Centrerion Canadian Politics: Canada Can Cut Aid to the PA

Canadian Politics from Canada's Centre

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Canada Can Cut Aid to the PA

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Terrorist group Hamas controls the PA, and Canada (and especially the US and EU) can and must cut their aid to the PA. On the topic, a certain 'genius' said:

Mazen Sinokrot, the present Palestinian economy minister, also warned of chaos if the flow of funds to the Palestinian Authority was cut off. "Next week we have to pay the salaries of about $100m workers. Where will this money come from?" He said its 135,000 employees were the main breadwinners for 30 per cent of Palestinian families. "If these salaries do not come in, this is a message for violence."

A message for violence? I've never heard such a blatantly threatening and extortionist comment in my life, but then I guess that's what we should expect from Hamas' Minister of the Economy.
Telling the Palestinians they can vote for terrorists and we'll still give them money is the real message for violence, here. "Oh, you want to annihilate your neighbours and carry out acts of terrorism against innocents? Well, we'd rather not, but I guess we must keep financing you. It would be "chaos" if the Palestinian economy "collapsed", after all."

Reality Check:
a) The Palestinian economy is not entirely dependent on foreign aid. A big problem with the current war is that many Palestinians couldn't go to their day jobs in Israel, for security reasons (though that is beginning to be solved, and Palestinians are returning to work). So actually, financially supporting Hamas would cause chaos in the Palestinian economy, because Hamas is dedicated to destroying Israel, the source of (non-corrupt/tainted) income for many Palestinians.
b) A message for violence? Yeah, telling people you're going to send suicide bombers after them if they don't cough up the money is really going to get you somewhere. The expression that comes to mind for me, personally, is 'go to hell'.

On a related note, I'd like to point out that Hamas is on Canada's official list of terrorist groups. Sending money to the PA then would be funding a terrorist group. If we're going to have accountability from government, it starts with the government respecting it's own laws.