"You simply have to accept the fact that we are all corrupt."

Who said this? It was charm personified, Abu Mazen, to a senior UN official in 1996 about the state of affairs. Caroline Glick has a great column in the Jerusalem Post where she brings much of the corruption in the PA to light. She talks about how so many PA officials (seems like at least a hundred or so) get new cars, chauffeurs as well as disbursements for gas and insurance, etc. And this was just one tiny example of their corruption. She brings this up in an effort to thank Tom Delay for forcing a discussion about something everyone has avoided until now:

Does the Palestinian Authority need financial assistance?

If it got to the 80% of Gazans who live below Third World poverty levels, perhaps, but we all know it doesn't. Glick makes it clear that the corruption is widespread. Of course we knew it was more than just Arafat and his accountant. But why do we need to continue to fund it? Especially since we know where that money will go.

Even today Fatah terrorists are paid salaries from the PA. Abbas now wants to extend the terrorist support program by putting Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists on the PA payroll as part of his much-vaunted "reform" program.

Given the PA's endemic corruption – from petty theft to grand larceny – and the fact that much of the stolen monies have gone to financing terrorism, both the Palestinian people and the Israeli people owe a debt of gratitude to DeLay for his efforts over the past several weeks which prevented the transfer of $200 million in direct American government payments to the PA.

Granted I don't agree with much that Tom DeLay has to say, I do appreciate his going against the peace-drunk folks who feel they need to let Mazen have some control over the money to "prop him up" -- to empower him. We all know what he's really about.