Canadian support for UNRWA must not be part of the problem

Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Ottawa, Canada – As the Lebanese government attempts to bring Palestinian terrorist and their foreign allies based in UN refugee camps under control, serious questions must be asked about the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and its role in supporting and sustaining these armed gangs and their expensive infrastructures. For its part, the Canadian Government must investigate the way its own money and support for UNRWA have been misused to fuel extremism in the region.

“Canada is one of the most active financial supporters of UNRWA. Since 2000, the Canadian International Development Agency has provided over $75 million to support the UN agency, ignoring serious concerns about terrorism and terrorist incitement in the camps, ” said Naresh Raghubeer, Executive Director, Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). “Now that Palestinian terrorists are again undermining Lebanon, as they have been doing with Israel, will Canada finally end its blind support for UNRWA?”

UNRWA has 2,629 staff members in Lebanon who operate 12 refugee camps, including Nahr el-Bared where the current violence is taking place. Since the outbreak of fighting between the Lebanese army and Palestinian gangs on Sunday, over 79 have been killed, making it Lebanon’s worst violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

“UNRWA’s camps have been used for generations to indoctrinate hatred. UNRWA employs Palestinian terrorists from Fatah and Hamas, yet Canada, under both Liberal and now Conservative governments, has been silent,” said Raghubeer.

CCD calls on the Harper government to impose an immediate moratorium on funding to UNRWA until an independent, Canadian-led forensic audit is completed and controls are implemented to assure Canadian taxpayers that (1) armed gangs are no longer operating within the camps, (2) members of terrorist groups are not receiving Canadian aid or employment, and (3) incitement to violence and teaching of hatred have ended.

“Prime Minister Harper has spoken both about the threat posed by terrorism and the need for accountability in spending taxpayers’ money, and has pledged to make these principles part of his 2007 budget,” said Raghubeer. “If the Prime Minister is serious, CIDA’s unconditional funding of UNRWA would be an excellent place to act on these commitments.”

May 24, 2007 | 7 Comments »

Subscribe to Israpundit Daily Digest

7 Comments / 7 Comments

  1. Ted and Bill

    Well we will see.

    What we need in the face of horrendous attacks is not for all good people to come together but for a rigorous debate on strategy and tactics. I stand in the tradition of those who question what is meant by “democracy”, ie bourgeois democracy, Ted, which we had our fill of when Hitler took power through the ballot box, and when Yugoslavia was destroyed again through bourgeois democracy.

    Bill this man can always come onto Israpundit and trade blows here.

  2. Felix,

    What drew me to CCD were exchanges had with Al Gordon who invited me to contribute to his CCD site. I was impressed with the quality of the articles and the many interesting and intelligent comments posted.

    I was drawn to Israpundit for the same reasons when Ted Belman invited me to be involved in his web blog. I should add without meaning to stroke you that you are one of the interesting and intelligent contributors to Israpundit. I say that even though we have had disagreements, even heated disagreements on some matters.

    I am surprised Felix that you would be critical of CCD by taking issue with a few points made on the CCD introduction page and check only far enough to find that CCD has not posted articles or had commentary on the issue of the Serb-Muslim wars of the 1990’s, a topic I know is dear to your heart.

    Unlike with Israpundit where only articles Ted approves are posted for comment, at CCD anyone can post any article they want to start a new discussion thread. CCD does monitor however and if someone does post some racist screed or the like as a lead article, it is quickly removed.

    As for the history of the Serbs-Muslims-Balkan wars and Yugoslavia, you are free to post articles to CCD to start a new discussion thread and see what develops.

    Al Gordon, President of CCD with whom I have had the most interaction and with whom I continue to exchange, is a staunch friend and supporter of the Jewish community and Israel as is CCD and most of those who contribute to that web blog. CCD as you would note from articles and comments posted has a broader focus in being a pro-democracy blog, though within the context of being pro-Democracy, is pro-Israel.

  3. Jerry

    By opening up more domestic oil sources for drilling, such as ANWR and a number of others, and building more refineries we could lessen the gas price squeeze at the pump. Also, this would give us more leverage when dealing with OPEC countries. In order for this to happen, someone must have the courage and the willingness to stand up to the eco-nazis.

    I would hope the media would do it but they are on the side of the eco-nazis. There will be no help from them. Hopefully someone in congress can stand up to the eco-nazis, however, anyone who dares oppose the eco-nazis will be viciously attacked by the main stream news media. Unfortunately few congressional have the courage to stand up to this type of media onslaught and even fewer of them have a clean enough record to survive the onslaught of attacks that will come from the main stream media if the dared to stand up to the eco-nazis. I hope and pray someone will step forward and show leadership and confront these people.

  4. My cousin Joe Eigner out in Santa Fe, had this comment to the CCD request to PM Harper to halt Canada’s donation to the UNWRA abomination.

    “PM Harper hasn’t done anything yet! Piece you cited is from the pro-Israeli group urging him to cut UNWRA funding. Let’s see if he or anyone else has the guts to confront the existence and never-ending support for the camps.”

    But, hey, neither has President Bush and the Queen of the Night, Secretary of State Condi Rice. I guess it’s Arab allies arm twisting the U.S. caught in a gas price squeeze at the pump vis a vis swing production of oil, eh?

    Go to the UNWRA finances website and view who does kick in the donations to their annual program budget: approximately $570 million for 2007. The U.S. is the singly leading government donor at $137 million, Canada and the U.K. each kick in $27 million. All of the members of the European Commission put in $143 million. How about wealthy or fellow Arab nations? Saudi Arabia puts in $1.2 million, Jordan $654,000 and Egypt a paltry $10,000. So much for support of their brethren in the umamr-the ‘poor oppressed Palestinians’ in those sweltering eyesores of what-57 years duration.

    The Pierre Rehov film “Hostages of Hatred” focused on this issue graphically. UNWRA camp administrators have abetted Palestinian terrorist groups in Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza and have incited hatred in refugee camp educational programs directed at young children. Ask yourself a question, if the Palestinian territories have their own administration, why is there any reason for these refugee camps to exist internally, period.

    Time to get the U.S. government to pull the plug on this travesty-the UNWRA camps. But will the dhimmicratic Congress and the Bush Administration do anything about this? Not on your life. Too, un-PC and besides our all in the war on terror, the Saudis would be ‘miffed’ wouldn’t they?

  5. Bill

    I am glad that they stand with Israel but forgive me if I question some of their assumptions.

    At the beginning of their website they place Thomas Payne and Winston Churchill together. This is not accidental, I feel, and probably reflects the basic contradictions in this group.

    Payne was a revolutionary, a creature of the principles represented by the French Revolution, who had quite an impact not just in France and America, but also in Ireland, his ideas of freedom being the bedrock of the United Irishmen, which was put down savagely by the very forces of British Imperialism, whom Churchil always represented.

    Also it must not be forgotten that it was the government of Churchill along with the American ruling class who insisted on overflying the railway lines leading to the death camps (they had total air control) but refused to bomb the railway lines, even though the Polish Underground had travelled to London to beseech the US and Brits to do just that (see the Shoah film for proof of this)

    There is much talk also on their website for “democracy” etc, but it was the democratic countries of the west and their media which such a short time ago made war on an equally democratic country, Yugoslavia. Under the name of democracy Serbs were beheaded by Islamists backed by the US and the Brits, we have pictures of these animals (backed by the US and UK democrats in question) holding a kind of head fiesta with Serbian heads piled into a bucket and these characters parading around with their trophy heads of these unfortunate Serbian citizens.

    No word at all of this on this Canadian site.

    I have been in Britain for a couple of weeks and there is no doubt at all that the Brits is an Empire which can never forgive and can never forget.

    All laced with that miserable UK hypocricy!

    What I saw in the building up of a campaign against Russia and Putin by their ridiculous Media reminds me that when the Russian Bolsheviks took power and threw a spanner into the works of these “democrats”, that the latter sent not one army against the incipient Russian socialist state of 1917, but 14 armies.

    As far as I am concerned Bill I have reached the conclusion that decrepid and dangerous capitalism actually needs antisemitism, has always needed it, for one reason as a scapegoat, and is actually part of the way they keep control in their hands, the hands of an elite.

    Perhaps I should add that Joseph Stalin and his hatchetmen of the revolution used antisemitism against Leon Trotsky in exactly the same way.

    I may later go into what this site claims in more detail but for now it is obvious I am not one little bit impressed by their politics.

  6. In the span of just 4 short years, the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD), under the leadership of brilliant and dedicated people such as Al (Alastair) Gordon, President and Naresh Raghubeer, CCD’s Executive Director, has become a voice that has reached the Canadian public and the Canadian government and Canadians and government officials are listening.

    In being a pro-democracy advocate, CCD steadfastly stands with Israel, stands against anti-Semitism, stands against hypocrisy in our democracies, stands against the depraved inhuman murderous evil outrages committed by depraved, inhuman, intolerant and racist evildoers and is steadfast in standing against all people of this world who are driven by their hateful, intolerant racist ideologies to make war against democracies in order to weaken and destroy our Western democratic way of life and our values, Judeo-Christian principles, morality, ethics and in a word, our Western democratic culture.

    CCD’s website is found at http://canadiancoalition.com/

    I urge followers, readers and contributors of Israpundit, both Canadian and American to visit the CCD site.

Comments are closed.