Hamas controlled. Who you think will get the money and why us?

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration intends to provide some $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after the Israeli incursion that ended last month, administration officials said Monday.

In an early sign of how the administration plans to deal with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, an official said that the aid would not go to Hamas but that it would be funneled through nongovernmental organizations.

By seeking to aid Gazans but not Hamas, the administration is following the lead of the Bush administration, which sent money to Gaza through nongovernmental organizations. In December, it said it would give $85 million to the United Nations agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization, and the Bush administration refused to have any formal dealings with the group.

The aid will include new spending as well as money already set aside for the Palestinian Authority, and it will be formally announced next week when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton travels to a Palestinian donors’ conference in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, the officials said.

The aid, first reported by Reuters, would have to be approved by Congress, where many lawmakers are skittish about even appearing to help Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

“None of the money will go to Hamas, it will be funneled through NGOs and U.N. groups,” said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the aid before Mrs. Clinton announced it.

The donors’ conference in Egypt is seeking to raise close to $2 billion to rebuild Gaza, which was devastated by the three-week war with Israel. Some of the $900 million from the United States will go to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, officials said.

But even if the bulk of the money goes to Gaza, it will do little good unless Israel first opens the border crossing into the territory, said Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a research organization in Washington.

“It’s a good effort, but the money can’t be spent unless materials can get into Gaza,” Mr. Levy said. “The next step is opening the border crossings, and that requires more than just signing a check.”

Hamas has demanded the opening of the crossings as part of truce negotiations being conducted through Egypt. Israel, which imposed an embargo after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, demands an end to rocket fire from Gaza, a halt to weapons smuggling and the release of a captive Israeli soldier.

After the donors’ conference in Egypt, Mrs. Clinton will make her first trip to Israel as secretary of state, Israeli officials said. She is expected to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister-designate.

Mrs. Clinton is also expected to travel to Ramallah in the West Bank for meetings with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, whose Fatah organization is the principal rival to Hamas. Administration officials said it was unlikely that Mrs. Clinton would go to Hamas-controlled Gaza. source

More information:

JERUSALEM – The United States is preparing to donate more than $900 million for the reconstruction of Gaza, a U.S. official said Monday, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared to attend a donors conference for the war-ravaged territory next week.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said earlier Monday that Clinton will visit Israel and the West Bank during the first week of March for her first trip to the region as America's top diplomat.

Clinton said during her Asia trip this month that she would attend an international donors conference in Egypt on March 2 to discuss reconstruction in Gaza.

She provided no other details, but a U.S. official in the United States said Monday that the Obama administration's donation will likely top $900 million in humanitarian and rebuilding aid to the Palestinian Authority to help Gaza recover from Israel's offensive against Hamas last month.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the donation had not received final approval, said the exact amount was still to be determined.

The official added that the aid would not go to Hamas. U.S. officials have no formal contacts with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which runs a separate Palestinian administration in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli officials, meanwhile, said Clinton will arrive in Israel on March 2 for meetings with the country's top leaders. Israel is currently ruled by a caretaker government as Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu cobbles together a new coalition.

The Israeli officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been announced by the State Department, which has not released Clinton's schedule for next week.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Clinton also would visit the West Bank during her stay.

U.S. officials have no formal contacts with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which runs a separate Palestinian administration in the Gaza Strip.

Thanks, my cut and paste missed the rest.

I'm sleepy and don't know what to think of it just yet. That's alot of money.

I don't think that I got the rest of yours. I just happened to read mine just before I read yours. lol

I do not see any problem with that.

Gaza residents do pay for the stimulus in the United States. Why shouldn't it be a "two way street"?

They pay for the stimulus for the U.S.?

They do. They hold and use the United States Dollars. When we "create" stimulus, we print new money. This new money, get their value by sucking a bit of value off all already existing notes. If this wasn't true, then newly printed money would not have any value at all.

And thus, through inflation, we tax every single soul in the whole word, who holds USD. Some of them we force to use dollars. This is why our bases are all over the world.

When you taxed, you are paying for governmental programs, do you not?

Then, it follows, that Gaza residents are taxed through the inflation of USD, are too, participating in giving the value to US stimulus.

They do not pay equally to US citizens, because, obviously, we also pay direct taxes, not only the inflation tax. But then again, as poor as they are, in US, they would not pay any tax at all, but the inflation tax.

yep, helping everyone but our own.

hmmmmmmmmmm