Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s brother-in-law was treated in an Israeli hospital four months ago for a heart condition. After suffering a serious cardiac episode, Haniyeh’s brother-in-law filed an urgent entry request with Israel in order to receive treatment. After entry was granted, he and his wife, Suhila Abd el-Salam Ahmed Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister’s sister traveled to Israel and stayed for approximately one week where the husband received treatment. The two reportedly chose an Israeli hospital over their other option, one in Egypt.

According to an Israeli government source: “Although there are no diplomatic relations between Israel and Hamas, there are many occasions when requests for help based on purely medical decisions taken in Gaza are granted by Israel for humanitarian reasons.” It’s hard to imagine that, if the tables were turned, a Hamas government would say the same.

Over the last few years Israel has granted an increasing number of entry permits to Palestinians in need of medical attention. According to the World Health Organization, in February 2012, 91.5% of Palestinian requests for medical treatment in Israel were approved and carried out. According to a report released by Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, in 2011 Israel issued 197,713 permits to Palestinians from the West Bank in need of medical treatment and for their companions, representing a 13% increase from the previous year. In addition 9,245 Palestinians from Gaza received medical care in Israel in 2011 which was a 5% increase compared to 2010. An additional 9,111 permits were provided for family members from Gaza to accompany patients to hospitals.

The Israeli government and hospitals also hold workshops for Israeli and Palestinian doctors, provide training courses for doctors from the West Bank, airlift Palestinians in need from the West Bank, and coordinate outings and activities for Palestinian children in Israeli hospitals.

April 14, 2011: The Palestinian Authority is asking Western government officials for $5 billion dollars to launch a state with, Reuters reports. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is asking the West to underwrite a three-year development plan to the tune of $1.467 billion this year, $1.754 billion in 2012 and $1.596 billion for 2013.

It is unclear whether the ‘Palestinian cause’ would have survived to the present day without foreign donors interjecting themselves into Israeli affairs over the past several decades. The billions of dollars would obviously come out of the pockets of western tax payers who are predominately believers of the Bible and history of the Holy Land.  

“We have distributed the plan to the donors and they have welcomed it,” PA Planning Minister Ali al-Jarbawi said. The plan, which includes significant funds for Hamas-run Gaza, will be presented formally to donor countries at a pledging conference in June, he stated. The plan states “the next three years will witness a transformation in the nature of external aid from ‘life support’ to real investment in the future of Palestine”.

“Development of vast areas of Judea & Samaria [West Bank land], isolated and damaged by the occupation will also require sustained effort and investment for many years to come,” the plan states.”The journey has been long and arduous, but the end is now in sight. We are now in home stretch to freedom,” Fayyad states in the introduction to the plan. “Now it is time for us to be the masters of our own destiny in a state of our own.”

PA leaders plan to ask the United Nations General Assembly in September to recognize a PA state on all lands under Jordanian control when the 1948 armistice lines were drawn. The PA has been increasing aggressive moves to ‘reclaim’ land without discussion in the past several months.

Israel’s de facto control of the majority of Judea and Samaria, and the presence of 500,000 Israeli citizens in areas the PA wants for itself, make Fayyad’s plans an economic gamble at best even with a General Assembly resolution in his favor. A unilaterally declared PA state would not have any treaties in place with Israel, which would encircle it. Were Israel’s leaders to seal such a state off, rather than aquiesce to its existence, the PA would likely face economic ruin.

The United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have praised Fayyad’s drive over the past two years to establish the institutions and attributes of a modern state in time for the General Assembly meeting in September. Donors will have to seriously weigh the fiscal gamble they are being asked to make amidst global financial crisis.

This, despite US rejection of unilateral moves and abject refusal by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table. Israel has warned unilateral moves, proscribed by the very Oslo Accords which allow the PA to exist, cannot replace negotiated peace.

In response to the Al-Jazeera campaign against Abbas and his Fatah organization, Fatah gunmen attacked Al-Jazeera studios in Shechem (Nablus) on Wednesday.

They damaged equipment, though no one was hurt. Pinhas Inbari, a veteran Palestinian Authority affairs correspondent and the author of books such as “The Palestinians: Between Terrorism and Statehood,” writes that Al-Jazeera has an agenda to de-legitimize the PA in the eyes of its residents and the Arab world.

Inbari indicates that Al-Jazeera purposely overlooks the firmness with which the PA adhered to some of its positions. For instance, the PLO team “was adamant in refusing to agree to Israeli demands to keep the settlement blocs. For example, the Palestinians demanded the dismantling of the city of Ariel (pop. 17,559), and they were ready to consider leaving Israelis living in Ma’ale Adumim (pop. 34,324) only if the Jewish city adjacent to Jerusalem was under Palestinian sovereignty.” He also raises the possibility that some of the leaked documents are simply forgeries.

Over the past week, the Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite TV station and international news network has been publishing documents leaked to it from the PLO Negotiations Support Unit – causing great damage to the PA negotiators. “Now, after Al-Jazeera has brainwashed Arab minds with charges of PLO treason,” Inbari writes, “no declaration of statehood can be expected. Neither will there be a resumption of negotiations with Israel since the Palestinian team will stick to the most hard-line positions possible.”

The leaked documents indicate that the PLO negotiators and leadership conceded to Israel on three main points: The relatively small number of Arab “refugees” to be allowed to enter Israel; allowing Israel to keep most Jewish neighborhoods in what is known as eastern Jerusalem; and collaborating with Israel in fighting Hamas terrorists.

According to the leaked documents, Inbari writes, the PLO negotiating team “relinquished all Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem except for Har Homa – including Ramot Shlomo, the Jewish neighborhood that sparked the crisis between Israel and the U.S., and Sheikh Jarrah, now a location for demonstrations by international supporters of the Palestinian cause.”

The papers also quote PA chief Mahmoud Abbas in an internal briefing to PA officials as saying, “We cannot demand the return of millions, as this will end Israel.”