U.S. Jews buy Gaza greenhouses for Palestinians

This one is just beyond me. How can this pass?

New York (dpa) – American Jewish philanthropists contributed 14 million dollars to buy former Gaza settlers’ greenhouses for Palestinians, a news report said Thursday.

Without the funds, the Jewish settlers would have destroyed the greenhouses to keep them out of Arab hands as they were forced out of Gaza Strip, The New York Times said.

The greenhouses provide jobs for 3,500 Palestinians and had been a lucrative market for fresh produces for Jewish settlers.

The Times said Mortimer B. Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and a real estate tycoon, last week got a request from former World Bank head James D. Wolfensohn to raise money in order to save the greenhouses. Zuckerman sent out word to Jewish organizations in the United States for help.

Within 48 hours, he received 14 million dollars. Wolfensohn, who contributed 500,000 dollars of his own, is the international envoy to Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

He represents the sponsors of the so-called road map for Mideast peace – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the U.N. The Gaza pullout is part of the quartet’s peace plan.

The private fundraising efforts to buy the greenhouses spread quickly and got U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s support. She called donors and thanked them for helping the peace process in the Middle East, The Times said.