Wednesday, January 20, 2010

  • Wednesday, January 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
An interesting op-ed in Asharq Al-Awsat, in response to the "resistance" convention in Beirut over the weekend:

The word resistance has become obsolete with time and as a result of misuse, and so this word has lost its sanctity. How can someone respect the resistance in Iraq when witnessing thousands of innocent victims killed as a result of the deliberate targeting of schools, markets, residential areas, and civilian and governmental areas? How can the resistance be sacred in Palestine when on the one hand the Palestinians are fighting against one another, whilst at the same time [one Palestinian faction] is guarding the Israeli borer against infiltration by other resistance elements? Why is it that today in Lebanon, the resistance is not playing this role, but is ruling the people of Lebanon by force, and this is almost nine years after Israeli troops withdrew from the country?

This is the state of the resistance today. This is the state of any type of resistance that passes its expiry date, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon whose resistance became an internal problem after the movement was practically transformed into a local militia [following the Israeli withdrawal]. The resistance is just a title, and it seems that its real job is to dominate the internal situation through force of arms and by silencing the opposition in the name of confronting the enemy. In Palestine, where there is occupation and an armed enemy, some resistance factions have become foreign tools.

They now seem to epitomize retired war generals in their military uniform and with their medals. Those active in the resistance know that this word lost its sanctity after it lost its job. In fact the meaning of this word had reversed and now has bad connotations when it is purposefully imposed as is the case with Hezbollah today which has become a movement that signifies sectarianism, or the Senior Council of Islamic Scholars, which is not a Council and has no scholars, but in fact is a façade to justify violence in Iraq.

This is a very good observation. The word "resistance" is used by Arab thugs to win and maintain power over their own people.


  • Wednesday, January 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From NGO Monitor:

NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog group, announced at a press conference today that it has brought suit against the European Commission (EC) for failing to fulfill EU transparency obligations regarding the distribution of funding to non-government organizations (NGOs).

NGO Monitor President Professor Gerald Steinberg said that his group resorted to legal recourse after 13 months of attempts to secure documents detailing non-governmental agency funding by the EC, the executive branch of the European Union. Under the European Freedom of Information law, such funding details must be made available upon request. However, the EC cited “public security,” “privacy,” and “commercial interests” in denying NGO Monitor’s information request.

NGO Monitor legal counsel, Trevor Asserson of Asserson Law Offices, dismissed these reasons as “absurd” and “essentially unsupportable.” He described the EU activity as “typical of the types of obfuscation that one gets when someone does not want to do what they are meant to do.”

The lawsuit, filed yesterday at the European Court of Justice, seeks “to obligate the European Union, which claims to be a law-abiding institution and committed to looking out for the interests of world peace and security, to act according to its mandate and reveal these documents and the full extent of their funding.”

NGO Monitor disclosed that its researchers identified 177 million shekels provided by the EC since June 2005 to NGOs active in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Many of these organizations are active in the strategy of demonization which seeks to isolate Israel, using lawfare and boycott campaigns. The organization alleges that EC allocations are made without full public disclosure of its decision-making processes or evaluation procedures.

“We therefore argue that absent appropriate documentation, European citizens are in the dark as to how their taxpayer funds are being used,” Steinberg said. “If the European Union were to actually comply with its regulations, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  • Wednesday, January 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
AFP noticed that there are some exports from Gaza lately. The strawberries are being marketed to Europe by Israel's Agrexco under the brand name Coral.

Palestine Today calls the recent floods in Gaza a "realization of Rabin's and Netanyahu's dreams."

A Jordanian geologist is warning that Israel is purposefully creating man-made earthquakes to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque.

A Seattle nutcase called "T. West" made a YouTube video claiming that Israel is stealing organs from Haitians. Naturally, Iran's PressTV picks up on the story. (h/t Zvi)

A 17th century synagogue in Crete was firebombed for the second time this month. Here is its webpage.
  • Wednesday, January 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Jewish Journal of LA:
If I ever decide to make aliyah and move to Israel, I can blame it on Micah Goodman. On a chilly and wet Sunday night last week at The Mark — a reception hall on Pico Boulevard that used to house Mamash restaurant — Goodman spoke on “The Crash of Old Paradigms: Why the Left and the Right No Longer Exist in Israel.” Professor Goodman, who was hosted by the Israeli Consulate as part of their new speaker series for young professionals, is part of a new generation of young and bright Israelis who are seeking nothing less than a renewal of the Zionist idea.

Goodman, who’s only 33, studied in a variety of yeshivas over the years and got a doctorate of philosophy from Hebrew University. He teaches, among other places, at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, has his own weekly television show and runs a “leadership academy” called Ein Prat, which he founded. On the invitation for his Sunday night talk, Ein Prat was described as follows: “Seeking to lead a sea change in behavior and culture, we hope to awaken Israeli society from its slumber.”

I can tell you that he woke about a hundred young professionals in Los Angeles from their slumber, yours truly included.

He did it by laying out a dramatic and depressing problem — what he calls a “crisis of ideas” for Zionism — and then fearlessly taking it on with an equally dramatic and positive vision.

He began by discussing the two original strands of Zionism: the Zionism of Peace and the Zionism of Land, explaining why both are failing and need an injection of new thinking.

The Zionism of Peace is the classic view of Israel as a safe haven for Jews. Its champion, Theodore Herzl, had seen the failure of emancipation to ward off anti-Semitism, epitomized by the anti-Semitic rage exposed in the Dreyfus affair. By enabling Jews to join the brotherhood of nations, this view went, Zionism would not only protect Jews from persecution but might even help vanquish anti-Semitism.

The Zionism of Land, as championed by Rav Kook, was not about fighting a negative, but about celebrating a positive: the return to the mystical land of our forefathers.

From 1948 to 1967, neither Zionism won the day. The state was too close to hostile neighbors to be a Zionism of Peace, and too distant from biblical Israel to be a Zionism of Land.

The Six-Day War of 1967 changed all that. Followers of both Zionisms saw an opening to fulfill their own dreams. The Peace camp finally had something (land) it could trade for peace and acceptance, and the Land camp, after 2,000 years, could finally return to the land of their patriarchs.

The ensuing 40 years saw both dreams unravel. Land couldn’t buy the Zionism of Peace, and love couldn’t buy the Zionism of Land. Today, when Goodman looks at the physical threats to Israel and the success of Jewish emancipation in America, he laments: “Jews are haunted in their haven, and accepted in the Diaspora. This is an earthquake to the Zionist idea.”

The original justifications for Zionism — both pragmatic and ideological — are under such attack that the crisis of ideas has become a crisis of legitimacy, where Jews must now answer this vexing question: Why Zionism? This crisis is compounded by the fact that, as Goodman says, Israelis are the “Olympic champions of not loving themselves.”

Yet it was Goodman’s deep love for Zionism and his people, as much as his scholarly analysis, that woke us from our slumber. Here was a man who quoted the great philosophers, but who just as easily quoted the soldiers who were under his command during the recent wars in Lebanon and Gaza.

When he critiqued his homeland, he did it with a heavy heart. But when he talked about the outbursts of solidarity in Israeli society — thousands of homes opening up to refugees of bomb attacks, 100 percent of Army reservists responding to the call of duty, scores of volunteers helping out in bomb shelters, etc. — it was with a sense of genuine wonder.

It is this sense of wonder at the possibilities of the Zionist experiment that Goodman and his ilk are hoping to rekindle in Israeli society. He calls it a Zionism of Solidarity — creating an exemplary and decent society that worries less about what the world thinks of us and more about what we think of ourselves.

It is the renewal of Zionism from the inside out. It calls for, among other things, better treatment of all citizens (including migrant workers) and a greater separation of synagogue and state, where Judaism and its values are part of education rather than legislation.

Ha'aretz looked at Ein Prat once.

The website for the group includes this fascinating video made by the students that shows the excitement that the project is creating:

The site also has a couple of videos of Micah Goodman speaking in English. This one seems similar to the talk in LA, where he unflinchingly looks at problems in Israeli society and Zionism in the wake of the Lebanon war and talks about what can (or must) be done to re-invent Zionism.





Anti-Zionists would look at this video and see evidence of Israeli weakness. It is in fact the opposite.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Over the weekend, Beirut proudly hosted a large gathering of the world's most notorious terror leaders and their supporters.

The Hezbollah news site describes the scene:
Friday, January 15, 2010, the Arab International Forum for the Support of the Resistance held its opening ceremony in the UNESCO Palace in presence of hundreds of participants from all over the world. Representatives from the Arab world were present, in addition to some representatives from Europe, the United States, and many other countries, who came to express their support of the resistance.

Hizbullah Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, gave a speech showing his support for the forum, stating the importance of the resistance world wide- whether the Lebanese, Palestinian, or Iraqi - as well as representing the historical roleof the resistance and what it has done.

As for Hamas' Khaled Meshaal, he stated his total support for the resistance, and thanked Iran for the support it has been giving.

Iraqi representative Hareth Al Dari, talked about the current situation of the Iraqi resistance, stating the importance of the resistance by all its means in order to get rid of the enemy invading the different countries.

Many speeches from representatives from all over the world were made, more than thirty speeches, all having the same objective as to achieve what the forum aims at and to lead the resistance worldwide into a better and safer place.

[On Saturday] the Lebanese National Movement spoke about the need to face Zionism, and that it was time to take into consideration the resistance and its needs all over the world.

The spokesman also saluted Hizbullah and all the resistance movements in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, stressing that they don't believe in a settlement with "Israel" that would lead to their surrender, stating the importance of the Palestinian reconciliation between the Palestinian forces.

Layla Khaled, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that the political resistance is a necessary security measure. She added that the resistance should be supported in Palestine, for although it is surrounded by the Arab countries that supported it from the beginning, yet they backed out of where they stood.

"This world needs a bomb explosion so the people could listen", she added, referring to the operations done by the Palestinian resistance confronting the Zionist enemy, which says that the Resistance are the terrorists, which in reality, "Israel" is terrorism its self.

The resistance of the 1948 occupied lands [to destroy Israel] also took part in a speech, in addition to the Iraqi resistance, whose spokespersons stated some recommendations for the congregation to take into consideration for the final statement, including forming committees to take care of the national and international rights of the resistance in all its forms.

One of the most significant participants of the forum was the Jewish American attorney, Stanley Cohen, who spoke in this workshop about the legal aspect of the resistance, stressing on the American law which lacks the presence of a law concerning the resistance, although "America is proud of its laws" as he said.

He also added that if he is at his home in New York, and someone came and invaded his home and killed his children, it is thus his duty to resist the invaders and that is what the resistance in Palestine is doing.

[On Sunday] Jewish American Stanley Cohen ended the decelerating process, when he said that: "It is always with great pain and great shame as a Jew and as an American to come to this land which has suffered so long by my people. Every time I come, I walk away with hope, for the resistance will be the road to victory". He added that the resistance could be found by many forms; by guns, words, and prayers, but together resistance is the most powerful on earth, adding that it can't be stopped and it won't be stopped. His final words in his statement were: "Inshalla, next year we meet in Al Quds."

Some of the speeches from the Friday sessions are reproduced at the Syrian News Agency site.

The attendees included
vice-president of Islamic Iran Mohammed Reza Mir Tajeddini, regional leader of Ba’ath Party Shahinaz Fakoush, former Lebanese prime minister Salim al-Hos, founder of International Action Center (IAC) former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and head of the International Council of Scholars Sheikh Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi. Messages of support from the President of Islamic Republic of Iran Dr. ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – supporting a unified resistance against the Israeli and American imperialism in the region.

(The UNESCO Palace appears to be a Lebanese government building, not a UN building.)

I wonder if there was a concurrent vendor exhibition showing off the latest in suicide bomb belt technology, and maybe a gala dinner where terrorists could network with their adoring politician fans.

Talk about a target-rich environment! Apparently, even Nasrallah thought so, as he didn't attend a conference in his own back yard but only spoke by videoconference.
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
For a lengthy and excellent criticism of the Goldstone Report, see Richard Landes' two-part article in the Meria Journal. Part one goes into detail about the report itself, and part two about how NGOs and journalists created the false memes that Goldstone happily repeated.

Some small excerpts from part one:

It is difficult to specify what is wrong with the Goldstone Report since its failures are so pervasive. This article will highlight four fundamental errors of this report, all of which compounded each other and literally inverted the understanding of its readers as to what happened during Operation Cast Lead.[12] These include:

1) Failure to investigate Hamas’s use of civilian shields

2) Credulity of Palestinian sources

3) Systematic attribution of malevolent intention to Israeli forces and studied agnosticism about Palestinian intentions

4) Exceptionally judgmental conclusions for admittedly inadequate evidence.

The first and most critical failure of the Goldstone Report comes from what it did not do: investigate Hamas. Despite Goldstone’s insistence that he investigated both sides, where Hamas is concerned, he focused on two fairly obvious issues and ignored the most problematic and consequential.

In other words, if Hamas used human shields as a central strategy, then by ignoring this aspect of the conflict, Goldstone’s mission played directly into the hands of a militia that actually targeted their own civilians.[16] Far from protecting innocent Palestinian civilians then, the mission may have confirmed the tactics of those who deliberately sacrificed them for the sake of a public relations victory against their enemy, a PR victory that the mission then inscribed in law.[17]

Although the mission members ran across repeated hints that such activity went on,[18] they did not investigate it directly and in more than a dozen passages, pointedly insisted that they found “no evidence” of such activity.

The significance of the mission’s avoidance of this issue, of course, becomes particularly acute when it is a question of judging whether or not Israel targeted civilians. If Hamas fired from their midst, if they tried to draw Israeli fire to kill their own civilians in order to accuse them of war crimes, then the mission is in a double bind: 1) How can they judge Israeli actions without knowing what IDF soldiers were aiming at when they fired their weapons, and 2) how can they avoid becoming the dupes of this strategy of waging war intended to maximize one’s civilian casualties for the public relations victory?
I am honored to be quoted twice in the footnotes, and I provided Dr. Landes with some other sources as well, such as Palestine Today's article detailing how Hamas hid among civilians.
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Friends of the IDF:
As part of the IDF delegation to Haiti , Communications Corps personnel have established a fully functioning communications center in the field hospital- to be used by the IDF delegation, reporters in the area, and even the local population. Cpt. (res.) Barak Tzarom is the commander of the communications center in the field.

The communications staff was the first to arrive in Haiti , as an exploratory force. The force traversed the area and checked topographical conditions for the establishment of a communications center. Satellites and antennas were placed on the roofs of local buildings that had survived the earthquake. The staff worked with such skill and proficiency that in just three and a half hours, the communications center was complete and ready.

The remainder of the delegation arrived with the medical staff and Home Front Command personnel, who settled next to the communications center. Telephone lines were ready for use even before the first treatment was administered in the field hospital.

There is no doubt as to the importance of the communications center: it constitutes the main communication link between the IDF forces in Haiti and IDF commanders in Israel . The demand for the communication center’s services continues to be very high, for both operational and media-sharing needs.

Civilians are also using the communication tools of the center, which is currently the only supplier of internet in the area. Tzarom says: “All media from the writers and reporters in the fields, all information, is being transferred using our command center. Because the communications tools here are not sufficiently prepared to transfer information from the field we are assisting them by enabling them to do all of that from Haiti , in the best conditions possible.”

Every time there is a natural disaster, nations are quick to offer aid but the biggest problems are often the logistics. Communications is key, and the Israelis are doing their part.
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From YNet:
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on Tuesday expressed confidence Israel would join the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] this year even though certain corruption issues have yet to be resolved.

"It is important for us to join the OECD, the most prestigious organization from an economic point of view, but also because of our international status," he said.

However the move met with opposition. MK Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) called on the OECD not to accept Israel as a member during a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian journalists at the Knesset.

Tibi claimed that Israel does not meet the organization's regulations of equality in respect to its treatment of Arab citizens.

So we have a member of Knesset who is actively trying to hurt the nation he ostensibly serves. He's not just criticizing - he is telling an outside entity that his own country is rotten and should be punished.

Not only that, but he claims that the horrible crime that his country is guilty of is discrimination against its Arab citizens.

And he is an Arab member of Knesset!

Unreal.

In other discrimination news, the number of Bedouin who have joined the IDF has increased by more than 200% in the past two years, and the bigoted Israeli government is working hard to make sure that these Arab soldiers get jobs after their discharge.
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From YNet:
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip accused Israel on Monday of being responsible for making flooding worse. According to their claims, the IDF opened a dam between the city of Gaza and the central Gaza Strip, which caused flooding in dozens of houses.

In the Eshkol regional council, which borders the Strip, the claims were dismissed. The council said it knew nothing of such a dam.
Well, the Israelis should ask the Palestine Telegraph, which knows all about this dam!
Many Palestinian houses were under water in Central Gaza after Israel opened a closed dam on Tuesday.

Israeli authorities opened the "Al-Wadi" dam without prior notice after heavy rainfall on the area.
Or ask Iran's PressTV, which gives it a different name:
The locals say Israel intentionally caused the floods, the Press TV correspondent said.

The waters from the dam, called the Valley of Gaza, flooded houses in Johr al-Deek village, which is southeast of Gaza City, and Nusirat in the eastern part of the territory, where the Al-Nusirat refugee camp is also located.
I'm just having a hard time finding any mention of the "Al Wadi" ("Wadi" means "valley") dam on the Internet before yesterday. The Gaza Wadi is along the Mediterranean coast.

It's curious that Israel controls a dam fully in Gaza between Gaza City and the central Strip. I suppose that Israelis must retain an electronic connection to this dam just so they can torture Palestinian Arab civilians, which is of course their hobby.

(h/t sshender)
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The PA weekly cabinet meeting declared March 13th to be Palestine Culture Day, where they can celebrate the many examples of historical Palestinian Arab culture that come to mind.

For example....um.....





To be fair, various cities in Palestine did create their own cultural niches before the 20th century.

Hebron is known for glass blowing. Bethlehem is known for olive wood carving. Nablus is known for soap. Different towns were known for their distinctive clothing.

But none of these examples are "Palestinian," rather they were local arts that are now labeled "Palestinian" because historically there was no Arab idea of Palestine as a distinct nation. Today's Palestinian Arabs, very aware that they have no distinct cultural history as a people, work very hard to brand any local cultural variations as "Palestinian" even though the word was all but meaningless to local Arabs a mere hundred years ago. They certainly didn't consider themselves "Palestinian."

This is why the PA must keep pushing such festivals. They are trying to retroactively create a people, and to be a people you must have a culture.
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From CNN (h/t Jameel):
At a U.S. medical facility, doctors were asking why they didn't have critical equipment or the ability to perform surgeries, while a field hospital set up by Israel did.

"The disaster was the quake. This is the disaster that's following in its wake," said Dr. Jennifer Furin of Harvard Medical School, referring to the lack of better medical care on the ground. Medical operations were under way off the coast on a U.S. ship for some patients who could be flown there.

Families were "with their loved ones who they were so excited to see alive, only now to watch them die a slow, painful death from their rotting flesh because the infections are out of control and they need surgery," Furin said.

"I've been here since Thursday. No one except the Israeli hospital has taken any of our patients," she told CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

Cohen visited the Israeli hospital and said it was "like another world," with imaging equipment and other machinery. "They have actual operating rooms, and it's just amazing."
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) condemned on Tuesday the raiding of Al-Aqsa TV cameraman and news producer Ammar Yasir Altilawy’s home on Thursday.

Altilawy’s home was stormed in the evening by an armed person, working for the National security forces for the de facto Ministry of Interior, a statement issued by MADA said.

"My house was raided in Thursday evening by an armed and military uniformed person who is working in the National Security Forces affiliated to the Ministry of Interior in Gaza under the pretext that he wanted to take pictures of military operation carried out by someone before his martyrdom, so he stole my laptop and he left a message that if he did not find the pictures on the laptop, he will kidnap me by force,” Altilawy told MADA.

"After that I went to the police headquarters and I reported the incident and the testimony of a witness, and they told me that they cannot do anything for because the aggressor is working in the National Security, and that I have to come back to their office later.”

Following which Altilawy went with his father to the police office on Saturday to follow up on his complaint, expressing fear that the aggressors may return to kidnap him. According to his testimony given to MADA, the officer he met with was a sibling of the first officer, who, upon Altilawy’s request for assistance told officers to beat him.

“When I almost finished the sentence, the officer said to his soldiers:" hit him", so they beat me severely with sticks and [their] feet, they were about ten soldiers, and when my father (50 years old) tried to keep them away from me, they also beat him. After that they took me to a room, then the officer came to me after they put me on the wall and raised my hands on it, he severely beat and slapped me, and then ordered the soldiers to put me in the jail. They also confiscated my property and my mobile. After an hour, somebody from the police interfered and tried to convince me to apologize to the officer to release me but I refused because I didn't do anything wrong to him, after that they release me with a pledge.”
Hamas openly threatens the media, and this is the reason why the world doesn't see the true picture from Gaza.
  • Tuesday, January 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Second Islamic Solidarity Games competition, meant to be held in Tehran and already postponed once, was canceled.

The reason?

Because Iran insists on using the term "Persian Gulf" while Arab countries, especially the Saudis who organize the competition, insist on calling it the "Arabian Gulf."

The Games were originally scheduled for October and were postponed partially over this very issue.

Isn't Islamic solidarity great?

Monday, January 18, 2010

  • Monday, January 18, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I had missed this story (h/t jhrhv):
The Canadian government has recently decided to cut back or entirely withdraw the funding to organizations that encourage a boycott of Israel or Israeli products, including pro-Palestinian and Christian groups.

One such organization is the Kairos welfare agency, which lost $7 million – half of its annual budget. Kairos is a social apparatus serving 11 Catholic and Protestant groups and churches promoting the "liberation theology" within the Canadian legal and educational establishments.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that the agency's budget was cut back in light of its anti-Semitic positions, adding the group preaches for recognition of such terror organizations as Hamas and Hezbollah while rejecting the Jewish people's right for a state.

Kairos denied Kenney's claims and charged that the Canadian government's decision was motivated by political considerations. It further argued that criticism of Israel should not be regarded as anti-Semitism.

Another organization whose funds were cut back was the Canadian-Arab Federation, which provides aid for immigrants from Muslim countries. The claim against the group was that it promoted hatred and extremism. The Federation claimed in response that by withdrawing funds from its budget, the Canadian government is shunning Arab immigrants.

The Palestine House Educational (PHE), which has enjoyed $750,000 a budget in the last two years, has also been targeted by Canadian authorities.
Between this story and the last one, Canada is cool!
  • Monday, January 18, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Philadelphia Bulletin:
A senior Canadian government official has briefed officials in Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the news of Canada’s decision to defund the United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA) which administers 59 refugee camps for Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents who left their homes in the wake of the 1948 war.

UNRWA maintains Palestinian Arab refugees in their facilities under the premise and promise of return to homes and villages from 1948 that no longer exist.

All other U.N. refugee camps around the world ascribe to the principles of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which mandates that a refugee has a right to be resettled in new conditions.

The Canadian government official who announced that Canada would now defund UNRWA cited a report commissioned by the European parliament, which documented that Hamas terrorists have been chosen by the UNRWA labor union to actually administer UNRWA facilities. The official said that this report played a role in Canada’s new policy towards UNRWA.

Canada heads the “Refugee Working Group (RWG),” a subgroup of the Middle East negotiation process which was established in the wake of the Madrid Middle East Summit in October 1991, to oversee Palestinian refugee policy for the 38 nations that contribute to UNRWA.

The fact that Canada has used its position as the head of the RWG to defund UNRWA will most likely not go unnoticed by the 38 countries that contribute to the half a billion-dollar UNRWA budget.
JTA adds:

Canada is not reducing the amount of money it gives to the Palestinian Authority, "but it is now being redirected in accordance with Canadian values," Toews said. The move "will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA."

In the past, Canadian aid earmarked for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, went into a general operating fund in the PA's treasury. The U.N. agency runs 59 Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

In a meeting in Ramallah, Toews refused a request by the PA's minister of planning and administrative development, Ali al-Jarbawi, for aid to be given "directly" to the PA treasury, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Among the projects receiving the redirected aid are those training prosecutors, judges and police, and shoring up the Palestinian judicial sector by building courthouses.

"If we train people properly, we will have the emergence of proper institutions necessary for a state," the Post quoted Toews as saying. "It is obviously more difficult to monitor the use of money sent into general funds than specific projects."

A statement from Toews' office said Canada is "on track" to deliver on its pledge of $300 million over five years to the PA.

Toews said Ottawa needed "to ensure that [the Palestinian Authority] has less wide discretion."

I'm not certain how funds that went straight to the PA made it to UNRWA anyway.

Either way, it is refreshing to see Western nations insist on accountability from the recipients of billions of dollars.

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