This is no flight of rhetoric. It is literally true. British aid money also goes to reward the killer of a British woman. These payments aren’t incidental: their purpose is to reward the killers for the killing.
Ian Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North (undeclared on the Brexit issue, in case you’re interested) has written an article for Labour List about some of what Britain’s foreign aid is actually spent on.
British aid feeds 25 million under-fives. It supports midwives, nurses and doctors so 4.3 million babies can be born safely.
Our aid spending helped tackle Ebola in Africa. It feeds the starving, helps refugees and provides jobs.
It builds stronger economies around the world. It helps the poorest countries tackle the most desperate poverty.It does all that and so much more. And we should be very proud of it.
But it also funds terrorists. And that obscures and undermines all the good work it does.
That’s why this week Parliament debated whether Britain should have an international aid budget at all. You might not be aware of it, since it was prompted by a petition in the Daily Mail, which is hardly the in-house reading of choice around these parts.
Like other Labour MPs, I’ll be speaking up in support of our aid budget, but I’ll also be calling for our money to be used to promote peace, not reward terrorism.
Last week four people were murdered when terrorists opened fire in a Tel Aviv cafe.
People in Britain will be horrified by the deliberate, indiscriminate murder of civilians. There can be no justification. But they will be appalled that the two murderers could now be eligible for government salaries – paid for by international aid money from Britain.
Mary Gardner, a Scottish visitor to Israel, died five years ago when terrorists bombed a bus stop. Hassin Qawasme, who led the attack, has been paid almost £14,000 since his arrest.
Amjad and Hakim Awad, killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their three children aged 11, four and just three months in 2011. Since then it’s estimated that Amjad alone has been paid up to £16,000 from PA funds.
Emphasis added. A Guardian article by Edwin Black from November 2013 has more about these payments:
When a Palestinian is convicted of an act of terror against the Israeli government or innocent civilians, such as a bombing or a murder, that convicted terrorist automatically receives a generous salary from the Palestinian Authority.
I am reminded of Milton Freedman’s old article about “Barking Cats’. Praise is due to a Labour MP honest enough to admit these facts. But, as Milton asked the doctors who said they didn’t want the FDA abolished, just that it operate differently, “What would you say if I said I wanted a cat provided that it barked?”. Ian Austin wants the government to have a foreign aid budget provided the aid is used to help, not hurt. Good luck with that.
If we leave the EU, then the EU member states will be ‘foreigners’, not common EU citizens (I know I am stretching things here, but are they really foreign at the moment?). Then we can classify the donations to the EU for the remainder of our membership as ‘Foreign Aid’ and Mr Cameron can boost the ‘Foreign Aid budget’ at no extra cost by voting Leave, because that’s the right thing to do.
The whole reason for the Foreign Aid budget, apart from supporting vileness, is to give Mr Cameron a plausible ‘sound-bite’ about caring Conservatism, even if it means some people’s taxes go to their family member’s killers. That’s all you need to know about Mr Cameron.
Not that it makes a material difference, but just to get the technicalities straight:
IOW, techincally the PA does not pay them for committing mass murders, but rather compensates them for time spent in an Israeli prison.
If only the victims were gay, instead of Jews, maybe the UK government would get off its arse and do something. Then again, I expect not.
Mr Osborne insists he has balanced the books and cut government spending to the bone – it is all lies, as this post shows.
Peter Bauer (“Dissent on Development” and other works) showed how useless government overseas aid was – and he did not even include aid to terrorists.
The E.U. support for Islamist terrorists is well known. And British government overseas aid is tied into that.
The E.U. (and its supporters in the United Kingdom) like Israel about as much as they like Ulstermen.
“Peace in the Middle East” (by exterminating Israel) and a “United Ireland” are two of the basic doctrines of the “liberal” elite.
Far from disliking them , I’ve always felt that the EU was rather too generous to the citizens of Monaghan , Donegal and Cavan , Paul.
Rob (June 16, 2016 at 9:52 am): “If only the victims were gay, instead of Jews, maybe the UK government would get off its arse and do something.”
If only the perpetrators were jews instead of muslims, I’m sure a great fuss would be made. From Obama’s remarks after Orlando, victims from high up the PC hierarchy must still defer to perpetrators from higher up the PC hierarchy. I think the UK government as a whole is not quite that bad (a great deal is not quite that bad) but even here, those most vocal about foreign aid and those most aware of the PC pecking order overlap strongly.
These payments aren’t incidental: their purpose is to reward the killers for the killing.
As far as leftists are concerned, this is a feature not a bug.
Alisa, it would seem to me that the solution would be execution, not incarceration. That saves everybody money (even the PA). But I guess that’s not feasible in Israel, is it?
Actually it would be feasible inside Israel and is being discussed frequently on the Right side of the political map here – but our politicians don’t have the guts to face the blowback from The International Community, and our own Left.