United States Congresswoman Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) has sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding that the $900 million in proposed aid for Gaza be conditioned on Shalit’s release, and on the end of Hamas rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.
Secretary Clinton pledged the money during a conference in Egypt last week, in which various countries pledged monies to rebuild Gaza after Israel’s three-week anti-rocket offensive there. Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas in a raid under the Israel-Gaza border in June 2006. Very few signs of life have been heard from him since then, and even the International Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him.
The letter from Ms. Berkley, a member of the Middle East subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, followed a meeting on Capitol Hill last week with the Sderot Media Center. Noam Bedein, who heads the Center, briefed the Congressmen about the difficulties of living in Sderot and the Negev, and provided first-hand visual reports of rocket attacks in the area. Hamas and other Gaza terrorists have fired some 120 rockets at Israel since Hamas accepted a ceasefire nearly two months ago.
Excerpts from the letter to Clinton, as provided by an exclusive Philadelphia Bulletin report: “This [pledged] money will end up helping Hamas and hurting the very Palestinian people we intend to help… [F]or years, the U.S. has infused money into the Palestinian Authority (PA), with very little to show for it. Instead of helping average Palestinians, our money has lined the pockets of the Arafats and other corrupt Palestinian leaders.”
“It is essential,” Berkley wrote, “that we condition our funding on Hamas’ reciprocating with these basic demands” – the release of Shalit and the cessation of rocket attacks. Israel has not made a similar formal request to make the funding conditional.
Berkley also attacked the very idea of funding the Gazans through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which currently receives 31% of its budget from the American government. “UNRWA has proven itself to be a biased agency, with very little oversight,” she wrote. “Much of UNRWA’s money and services end up in the hands of people who are wealthy enough not to need the assistance, or worse, with members of terrorist organizations. UNRWA officials have even admitted that they cannot guarantee their money does not go to Hamas. I believe helping UNRWA does not further the cause of peace.”