Recently it was reported in The Australian newspaper that our ambassador to the UN, James Larsen said “Australia’s vote in favour of UNRWA reflects the country’s view that it must be able to continue its life-saving work.” He also said “UNRWA is the backbone of the humanitarian response to the catastrophic situation in Gaza” and then proceeded to quote discredited casualty figures sourced from a terrorist regime.
Sadly, UNRWA has been exposed as complicit in the 7 October massacre, as having its facilities overrun and used as terrorist command centres, and as having its aid hijacked and sold at inflated prices. The organisation has been corrupted and the evidence shows it is doing the opposite of “life saving work”.
It is easy to see how evil has become normalised through political and diplomatic channels.
Our Government continues to support, fund and enable terrorism against Israel. It continues to support a two State solution when the PA leadership rejects it out of hand, whilst generously rewarding and incentivising terrorism through “pay to slay” welfare.
The biggest problem however, is that Palestinian children continue to be educated to aspire towards the violent eradication of Israel and its supporters. Just this month it was reported that some 24 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) employees working in some 24 schools belonging to the organisation in the Gaza Strip have been identified as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad members
All of this is not new. I found this article, penned by Janet Albrechtsen on November 26 2008, that’s 16 years ago, following a trip she made to Israel. This is an extract only and does not cover other experiences from her trip, including a consistent barrage of missiles being fired from Gaza.
Hostages to fear
Janet Albrechtsen Blog
November 26, 2008
TO spend a week in Israel is to begin to understand that this country is generations away from peace with Palestinians.
An entire generation of Palestinian children is being raised on a full diet of hate education, on jihad and anti-Semitism. This is the long-term hurdle to peace in this generation, and the next. Look at the website of Palestinian Media Watch (http://www.pmw.org.il) where analysts have long tracked what the Palestinian leadership under Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is doing. Not what is said to Westerners in English or what they tell Israelis in Hebrew.
Look at what Palestinians are teaching their children in Arabic. Look at the geography books for Palestinian children that encourage children to see no Israel, books that feature maps of Israel in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and described as Palestine. Learn about the May 2008 soccer championships for young boys in honour of terrorists such as Samir Quntar and Muhammad al-Mabhuh. Or the July 2008 summer camp held for young girls named in honour of female suicide bomber Dalal al-Mughrabi, who hijacked a holiday bus in 1978, murdering 12 children and 25 adults.
Listen to Fatah-funded children’s television where children are taught to continue the way of the shahids (the suicide bombers) and quizzed about Mughrabi. She is presented as “the beloved bride, child of Jaffa, jasmine flower”. Or quizzes where children routinely identify Israeli landmarks, towns and ports such as Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat as Palestinian. Where children are taught that “Palestine” covers 27,000sqkm; in fact Gaza and the West Bank total 6200sqm. When the next generation of leaders is taught from childhood that Israel does not exist, how is future negotiation possible?
The irony is that this hate education is funded by the West, by countries that pour money into the PA who use it to glorify terrorism and to twist young minds against Israel, and peace. Countries such as Australia. Last year in Ramallah, headquarters of Fatah, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith lauded one of the first acts of the new Labor Government as being a pledge of $45million to the Palestinian people and $7.5m going directly to the PA. Does the minister know how the PA is using Western money?
Hillary Clinton knows about the direct flow of Western money into Fatah’s sewer of hate education. Last year she launched PMW’s latest report and pointed out the consequences of the toxic indoctrination of children: “We cannot build a peaceful, stable, safe future on such a hate-filled violent and radical foundation.”
Yet consider this. According to the PMW, more than half of the Palestinian educators in the teachers’ union are affiliated with Hamas. What hope the children? What hope is there emerging from the next generation a group of moderate Palestinian leaders capable of carving out peace for their people?
These are questions not simply for the present leadership of the Palestinian people. But also for the leaders of countries such as Australia, who talk in rhetorical flourishes about a renewed peace initiative, and yet must surely know that this money is used for propaganda that kills any chance of peace.
This has been continuously documented and reported over many years, and it continues today. The only way to give peace to the region is to educate a new generation in coexistence and tolerance. Israel’s school curriculum is built on such values. The UNRWA schools aspire to the opposite.
So why is it that the Albanese Government has doubled its funding to UNRWA? Why is it that they duck for cover when questioned about this, by referring to anonymous, third party NGO audit organisations that return assurances that Australian taxpayer money is not used to support terrorism? Why are Australian’s not outraged that our public funds are being used to fund racial hatred?
It seems in recent weeks that Penny Wong has deferred more towards DFAT to make statements about the UN, ICC etc. The lack of moral clarity outlined above seems to have been institutionalised within DFAT, or even worse, they are leading the Government to take positions that support liberal international institutions that are morally bankrupt.
We need a future Liberal government to “drain the swamp”.