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Cash for Palestinians Wasted Without Progress on Peace Talks

World donors have pledged $7.4 billion to help the Palestinians build their own state and revamp their economy. The cash injection will only work if Palestinians and Israelis make painful political compromises on the road to a peace settlement, write German media commentators.

The international community pledged $7.4 billion (€5.1 billion) for the Palestinians at a donor conference in Paris on Monday -- $2 billion more than they had asked for -- to revive their economy and boost renewed efforts for a peace settlement with Israel. The conference had been billed as the economic counterpart of the Annapolis summit convened three weeks ago by US President George W. Bush to relaunch peace talks.

"The real winner today is the Palestinian state," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said after the gathering of nearly 90 countries and international organizations in Paris. "We wanted $5.6 billion, we have $7.4 billion, not bad." The Palestinian government had asked for $5.6 billion to shore up its economy amid a renewed push for a Palestinian state.

German media commentators say the money will only have a lasting impact if the Palestinians and Israelis now make painful compromises to establish a political framework for a peace settlement. If they don't, the cash will dissipate like previous donations, and the Palestinians will squander a real chance to build their own state.

Center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"It's self-evident that the international community must support the Middle East peace effort politically and in material terms. But support for the Palestinians will only have a lasting economic impact, and be more than just collective welfare aid, if the proper political framework is put in place. If Israel stops choking off the Palestinian economy, and lets it develop; and if the Palestinians don't just keep talking about an independent and viable state but do their part towards achieving it."

Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The peace process that appeared in outlines three weeks ago in Annapolis is now emerging more clearly. The host, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, made clear that the donor countries have largely agreed to the peace plan of Saudi King Abdullah as a basis for a settlement: The clearing of the occupied territories by Israel in return for recognition of the Jewish state by all Arab countries, an end to the Israeli settlement policy, territorial links between the West Bank and Gaza, creating a modus vivendi between the Fatah government of President Abbas and the Hamas movement which governs Gaza.

"Those who want peace rather than a continuation of the endless palaver known as the peace process must accept these basis political elements, even if they cause pain to both sides."

Conservative Die Welt writes:

"The view in the corridors of the Paris conference center was clear: The current opportunity to initiate a solution to the Middle East crisis may be the last. If the billions of euros now made available disappear again, without tangible economic or political progress, the fate of the Palestinians could be sealed for the foreseeable future."

-- David Crossland, 3 p.m. CET