|
February 21, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
What happens when the terrorists win?
Last month, the terrorist group Hamas won a landslide election in Palestine, replacing the corrupt and inept Fatah government. This past Saturday, the new government was sworn in. The Hamas government’s first action was to reaffirm its long-standing position that Israel has no right to exist; its next action was to demand that Israel and other governments continue to fund them.
Not that any of this was unexpected. Heritage’s James Phillips warned last month that Hamas “is dedicated to destroying the Jewish state and creating a radical Islamic state in its place” and that “its ideology of hatred, extensive use of terrorism, and commitment to destroy a neighboring democracy make Hamas unfit to qualify as a democratic party, let alone a democratic government.”
In the absence of reform, Phillips wrote, “Washington should refuse to recognize the new government, halt all aid to the Palestinians, and press its allies to follow suit. The United States should not legitimize and empower a terrorist government that is committed to the destruction of a democratic ally.”
But liberals, in full appeasement mode, have warned that not funding the Hamas terrorists will actually bring about more terrorism. De-funding the terrorists, wrote former President Jimmy Carter in The Washington Post, is likely “to incite violence, and to increase the domestic influence and international esteem of Hamas.” In fact, he goes so far as to call international aid to Hamas “giv[ing] the Palestinians their own money.”
The world does seem to be standing up to the terrorists despite these warnings. The Bush administration has rightly refused to fund the new government absent reforms, as have many European countries. Israel suspended its funding of the Palestinian Authority on Sunday. Canada’s new Conservative-led government agreed yesterday, saying Hamas must change its tune or be cut off from funds. “The establishment of democratic institutions is incompatible with continuous advocacy for terrorist violence,” Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said.
Led by Iran, Muslim countries are scrambling to replace the lost funding, though past promises of funding from groups like the Arab League have fallen through.
Can foreign-owned ports be secure?
Last week, it was announced that a company based in the United Arab Emirates would take over operations at six of America’s largest ports. Despite allegations to the contrary, the change in ownership would not change the security procedures in place—though the American people need to be reassured that enough is being done to keep them safe.
There is a strong case for Congressional hearings into the matter, which Heritage’s Peter Brookes lays out on National Review’s website. “This is a decision Americans have to feel comfortable with,” he wrote. “‘Trust us,’ just won’t cut it.”
At the same time, “it’s not clear that there would be any change in management, personnel, or security procedures at the British company currently running the ports if the sale is approved,” Brookes says.
“The Dubai firm is a holding company that will likely play no role in managing the U.S. facilities,” Heritage’s James Carafano points out in the same article. “The odds that they have any interest in seeing their facilities become a gateway for terrorist into the United States are less than zero.”
Carafano adds that Americans will continue to provide security for the facility under the new management. Security screening, he explains, “is not done by the owners of the ships and the ports, but by the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, both parts of the Homeland Security department. Likewise overall security for the port is coordinated by the captain of the port, a Coast Guard officer.”
About those tax cuts
A new report from the independent Conference Board suggests that the economy is gaining steam heading into the spring. And last week, a new employment report suggested that the job market remains strong.
But some in Congress don’t seem to get the connection between the 2003 tax cuts and the current strong economic growth. While the House rightly voted to extend the current tax rates by two years, a Senate bill would not extend the tax cuts but instead would increase government influence over the economy by giving tax breaks to specific industries.
Rea Hederman and Bill Beach of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis explained, though, that “it is not Congress’s job to manage the economy or to assume a ‘leading role,’ as old-style European socialists call it, in directing economic development.” Going down this road, warns Dan Mitchell, Heritage’s McKenna Senior Research Fellow, would make America more like France—with its big government, low growth and high unemployment.
Extending the tax cuts isn’t just about maintaining the strong economy, either. As Hederman and Beach put it, “extending these tax rates or making them permanent would reinforce a central element of good economic policy: predictable and stable tax law.”
The truth about spending
“Conventional wisdom holds that non-defense discretionary spending has been cut to make room for defense spending increases,” Heritage’s Brian Riedl told the House Budget Committee last week. “Conventional wisdom is wrong.”
In fact, spending on these voluntary programs has increased “twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton,” explained Riedl, the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs.
“Budgets are about making trade-offs among competing priorities, and these recent guns and butter budgets raise serious questions about federal priorities,” he continued. “Last week’s harsh reactions to the President’s budget proposal shows that certain constituencies have now grown accustomed to large annual spending increases, and consider even a temporary freeze at these higher spending levels to be out of bounds.”
In other news
- “We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons,” writes Flemming Rose, the editor of Denmarks’ Jyllands-Posten who published cartoons of Mohammed that have sparked international protest. “The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.”
- The Bush administration may have inadvertently stumbled across a new way to hold down costs on the unaffordable Medicare drug benefit: make sure nobody signs up. To date, The Washington Post reports, the program has proved so unpopular that only 1.4 million people have signed up—out of the eight million who are eligible. But it would be far better if entitlements were not expanded at all, instead of expanded less than anticipated.
- In my e-mail last week, I inadvertently referred to “the federal troth” instead of “the federal trough.” Thanks to reader Kent for catching the typo.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
Fill out the form below to receive this e-mail product and more from MyHeritage.org as soon as it's released.
|
Send to a Friend |
Increase Font Size