‘Desperate plight’ of their own making

Re Boost Canada’s aid to Palestinians to help underwrite peace: Editorial, April 11 For all its good intentions, this editorial misses an inconvenient but nonetheless critical truth: the Palestinian Authority, beginning with Yasser Arafat, has a wellknown reputation for corruption and misappropriation of aid money. Hundreds of millions of dollars embezzled by Arafat remain unaccounted for. In fact, it was because of the overt corruption of the Palestinian Authority that Hamas was elected in Gaza; the intention was to take a stand against a dishonest government that used aid money for personal gain and teach it a lesson (it didn’t work: the Islamic terror group Hamas was unexpectedly voted into power instead).

The UN and governments around the world continue to channel millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, ignoring its continued campaign of hate against Israel — including the well-publicized naming of parks and schools for terrorists.

If the world truly hopes to see a viable Palestinian state, it must hold it to account for the use of the funds it receives and the values it promotes.

Avi Benlolo, President & CEO, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, Toronto The “desperate plight of four million Palestinians” is not one in which “they find themselves,” as described in your editorial criticizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s foreign aid decisions, but rather is one of their own making through the culture of victimhood. In Canada, when crime increases, decent people form neighbourhood watches. No such effort is visible from the supposed vast majority of peaceful citizens against the extremists who insist on lobbing bombs at Israel’s civilians. Furthermore, when Gaza was in Israel’s hands the supermarkets were full of produce from the greenhouses there. When Israel vacated Gaza, the greenhouses were destroyed rather than used to employ and train Palestinians.

Sheldon Schwartz, Toronto