"Canada must stop funding Palestinian terrorism" - Canadian Coalition of Democracies

by Alastair Gordon, President, Canadian Coalition for Democracies
Monday, September 19, 2005

Toronto, Canada - Saturday, 17 September 2005 - On September 15, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced from New York that Canada will give another $24.5 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA). This past May, Mr. Martin announced $12.2 million in aid during the visit to Canada of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, bringing the total Canadian aid to the Palestinians to $310 million since 1993.

“President Abbas came to office promising (1) to disarm Palestinian militants, (2) to end incitement in schools and media, and (3) to end glorification of suicide bombing,” said Alastair Gordon, President of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). “On that understanding, Prime Minister Martin promised another $12.2 million in May of this year.'

Since receiving Canadian tax dollars, President Abbas has reneged on all his commitments. Specifically, (1) PA Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa publicly declared in June that the PA will not disarm Hamas and other terrorist groups under its jurisdiction; (2) Not a single textbook denying the existence of Israel and preaching the destruction of “the Zionist entity” has been removed or revised; and (3) Abbas himself, speaking to a group of high school students and educators in Gaza, glorified suicide bombing when he declared, “What has been achieved here [in Gaza] is due to the martyrs.”

“When money is given on the understanding that certain commitments to peace will be undertaken, the open declaration by the recipient that those commitments will not he honoured should mean, at a minimum, that funding would stop,” said Gordon. “Instead, our Prime Minister rewards bad faith with another $24.5 million from Canadian taxpayers.”

“It is not enough to pretend that the money is allocated to specific projects, because money is fungible,” added Gordon. “If Canadians are paying to build a highway, those funds are now freed up for war against Israel, in keeping with the PA’s constitutional governing charter and repeated declarations by PA spokespeople.”

On behalf of Canadians, CCD is urging Paul Martin to inform President Abbas that he will receive no more Canadian funding until he meets his commitments. Canadians expect that the Palestinian Charter will finally be amended to remove Article 9 that declares “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine”, Article 20 that states “Jews [do not] constitute a single nation with an identity of its own”, and other articles that call for the destruction of Israel through violence (See PLO Charter below).

“The constitutional Charter of the PA is available on the web for Paul Martin to read,” concluded Gordon. “Instead, our Prime Minister has chosen to purchase international approval with the blood of Israelis, while refusing to tell Canadians what benefit has been derived from nearly one third of a billion tax dollars paid to Arafat and Abbas.”