Well you mentioned rockets and you mentioned giving money, and I put them two together (wrongly). The thing with the giving aid, is that it can’t be used to buy weapons and it never has been. I think it is fair that we give them aid to rebuild their houses seeing as they were destroyed partly by British-built F-16s.

And I don’t own any Palestinian Hamas authorised textbooks because such a thing does not exist. The PA designs the curriculum (and has done so since 1994) and the latest edition of the textbook came out before Hamas was elected into power.

Now let’s compare that to Israeli textbooks, which describe Arabs as ‘bastards, thirsty for Jewish blood’ and imply that the Palestinians are foreigners (which is obviously false).

And unlike you, I don’t see much difference between the illegal settlements and the Hamas charter. The settlements are built with the explicit aim of undermining the creation of a future Palestinian state and the vast majority of settlers are of the idea that all the Arabs in the Occupied territories should be forcibly removed or killed if necessary.

“Are you seriously trying to suggest that Hamas gets it’s weapons from aid that we give?”

How exactly did you get that from my statement? I didn’t even make mention of where they get their weapons from, though I think it would help if we didn’t give them money with which they can purchase weaponry.

And Shafiq, how many Palestinian Hamas authorised text books do you own? I’m intrigued to know how you can be so sure of this opinion, when it is widely and commonly accepted that Hamas try to radicalise children and turn them into suicide bombers. There have even been stories of 4 year old children, featured in our newspapers, telling of how they want to grow up and blow up Israelis ‘just like uncle did’.

Are you seriously trying to suggest that Hamas gets it’s weapons from aid that we give? Even the TPA report doesn’t go that far.

After having read the TPA report, it assumes that Palestinian textbooks are hate-filled, which in reality, they’re not. Well, not according to me anyway. Teaching Palestinian kids about Ghandi, non-violent resistance to an occupation, and about how the Oslo accords were a major step towards peace isn’t exactly what I call extreme.

Hey, Sunny, what is worse – building an illegal settlement, an admittedly immoral thing to do…or blowing up innocent civilians and firing rockets at kindergartens with the stated intention of destroying the state upon which you are firing?

Just answer the question, without squirming.

I’ve posted a response here:
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2009/03/a-response-at-liberal-conspiracy-to-our-palestinian-hate-education-since-annapolis-report.html

Best,
Matt

Of course aid has not always produced the kind of long term results we would like, often for perfectly understandable reasons sometimes less so (and this is not always the fault of those on the receiving end). But it has also done a lot of good and although it is not a panacea in itself it is difficult to see a development route for many countries, particularly in Africa, that does not include considerable amounts of aid. Have a look at the UN Miilenium Development goals and consider if a) they are worthwhile goals and b) if so, how they can be met without properly co-ordinated foreign aid

Good question. Also, why are we supporting an Israeli government that keeps building and sustaining illegal settlements on land that doesn’t belong to it?

Sunny, as a proud citizen of the worlds largest colonial superpower – I find your comment hillarious!

All I wanted to say was that there are all these “Not in My Name ” signs when it comes to war – but when it comes to giving Aid/Charity – people don’t really care where its going and what is done with it. This is not a very complicated concept to grasp.

I’m not saying you couldn’t. I’m just making the point that people who vote for a party don’t agree with everything on its manifesto.

Good question. Also, why are we supporting an Israeli government that keeps building and sustaining illegal settlements on land that doesn’t belong to it?

smackdown!!

Yes, mainly by right wing nuts who think freetrade is the answer to everything. So not to be taken seriously.

“No Unity, the burden of proof is always on the people who spend the money – that’s why every company and charity has to have auditors.”

What , you mean like Enron, or Mr Madoff, or Mr Standford? Yea right, we can trust the auditors.

I make an allegation:

“The Taxpayers alliance donated funds to defend Jospeh Fritzl.”

The TPA reply:

“No we didn’t, you’ve offered no evidence to suggest we did. Produce it or shut up”

I then reply:

“The burden of proof is always on the people who spend the money”

How convincing have I been?

Yawn…

You could make the same case for every govt that has ever been elected for the last 100 years.

And if they have that proof – I’m sure they can sue the TPA and get a nice big settlement

And we’re talking about foreign Aid funding the hate education of the next generation of suicide bombers – I son’t knowwhat you’re talking about here:

As things stand there does appear to be substantial evidence that Hamas misappropriated funds intended to support the Palestinian Authority. when it was in control, but that was before the period covered by the TPA’s leaflet and its main allegations relate to the Fatah.

You appear to have that backwards.

I’m making no strong assertions as to where and how the money is being spent, merely pointing out that the TPA are making claims that are presently unsupported by evidence.

As such the burden of proof lies with those who make claims which they suggest amount to statements of fact.

As things stand there does appear to be substantial evidence that Hamas misappropriated funds intended to support the Palestinian Authority. when it was in control, but that was before the period covered by the TPA’s leaflet and its main allegations relate to the Fatah.

Lets turn the question around ie

Can you show me (with proof) where all these billions of pounds of aid have gone?

If there is this information then there is nothing that I can argue with.

The fact that there isn’t leads me to believe that they are funding unsuitable things – so the burden of proof lies on you – not on me.

I thought you might have learned by now not to throw things up without checking the source material is claims to be based on:

Let’s give a couple of short examples taken from Rachel Ehrenfeld’s blog post:

“Fayyad himself stated many times that controlling Palestinian finances “is virtually impossible.”

Fayyad actually said that on taking over the finances of the PA after Fatah had taken control following after 14 months in which Hamas were running the show and, seemingly, looting the PA’s finances to suit its own agenda – all BEFORE the Annapolis declaration.

Ehrenfeld then goes to state that:

“Moreover, last month, despite Fatah-Hamas bloody disagreements, Fayyad diverted $21.5 million sent from Israel to Gaza to pay PA employees’ salaries, to rebuild the houses of Gaza residents that were destroyed during Operation Cast Lead.”

Now why would he do something like that? It doesn’t make sense…

…unless, of course, you go for the obvious answer which is that of trying to sway the population of Gaza back behind Fatah by rebuilding houses that the Israelis blew the shit out of while trying to crack down on Hamas.

It’s a very elementary piece of politics – Hamas got your house demolished and Fatah are rebuilding it, so who are you going to support.

I have to say that Ehrenfeld’s work is usually much better than that post, which amounts to little more than the same kind of conjecture that the TPA have put out and precious little actual evidence.

I wonder if all those who voted for that party agreed with them on that particular issue. Would be interesting to see a referendum result.

Sunder there has never been a campaign for giving tax away to foreigners for the very good reason it would be laughed into non existence. Some people may be delighted to give money to Africa ..( or whatever the fad may be ) and will do so . You want the State to remove money from people who earn it for this purpose, on threat of imprisonment .The prospect of living with your ‘moral disapproval’ is also a terrifying weapon of course…
There are a number of issues , immigration , overseas aid , attitudes to crime , the EU and so on where there are large majorities against the political elite who impose their will via hierarchical Party politics which reinforces class privilege. In particular the working class support for the Labour Party is not exclusively but predominantly nationalists and socially conservative. It is nonetheless counted as votes ‘against’ those very causes by the Fabian element who have always sought to direct working-class politics towards internationalism and a variety of failed social experiments we are slowly unpicking .
I need hardly say that the argument that a thing is right because our system produces that result is too weak to bother with .The question is how the free up the system from this sort of exploitation. I suggest greater use of referenda, shorter fixed terms for Parliament and open Primaries in safe seats .This would greatly weaken the hold the “Liberal progressive” have on votes cast by people who fundamentally disagree with them. We might expect luxury International adventuring to wither on the vine .
We will see a debate on Constitutional reform after the next election and these are the sort of directions I expect to see it taking .International aid is relatively minor source of irritation but it is a symptom of a faulty system that requires attention.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Aid-working-another-Africa/dp/1846140064

http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/search/label/dfid

Please can you take offyour rose tinted glasses and see where the money is actually going – rather then your phantasy.

I’m not sure I follow your logic there. If we are to have any sort of a deterrent effect, then we need to punish as a first resort. One point of the criminal justice system has to be to deter, doesn’t it?

If we take as our criteria the points raised above – cost and colleges of crime – then capital punishment probably fails – the cost of all those appeals is probably too high. What we need is an alternative to prison that is cheap but still acts as a deterrent. That’s why I think you can make a case for corporal punishment.

Because there is a good ethical and indeed also self-interested case to prevent avoidable deaths in the developing world, and to try to have every child get an education. But mainly because we have a democratic election to elect MPs and a government, and this was a major issue for the party that won.

If you want to abolish overseas aid, its a free country, why not start a campaign and see how you get on. You could run candidates on that ticket too. Use the Jury Team primaries. If enough people agree with you about the importance of this, you should win through. And if they carry on agreeing with you, you can even run the country. But if they think you’re a selfish twat then carrying on trolling on the internet instead.

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