, killed by Palestinians. The correlation between aid and homicide statistics does not mean that foreign aid causes violence, but it does raise a question about whether the flow of aid to the Palestinian government has helped fuel Palestinian violence and hindered efforts to restore calm.

Correlating Aid and Violence

Figures 1 and 2 (see below) illustrate how the number of homicides[9] and level of donor aid[10] correlate.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Sources for Figures 1 and 2: Anti-Israeli Terrorism, 2006: Data, Analysis and Trends, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), Gelilot, Mar. 2007, p. 62; The Status of Palestinian Citizens' Rights, fifth through twelfth annual reports, The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights (PICC), Ramallah, West Bank, 1999-2007; Associated Press, Oct. 6, 2005; "Palestinians Killed by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories," B'Tselem, Jerusalem, accessed Feb. 29, 2008; "OCHA-Opt Protection of Civilians," United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Dec. 2006; "OCHA-Opt Protection of Civilians," United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Aug. 2007; Reuters, June 8, 2007; Four Years: Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Oct. 2004), p. 6; "West Bank and Gaza: Fiscal Performance in 2006," International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., Mar. 2007, p. 4.

The graphs show that increased aid to the PA after the start of the second intifada in September 2000 precipitated an increase in the Palestinian murder rate of both Israelis and Palestinians in 2001 and 2002. After June, 2002, Israeli countermeasures against Palestinian terrorism, such as checkpoints and targeted killings of terrorist leaders, began to reduce the number of Israeli dead. By August 2003, the first portion of Israel's security barrier was in place, leading to a rapid decrease in Israeli fatalities. While Israel's new security measures reduced the number of Israeli victims, factional and societal violence increased the number of Palestinian victims. By counting both Palestinian and Israeli victims, the correlation between increased aid and violence continued into 2007.

The correlation between aid and terrorism murders becomes even stronger when the amount of aid given in one year is compared to the number of terrorist murders the following year (Figure 2). The lag between increased aid and increased homicides suggests a cause and effect association. However, when comparing the number of attempted terrorist attacks against Israelis with the level of aid, the correlation is stronger, without introducing any time lag (Figure 3).[11]

Figure 3

To investigate the possible linkage between aid and violence, it is useful to examine changes in how foreign aid was distributed during the second intifada.

Funding the Palestinian Authority

Prior to the outbreak of the second intifada, donors directed nearly all foreign aid to the Palestinians to economic and infrastructure development programs, so that by 1999 the Palestinian Authority could raise enough revenue through taxation and private borrowing to pay its bills. This era of relative self-sufficiency would not last long, however. The Palestinian terror campaign launched against Israel in 2000 disrupted the three main PA revenue sources — clearance taxes collected by Israel, taxes on wages earned by Palestinians working in Israel, and domestic tax revenue. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) measures against terrorists interfered with commerce in the West Bank and Gaza and led to a 40 percent decline in domestic tax revenues between 1999 and 2002.[12] At the same time, the Israeli government curtailed the number of Palestinians working within its borders, reducing a lucrative source of tax revenue for the PA.[13] The Israeli government also decided to withhold tax receipts it collected for the PA in response to the failure of Palestinian leaders to make a serious effort to halt terrorism.

The international community responded to the ensuing Palestinian financial crisis by replacing much of the lost revenue. Foreign donations to the Palestinians nearly doubled, from $482 million in 2000 to $929 million in 2001.[14] The changes in how the aid was distributed were even more dramatic: In 1999, no foreign aid went directly into the Palestinian Authority budget; by 2001, 58 percent of it went to the government budget and less than 20 percent to development programs.[15]

In a classic example of the creation of perverse incentives, the decision to fund the government budget made the Palestinian Authority less dependent on revenue derived from commerce, detaching the PA's solvency from the health of the economy. Thus, while the intifada sent the Palestinian economy into free fall, the PA's coffers swelled. The conditions were thus established that ensured the separation of Palestinian governance from responsibility for the economic health of the Palestinian people.

A comparison of the proportion of aid allocated to the government budget with the number of homicides yields a correlation similar to the previously discussed correlation of aid and homicides. (See Figures 4 and 5.)

Figure 4

Figure 5

Sources for Figures 4 and 5: "Two Years after London: Restarting Palestinian Economic Recovery," Ad-hoc Liaison Committee, World Bank, London, Sept. 24, 2007, p. 29, Table 3; Four Years: Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Oct. 2004), p. 66, Table 5.3.

By 2003, the ratio began to shift so that aid was more evenly distributed between the PA budget and development programs. However, the proportion of aid allocated to the government began to rise again in 2005, so that by January 2008, Palestinian economist Samir Barghouthi estimated that the Paris conference aid package would commit 70 percent of donations to paying the wages and pensions of Palestinian employees.[16] In other words, a higher proportion of aid will be allocated to the government and a lower proportion to development programs than even at the height of the terrorist violence of the intifada.

The new flow of funding to the Palestinian government will likely replicate the dynamics of the past decade: In 1999, the PA had 98,500 on its payroll; by 2002, the payroll had grown to nearly 125,000, and by 2007, it stood at 168,319.[17] Rising Palestinian government employment was reflected in the proportionate growth of the security services, which accounted for nearly half of all government wage earners. Security personnel on the PA payroll grew from 44,400 in 1999, to 53,600 in 2002, to 78,000 in mid-2006.[18] In addition, the Jordanian foreign ministry has confirmed plans to increase the Palestinian police force in the West Bank from 7,000 to 50,000 men, an increase that will create an unprecedented police presence and require an investment of several billion dollars beyond what was promised at the Paris conference.[19] These dramatic increases in the number of security personnel have never resulted in a reduction in terror attacks against Israelis—and as the history of the intifada shows, such attacks in fact increased from 1999 to 2002.

Palestinian Security Forces' Terrorist Ties

Not only did the security forces fail to prevent terrorist attacks, in many cases they colluded with terrorist groups and sometimes perpetrated attacks themselves. For example, on January 30, 2004, a Palestinian policeman belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades boarded a crowded bus in Jerusalem and detonated a bomb strapped to his body, killing ten Israelis.[20] The Palestinians responded that they could not prevent terrorism because the Israeli military had destroyed their capacity to do so.[21]

In A Police Force without a State, Brynjar Lia, a Norwegian Defense Research Establishment analyst, suggests that the Palestinian leadership gave preference in police recruitment to those who had served prison terms in Israeli jails for terror-related offenses.[22] This, he argues, allowed terrorists to shape the police force "as a vehicle for achieving national independence [rather] than as a non-political law and order agency."[23] Fatah paramilitaries, he contends, "made themselves indispensable as popular forces in anti-Israeli riots and clashes."[24]

Lia offers a plausible path by which foreign aid ended up in the hands of terrorists. As early as 2003, the World Bank recognized there was a problem with how aid was used, noting in its annual report on the West Bank and Gaza that "donors should have spent more on oversight mechanisms in 2001 and early 2002, thereby, putting themselves in a better position to answer questions about the diversion of funds to support terrorism."[25] Still, the World Bank justified the redirection of funds for emergency aid in the belief that donors "had no choice if they wanted to keep alive the hope of reconciliation, since a collapse of the PA service structure and the further radical impoverishment of the population would have vitiated this."[26]

The Israeli government and military watched the diversion of funds but could not change donor practices. On June 5, 2002, the IDF published a document calculating that the Palestinian Authority only needed 55 to 65 percent of its budget to fund legitimate government activities and estimated that the Palestinian Authority siphoned off $100 million a year to fund terrorism.[27] The estimates of need versus budget are consistent with more recent news accounts.[28]

Documents captured during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 detail security forces involvement in terrorist operations.[29] An Israeli document describing the interrogation of Fatah leader Nasser Aweis in 2002 revealed the links between Tanzim operatives and the PA national security apparatus and showed not only how Palestinian security officers instructed Tanzim operatives in bomb-making, but also how they regularly updated Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat.[30] Other documents detailed Palestinian Authority salary payments to terrorists in the employ of security service officials.[31]

The correlation between donor aid and violence becomes murky when examining the affiliations of the terrorists. Palestinian terrorism is conducted by a variety of organizations, many of which derive their support from foreign sources separate from Western government aid.[32] Islamist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out the majority of attacks against Israel,[33] have had an uneasy and frequently adversarial relationship with Fatah-dominated Palestinian governments. Groups directly linked to Fatah, such as Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Tanzim, account for only about 20 percent of the suicide bombings against Israel. Suicide bombings have been responsible for more than half of all Israeli fatalities since 2000. These circumstances make it difficult to understand why the correlation between aid to the Palestinians and terror homicides appears so strong.

The organizational affiliations of terrorists, however, may be multiple. Despite their strong internal differences, Fatah and the Islamists enjoy a high degree of cooperation in terrorism against Israel.[34] The Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Apparatus, for example, supported both Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Jenin.[35] Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and one or the other Islamist groups have carried out a number of joint operations.[36] These collaborative relationships continue. There remains ongoing concern that donor funds given to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas are subsidizing Hamas members on government ministry payrolls. And then there is the larger problem of the fungibility of money: Every dollar Hamas saves on having to fund jobs and programs unrelated to security is a dollar the organization can devote to terrorism. While collusion is clear, fully explaining the correlation requires better data on funds supplied covertly by Iran and sources within Saudi Arabia and better understanding of the role of tacit support from the Palestinian security services.

Perhaps U.S. and European officials still believe that supporting those suffering from the Palestinians' damaged economy outweighs the negative effect of the diversion of funds to terrorists. While international officials often say they seek to promote a more moderate political culture among Palestinians, the Hamas victory in the January 2006 elections suggests such hope may be misplaced. At the time, the Palestinian economy had begun to improve. Similarly, in 1998 and 1999, the two years immediately preceding the second intifada Palestinian gross domestic product increased by 7 and 6 percent respectively.[37] Perhaps the bitterness of conflict outweighed the moderating influence of the aid—or, perhaps, the theory that aid moderates is itself flawed.[38]

What Changed between 2000 and 2007?

The aid windfall promised at the Paris conference will seek to strengthen the Palestinians' West Bank leadership in the wake of Hamas' violent expulsion of Fatah from Gaza in June 2007.[39] Western officials regard the Palestinians' West Bank leadership as moderate[40] while Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is viewed as a technocrat who will ensure fiscal transparency in the PA. Nevertheless, the West Bank leadership retains armed militias incorporating terrorists. How much control Abbas and Fayyad have over these armed elements remains unclear. The commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank, Major General Gadi Shamni, recently told Israeli president Shimon Peres that "without the massive presence of the IDF in the West Bank, Hamas would take over the institutions and apparatuses of the Palestinian Authority within days." [41]

The aid windfall comes amid the PA's refusal to take responsibility for Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns. In 2006 and 2007, 1,719 rockets launched from Gaza hit Israeli territory.[42] On January 3, 2008, an upgraded 122 mm rocket fired from Gaza reached the major Israeli city of Ashkelon.[43] Nor has any Palestinian leader repudiated terrorism. Attacks by Fatah continue.[44] While the security barrier has curtailed terrorist attacks, the terrorist groups have not stopped trying.

Yet even some prominent Palestinians are troubled by the current determination to fund the Palestinian Authority. Abed of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, although supportive of financial assistance to the Palestinians, has spoken openly of the futility of providing donor aid, asserting that what is needed is investment. This view was echoed by James Prince, consultant to the Palestinian Investment Fund, who cautioned that "many of the donor programs have not only been ineffective, they have harmed the economy."[45]

Infusions of foreign funds into the Palestinian Authority budget from late 2000 through 2002 correlated with increased violence. Increased aid in 2005 and 2006 corresponded to increasing internal violence, which is consistent with the fact that money was still finding its way to militant groups to purchase weapons and pay the salaries of the expanding militias.

Although the correlation does not prove cause and effect or provide irrefutable evidence of a direct link, it seems likely that increased aid helps sustain Palestinian violence in several ways: by creating the opportunity to divert funds for militant activities; by insulating the Palestinian leadership from the fiscal consequences of the economic fallout from terrorism; and by creating a revenue surplus that allows the Palestinian government both to pay for salaries and programs and to funnel money to terrorists. As Western donors prepare to pour unprecedented amounts of money into the PA, more discussion is needed to explain what controls will be imposed to ensure that the aid is not diverted to terrorists or used to fund a broader conflict with Israel.

Steven Stotsky is a senior research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

[1] The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2007.
[2] Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, speech to International Donors' Conference for the Palestinian State, France Diplomatie, French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Dec. 17, 2007.
[3] Condoleezza Rice, U.S. secretary of state, remarks at the International Donors' Conference for the Palestinian State, U.S. Department of State, Dec. 17, 2007.
[4] Calculations from World Bank Development Indicators Data Base, 2005 and Recipient Aid Charts, Development Cooperation Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Jan 1, 2006.
[5] USA Today, Dec. 17, 2007; The Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2007; International Middle East Media Center (West Bank and Gaza), Dec. 15, 2007.
[6] Reuters, July 1, 2007.
[7] The San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 4, 2005.
[8] West Bank and Gaza: Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund [IMF], Sept. 2003), pp. 87-98.
[9] Anti-Israeli Terrorism, 2006: Data, Analysis and Trends, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center (IICC), Gelilot, Mar. 2007, p. 62; The Status of Palestinian Citizens' Rights, 5th through 12th annual reports, The Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights (PICC), Ramallah, West Bank, 1999-2007; Associated Press, Oct. 6, 2005; "Palestinians Killed by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories," B'Tselem, Jerusalem, accessed Feb. 29, 2008; "OCHA-Opt Protection of Civilians," United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Dec. 2006; "OCHA-Opt Protection of Civilians," United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Aug. 2007; Reuters, June 8, 2007.
[10] Four Years: Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, Oct. 2004), p. 6; "West Bank and Gaza: Fiscal Performance in 2006," International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., Mar. 2007, p. 4.
[11] Anti-Israeli Terrorism, 2006, IICC, p. 16.
[12] West Bank and Gaza: Economic Performance and Reforms, IMF, p. 71; Four Years: Intifada, World Bank, p. 20.
[13] West Bank and Gaza: Economic Performance and Reforms, IMF, pp. 34, 71.
[14] Four Years: Intifada, World Bank, p. 66.
[15] Ibid., pp. 65- 6.
[16] The Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 4, 2008.
[17] West Bank and Gaza: Economic Performance and Reforms, IMF, p. 92; "Two Years after London: Restarting the Palestinian Economic Recovery," World Bank, London, Sept. 24, 2007, p. 10; "West Bank and Gaza Update," World Bank Group, Gaza and West Bank Office, Mar. 2007, p. 10.
[18] West Bank and Gaza: Economic Performance and Reforms, IMF, p. 92; author's calculation from data in West Bank and Gaza: Recent Fiscal and Financial Developments, IMF, Washington, D.C., Oct. 2006, p. 7, ftnt. 8, p. 10, Table 3; James D. Wolfensohn, Quartet special envoy for disengagement, testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Senate, Mar. 15, 2006, p. 3.
[19] Reuters, Feb. 9, 2008; The Jordan Times (Amman), Feb. 27, 2008.
[20] CNN News, Jan. 30, 2004.
[21] Saeb Erekat, interview, CNN, Sept. 19, 2002.
[22] Brynjar Lia, A Police Force without a State: A History of the Palestinian Security Forces in the West Bank and Gaza (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2006), p. 137.
[23] Ibid., pp. 429-31.
[24] Ibid., p. 432.
[25] Twenty-Seven Months, Intifada, Closure and Palestinian Economic Crisis (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, May. 2003), p. 88.
[26] Ibid., p. 52.
[27] "International Financial Aid to the Palestinian Authority Redirected to Terrorist Elements," Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), June 5, 2002; Rachel Ehrenfeld, "Eurocash," National Review Online, Dec. 10, 2003.
[28] The Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 4, 2008.
[29] "The Involvement of Arafat, PA Senior Officials and Apparatuses in Terrorism against Israel," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 6, 2002.
[30] "Senior Fatah Leaders Describe Arafat's Link to Terrorism," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 2, 2002.
[31] "Palestinian Authority Security Services Supplied Guidance, Weapons and Funds to Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Order to Perpetrate Terrorist Attacks," Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C., Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, May 2002.
[32] Rachel Ehrenfeld and Sarah Zebaida, "EU and the PA Money Trail," National Review Online, Jan. 27, 2003; Jonathan D. Halevi, "What Drives Saudi Arabia to Persist in Terrorist Financing," Jerusalem Viewpoints, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem, June 1, 2005.
[33] "Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks since the Declaration of Principles (Sept. 1993)," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed Feb. 13, 2008.
[34] "The Involvement of Arafat," MFA, May 6, 2002.
[35] "Palestinian Authority Security Services," MFA, May 2002.
[36] "Documents Seized during Operation Defensive Shield Linking Yasser Arafat to Terrorist Activities," doc. no. 6, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Apr. 15, 2002, accessed Feb. 13, 2008; The New York Times, Jan. 14, 2005; "Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel," MFA, accessed Feb. 13, 2008.
[37] Four Years: Intifada, World Bank, p. 20; "Report No. 23820," An Evaluation of Bank Assistance, World Bank, Washington D.C., Mar. 7, 2002, p. 2, Table 1.1.
[38] Claude Berrebi, "Evidence about the Link between Education, Poverty and Terrorism among Palestinians," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, Rand Corporation, Jan. 2007; Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, "Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003; Jean Paul Azam and Alexandra Delacroix, "Aid and the Delegated Fight against Terrorism," Review of Development Economics, May 2006, pp. 330-44.
[39] Associated Press, Nov. 24, 2007.
[40] USA Today, June 19, 2007.
[41] The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 27, 2008.
[42] "Rocket Threat from Gaza," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dec. 16, 2007.
[43] "Katyusha Rocket Fired at Ashkelon," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jan. 3, 2008.
[44] The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 1, 2008.
[45] The San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 5, 2005.

Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy, Palestinians | Summer 2008 MEQ

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The Middle East Forum

Geopolitical Diary: Iran, Psywar and the Hersh Article
June 30, 2008 | 0200 GMT

U.S. President George W. Bush issued a highly classified presidential finding in late 2007 approving the initiation of covert operations focused on “undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” according to a July 7 article in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh. Congressional leaders reportedly have been informed of the finding, and approved up to $400 million dollars to fund the operation.

This is, of course, explosive news. What is explosive is not that the United States is spending money on covert operations in Iran, but that someone has leaked a highly classified document to a reporter. The secret is now out; indeed, it was released before the article’s publication date. Hersh said only that the person who gave him the information was familiar with the document’s contents. This means his source is a person with extraordinarily high, code-named clearance — not to mention a criminal.

We would expect the Bush administration to be launching multiple investigations to find the leaker. If he is a Republican or a member of the administration or the intelligence community, then massive damage control is essential. If he is a Democrat who leaked (or an official of an agency deemed unfriendly to the administration), the incident represents a political opportunity. Everyone who had access to that document should be attached to a polygraph right now. Washington should have been in turmoil all weekend.

It wasn’t. Aside from some desultory comments, no one seems terribly upset that a major covert operation has been uncovered in the press and thereby crippled.

We are certain that a journalist of Hersh’s stature, writing for a respected publication like The New Yorker, did not make his story up. Since arrests are not pending, we can only conclude that the information was deliberately leaked to Hersh by the administration. This would not be the first time Hersh has been used as a channel by administration leakers. In 2006, he reported that the administration was carrying out covert operations in Iran for roughly the same end. Hersh is not friendly to the administration to say the least. A story by him carries great credibility because it appears to be an authentic scoop by a major journalist revealing things the administration doesn’t want revealed. Such a story therefore increases the sense of uncertainty in Iran substantially more than if a minor, pro-administration journalist published it. As we have pointed out in the case of the Mediterranean air exercises by Israel, the United States and Israel are intent on increased the psychological pressure on Iran. This story fits into that pattern.

The only thing interesting in the story is the idea that until late 2007 there had been no presidential finding and the United States was not engaged in covert operations in Iran to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program and foment regime change. Given the administration’s stance on Iran, it is unthinkable that the intelligence community would not have been running operations in Iran for years focused on just these things. Stratfor has regularly reported on various bombings in the southwestern Arab regions of Iran as well as in Sistan-Balochistan, noting that these would be likely areas to foment unrest.

The latest finding could be an intensification in operations, but the authorization to spend up to $400 million to mess with the Iranians is really not all that much money — especially since that is the cap, and the time frame for expenditures isn’t authorized. But as Hersh made clear in 2006, operations already were under way, meaning a finding had to have been in place.

With all due respect to Mr. Hersh and The New Yorker, this is a report on the obvious. The United States regards Iran as a major target for covert operations, urgently wants to know everything it can about Iran’s nuclear facilities and would love to overthrow the Iranian government. A few hundred million, even on a long shot, is the least the United States would throw at this. As for a finding in late 2007, we do not know where the bureaucratic process is right now, but there have been presidential findings on covert operations in Iran for almost thirty years. Still, the details the administration has decided to make available to The New Yorker via Hersh should make worthwhile reading.

The important point is that unless there has been a massive breach of security, the administration has again acted to increase tensions with Iran — and this just a week after floating the idea of increased diplomatic ties with Iran and about ten days since leaking the report on the Israeli exercises. Since this article has been in preparation for weeks or months, and its publication date has not been under administration control, it remains unclear where in the sequence this leak was intended. But psychological warfare with Iran seems the order of the day, and this article is clearly part of it.

Our read of course might be wrong. Grand juries might be convening as we write and the FBI could be ranging all over D.C. taking statements from everyone with access to covert U.S. plans in Iran. But until that happens, we look at this as another attempt to make the Iranians feel insecure.