CORRELATING PALESTINIAN AID AND MURDER

Questions about Palestinian Aid (CAMERA)

Since the inauguration of a Fatah government in the West Bank, and its delinking from the Hamas-led Gaza Strip, Western governments have moved quickly to provide aid to the new leadership. Israel, too, has agreed to turn over withheld tax revenue, release Palestinian prisoners and offer amnesty to wanted militants. The amount of aid promised to the Palestinians in 2007 is on track to exceed any previous year. Many commentators observing this outpouring of generosity towards the new Fatah-dominated government have expressed the need to proceed cautiously, noting the failure of prior aid to moderate Palestinian behavior, but few have provided specific information to substantiate their concern. In fact, a comparison of annual aid to the Palestinian government with the annual number of Palestinian homicides shows a worrisome correlation.

Statistics on Palestinian homicides and foreign aid to Gaza and the West Bank reveal that as aid increased to the Palestinian government, so too did the numbers of people killed by Palestinian militants. The following graph illustrates the correlation (both Israeli and Palestinian victims are included in the homicide count).

The correlation between aid and homicides becomes even stronger comparing aid one year to the number of homicides the following year, as shown below in Graph 2.

These statistics do not mean that foreign aid causes violence; but they do raise questions about the effectiveness of using foreign donations to promote moderation and combat terrorism.