A former head of Israel’s civil administration on the West Bank called on American Jewish groups to work toward establishing aid programs for West Bank Palestinians in order to encourage moderate leaders there.
Speaking at the 54th General Assembly on the Council of Jewish Federations here, Menahem Milsen, a professor of Arabic literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who headed the civil administration for a year after it was formed in 1981, criticized the way U.S. aid to West Bank Palestinians has been disbursed.
He said that the Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs), which are funded largely by the U.S. Agency for International Development, have served to foster an already present radicalism among the “mainstream” Palestinian population.
The targets of U.S. aid, Milsen maintained, have been those people perceived to represent “conventional views.” But it is precisely the conventional position that needs to be discouraged, he said.
“What does it mean to represent the conventional views? It means to represent the conventional views? It means American aid going to people who are opposed to peace with Israel. It’s a travesty, but it’s also a reality,” Milsen maintained.
SUGGESTS U.S. JEWS SHOULD FORM PVOS
To help foster what he said was currently a minority position among West Bank Palestinians, Milsen suggested that American Jewish groups might help initiate their own form of PVOs on the West Bank that would work through moderate Arab leaders. If Arab radicalism is permitted to grow unchecked, he said, so too, would the “dangerous phenomenon” of the ultra-nationalist Gush Emunim and Kach leader Rabbi Meir Kahane whose “obnoxious” fundamentalism thrives on the continued intransigence of the Palestinian leadership.
Those moderate Arab leaders, he said, “are not exactly the same guys who were the prospective beneficiaries of the State Department’s help, because I think that the principle of selection was wrong.” He was referring specifically to U.S. aid aimed at improving “the quality of life” for the West Bank Arabs.
While the PVOs “work strengthening groups devoted to non-recognition of Israel,” Milsen suggested, “a different type of Private Voluntary American organization should launch a campaign to encourage Palestinian groups dedicated to the idea of negotiations with Israel and a political settlement between the Palestinians and the sovereign state of Israel.”
Israeli officials have long been critical of the PVOs, which they perceive as highly politicized in favor of the radical Palestinian nationalists, and have suggested that U.S. aid money for the West Bank should be channeled through the Israeli government.
THE FAILURE OF THE VILLAGE LEAGUES
The type of moderate leadership that needs to emerge, Milsen said, can no longer be fostered through the Arab “village leagues.” Formed in the late 1970’s, those leagues failed to win anykind of credibility among the Arab population of the West Bank, and even the U.S. Administration has refused to recognize them or to deal with their representatives.
Milsen, who left his post in 1982 after the Israeli government initially refused to establish an inquiry commission following the massacre of Palestinians by Christian militiamen at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, had been at odds with members of the government over the handling of the village leagues.
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