With the cutting off of funds from the U.S. and European Union, various Arab nations and Russia have stepped into the void to fund the Palestinian Hamas government.

Qatar said Monday it would give the Palestinian government $50 million in aid to help make up for a shortfall after the United States and the European Union cut off funding.

The official Qatar News Agency said the funds were offered to "bolster the budget of the Palestinian authority based on the decision of the Arab summit held in Khartoum" in March.

On Sunday, Iran said it was sending the same amount of money to the Palestinians to help fund the Hamas-led government.

Pledging is one thing, actually writing checks is another. To date, Hamas has not received a dollar from Arab nations and their security forces have not been paid in two weeks.

Its an interesting situation, one I had not anticipated when I first read that the U.S. would withdraw funding. In generally, money buys influence, and if U.S. money didn't buy the influence, someone else would. Yet Hamas refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist has undermined the reason to buy that influence.

Without the prospect of a settlement with Israel, financing the PA is tantamount to financing terror.

Clearly the Arab states are in a catch-22 situation. Their own domestic politics requires them to publicly support the Palestinian authority, but their relations with the West mandates that they don't support a known terrorist group.

There is no upside for Hamas, which like Fatah, depends on these subsidies to support the patronage system that keeps them in power. Arafat created a system which centralized virtually all economic power in the PA in order to maintain political order and control. The loss of its subsidies means that the Palestinians have no functioning economy.

There is little doubt that Hamas will attempt to divert the public's attention through an escalating attack on Israel, but ultimately, their government cannot be sustained over the long term.