Harper Totally Vindicated On Decision To End UNRWA Funding, While Trudeau’s Restoration Of Funding Looks Worse & Worse

OpinionSpencerFernando

Canada must return to foreign policy based on principle, not politics.

In 2010, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper ended Canada’s funding for the United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA), the ‘aid organization’ that operates in Gaza and the West Bank.

As noted by the Canadian Press, the funding was restored not long after the Liberals formed government:

“Former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government cut off Canadian funding for UNWRA in 2010, amid allegations it was too closely tied to Hamas.

Funding resumed under the federal Liberals in 2016.”

Since then, Stephen Harper has been vindicated, while Justin Trudeau looks worse than ever for restoring the funding.

It has long been known that UNRWA-run schools have been indoctrinating young Palestinians with shockingly hateful rhetoric.

A report by UN Watch revealed that official teaching materials – bearing the UNRWA logo and signed-off on by UNRWA staff – glorified terrorism and praised those who call for genocide against Jewish People:

Examples cited in the report, based on UNRWA classroom photos and other material found in Telegram and Facebook groups and elsewhere online, include:

“UNRWA’s Al-Zaytun Elementary School (Gaza) glorified terrorists and encouraged martyrdom. In March 2022 and September 2021, fifth graders were taught to glorify Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who carried out the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 Israeli civilians including 13 children were killed. Photos taken of a classroom blackboard show how she is presented as “the fighting leader” and a “hero” who is to be honored by naming children and streets after her.

Likewise, in September 2022, 5th-graders at the school were taught to admire as a “martyr” and “hero” Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassem, the namesake of Hamas’ military wing, who had preached the murder of Jews. On November 20, 2022, photos of a classroom blackboard from Social Studies class in the 5th grade Class 9 of the fifth grade show a map labeled Palestine. The map includes the State of Israel – a UN member state, and marks areas and cities in Israel such as Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, and Beersheba as part of Palestine.

UNRWA’s Al-Maghazi Middle School for Boys B (Gaza) endorsed violence, demonized Israel, and encouraged martyrdom. In December 2022, an UNRWA-created Arabic reading comprehension exercise for 9th graders celebrated a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus as a “barbecue party.””

It is sickening to think that our tax dollars funded such hateful teaching – teaching deliberately designed to turn innocent children into terrorists.

Again, this was all known before Hamas’ October 7th terror attack against Israel.

There is no way the Liberal government could have been ignorant of what UNRWA was really doing, unless they choose to be ignorant.

And now, the decision by Trudeau to restore UNRWA funding looks even worse.

In recent days, Israeli troops discovered that a massive Hamas data centre was operating directly underneath the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza:

“BREAKING: Terror tunnel discovered right below UNRWA HQ, hiding Hamas intelligence data center, with electrical room, industrial battery power banks, living quarters for Hamas server operators. Electric cables from UNRWA powered the Hamas servers. UNRWA chief: “We had no clue.””

https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1756567147063443647

The head of UNRWA – Philippe Lazzarini – is attempting to claim they had no idea what was going on DIRECTLY BENEATH THEIR OWN HEADQUARTERS:

Unsurprisingly, Israel has made the wise move to shut down all UNRWA offices in the country:

Principled foreign policy vs political pandering

There aren’t a ton of votes to be found in standing up for Israel.

There aren’t many votes to be found standing up for the Jewish community.

Yet, Stephen Harper did both anyway.

He did so because it was – and is – the right thing to do.

Even in the cynical world of politics, and the compromise-filled arena of foreign policy, there are some principles, values, and ethics we must adhere to.

Stephen Harper understood this, while Justin Trudeau clearly does not.

Justin Trudeau’s decision to restore UNRWA funding was all about politics, all about winning votes, and all about casting himself as the ‘generous guy’ in contrast to the ‘stingy’ Harper era.

Trudeau’s pandering and abandonment of a principled foreign policy meant that our taxpayer dollars went to the propagation of horrific anti-Semitic indoctrination. It is a certainty that many of the perpetrators of the October 7th terror attack were radicalized in UNRWA schools – schools Canadians helped fund thanks to Justin Trudeau’s restoration of Canadian aid to UNRWA.

Even the recent Liberal move to ‘cut’ $40 million in planned aid to UNRWA is suspect, given that they sent money before the cut and weren’t scheduled to deliver any for a while, meaning nothing was actually cut at all.

Over and over again, we are seeing why Canada must move on from the unprincipled foreign policy of the Trudeau years, and return to a foreign policy based on Canadian & Western values, and based upon doing what is right.

Canada must stand with Israel, we must stand with the Jewish community, and we must never again fund orgnizations like UNRWA.

Spencer Fernando

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