Trump Scrambles To Save Palestinian Aid After Realizing Strategic Misstep

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo/The AP



By MATTHEW LEE

November 30, 2018 7:26 am

WASHINGTON (AP) — For two years, the Trump administration has unabashedly slashed U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Now, amid signs it may finally roll out its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the administration is scrambling to save what little remaining Palestinian assistance it provides.

The striking turnabout is the result of the belated realization that an obscure new law will likely force the U.S. to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, including security assistance supported by Israel, by the end of January. Eliminating such aid, which totaled $61 million this year even as other assistance was being cut, would deal a blow to Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation that both sides value. The law would also require the Jerusalem offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development to close.

To avert that possibility and remove a potentially lethal complication to the promised peace plan, the administration is rushing to find a solution. It will dispatch Army Lt. Gen. Eric Wendt, who serves as U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to Congress in the coming days to urge lawmakers to come up with a fix to the law, known as the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018, to allow the aid to continue.

Congressional aides said they expect Wendt and other officials to start making the case next week in the hope of securing a fix in the short time it has left in session this year.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-scrambles-save-palestinian-aid-after-strategic-misstep

[BumRushDaShow]

1. "urge lawmakers to come up with a fix to the law,"

This is what happens when you arrogantly and wantonly slash and burn and break the law because you didn't care enough to read it. And then couple that with belonging to a party that has done ZERO oversight which might have uncovered this, so now you're stuck.

[Power 2 the People]

2. The orange dipshit strikes again.

[CrispyQ]

3. Kick.

So easy to destroy & tear apart. Not so easy to build & create.

What a stupid POS we have sitting in the WH.

[sakabatou]

4. *facepalm*

[Dave Starsky]

5. He is the dumbest, most incapable President ever.

And he's put together an administration of people who are even dumber and more incapable than he is, because he desperately wants to always be the "smartest guy in the room".

I had a boss who told me, "If you are the smartest guy in the room, you are in the wrong room". That has been among the best advice that anyone has ever given me.

This would not be an issue for an administration that knew what they were doing.