Juno News - Liberals resume UNRWA funding despite alleged Hamas involvement

00:00:00.000 We've seen in the last several days and weeks, and to be honest, months, a mounting of anti-Semitism,

00:00:16.080 of incidents of anti-Semitism on city council and politicians' offices and Jewish community

00:00:23.340 centers and schools. And what's happening throughout all of these instances is we've

00:00:28.740 seen the liberal government in particular be very equivocal on its position. You may remember it was

00:00:34.560 very slow to start talking about a lot of the horrific atrocities that Hamas committed when it

00:00:41.300 came to protesters calling for a ceasefire. The government didn't say, well, we support Israel's

00:00:46.000 right to defend itself. Justin Trudeau turned around to protesters and says, oh, no, no, no, but I am

00:00:49.860 calling for a ceasefire, basically saying, yes, I agree with you. Stop protesting. Well, one of the

00:00:55.160 things that is really interesting here is that the government, when it learned that UNRWA, which is

00:01:01.180 the UN refugee agency for the Palestinian territories, had been turning a blind eye to members of its own

00:01:08.160 staff, literally its own staff, assisting Hamas and joining the Hamas attack, they said, all right, 0.80

00:01:14.500 we're going to announce a pause. But now they've reinstated it before the next payment was due.

00:01:20.500 So the federal government in Canada has basically not deprived UNRWA of a dollar by my count. Brian

00:01:28.360 Lee Crowley here is here. He is from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and we're so glad to talk to him as

00:01:34.460 always. Brian, thanks so much for coming on today. Andrew, it's always a pleasure to be with you. And

00:01:39.260 just before we get underway, I want everybody to see my mug with the Queen's profile on it in the context

00:01:47.080 of your last conversation. Yeah, Chris said she's a quasi-monarchist. You're not doing the quasi on

00:01:53.060 your part, are you? I'm the real thing. All right, duly noted. This, I mean, this was purely

00:02:01.180 window dressing when the government said it was going to pause this funding. And the fact that

00:02:05.600 they've reinstated it just weeks later tells us as much, doesn't it? Well, it does, Andrew. And let's

00:02:12.160 let's be even clear about this. What Canada and most other countries have done is who have taken action

00:02:19.900 on this, they've suspended additional funding. They have not cut the basic funding, which is about

00:02:27.580 1.1 or $1.2 billion. That's the base budget for UNRWA paid for mostly by Western democracy. I think

00:02:35.920 the United States pays about literally three quarters of the budget of UNRWA. But there's now,

00:02:46.440 because of the conflict, obviously, that's going on between Israel and Hamas, carried out on the

00:02:52.260 territory of Gaza, people are putting extra money into UNRWA. And it's that extra money, which a number

00:02:59.500 of countries promised to suspend, while an investigation was carried out about whether

00:03:05.240 there, you know, we could find credible evidence to support the allegation that there are staff members

00:03:14.820 of UNRWA, as well as family members, associates, and other people close to UNRWA, very much involved

00:03:22.240 in not only the armed conflict since the 7th of October, but in the heinous attacks on Israel on

00:03:30.220 the 7th of October. People, staff members who have actually boasted online and elsewhere about their

00:03:36.320 involvement in this. So, you know, Canada has, first of all, said, okay, we're going to suspend

00:03:43.900 extra payment, not the basic payment. Yeah, that's fair. And we're going to suspend it until we have an

00:03:50.960 investigation that tells us whether these allegations are founded. They've now reversed

00:03:56.060 themselves completely. Basically, they've said, oh, well, it doesn't, we're not going to wait for

00:04:00.860 the results of the investigation. We may be funding an organization that aids and abets terrorism.

00:04:08.180 But, hey, you know, we got to get that funding in there. And the idea that there is no other way

00:04:16.120 for Canada to provide humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza, except through UNRWA. It's complete

00:04:22.520 nonsense. So I'm not very impressed. Well, nor should you be. And I should point out, I mean,

00:04:28.920 UNRWA itself has even conceded that this allegation was accurate. Now, they've done the whole Casablanca

00:04:35.520 thing of like, we're shocked to find gambling in here. But they've not refuted it at this point.

00:04:41.180 And I want to play and get your reaction to this, Brian. This is a clip from an Israeli official

00:04:46.440 responding to Canada's decision this week. Let's roll that.

00:04:51.780 A similar question. Canada announced on Friday that funding to UNRWA will be resumed after being

00:04:56.640 paused. Does the PMO have comment on that? And why should the Canadian taxpayers,

00:05:03.600 and what should they know about the links between UNRWA and Hamas?

00:05:07.440 So I think what the taxpayers should know is that their money is funding terror. As simple

00:05:15.160 as that. And do they want their money to help terrorists build tunnels, educate children how

00:05:24.040 to kill and that they should kill, and train them how to do so? Is that the best way for the

00:05:30.220 taxpayers' money to be used? We think that there are much better ways. If we want Gaza to have the bright 0.98

00:05:36.800 future that it can't, you can't keep on giving the money to an organization that taught hate,

00:05:43.520 facilitated, and was part of a massacre. And it's not just a few. We have evidence of a lot of people,

00:05:50.920 and there's no way that the people who are running this organization did not know this.

00:05:55.700 So that means that there has to be another solution. And the taxpayers' money should be

00:06:00.440 for a better future for Gaza, which does not include UNRWA in any way.

00:06:07.020 She is not talking about Iran or Lebanon or Saudi Arabia or Qatar when she's talking about funding

00:06:15.020 terror. She is talking about Canada. And that was a question that was asked by our friends over at

00:06:19.720 the news forum. Quite a far cry from the relationship Canada had with Israel up until,

00:06:25.420 well, basically up until the liberals took over.

00:06:27.180 You're absolutely right that the historic relationship that Canada has had with Israel

00:06:33.900 has been a very supportive one. Canada was one of the countries that voted for the creation of Israel

00:06:39.100 in 1948 at the United Nations, in case people have forgotten that the creation of the state of Israel

00:06:44.320 was mandated by the United Nations and carried out by a majority vote of the member states. So the next

00:06:51.560 time somebody tells you that, you know, Israel is an illegitimate state, they've got several birth

00:06:56.400 certificates of which the UN issued one.

00:06:58.800 I think it was the only pro-Israel vote that ever passed at the UN, to be honest, but it was the

00:07:02.480 important one.

00:07:03.440 Well, it's the one that matters, I think. And, you know, Canada has been a strong supporter of Israel

00:07:12.060 over many years. And I have to say that I think this decision by the government of Canada to restore

00:07:19.640 the extra funding to UNRWA is entirely in keeping with the behavior of this government over pretty much

00:07:26.400 every foreign policy, national security, national defense issue, which is they're playing to a domestic

00:07:33.320 audience. This is diaspora politics. They're looking and seeing, you know, tens of thousands of

00:07:40.400 Palestinian and Hamas supporters in the streets and cities of Canada, and looking at the fact that there's now

00:07:48.080 a million Muslims in Canada more, and saying to themselves, hmm, there's an electoral calculation

00:07:57.160 here, we don't want to be on the wrong side of. And I think that's a shocking and shameful way to

00:08:02.940 conduct the foreign policy of this country.

00:08:04.660 I would agree. I mean, obviously, politicians, I think, should be beholden to, you know, everything

00:08:10.920 they do should be to serve Canada and Canada's interests. And I think that domestic policy is

00:08:16.080 actually very relevant to foreign policy. But I also believe that fundamental questions of right

00:08:20.220 and wrong are, and those are not majoritarian decisions. And we're talking here about a very

00:08:26.180 clear-cut case about terrorist aggressors assaulting civilians. And we've seen equivocation. And the liberals,

00:08:32.140 I mean, it used to be historically that the Jewish vote, insofar as it existed, and it was never

00:08:38.000 monolithic, it isn't with any group, but that a lot of the Jewish vote went to the liberals. And when

00:08:43.280 did that change happen? When did, because there are a lot of liberals that I've, or lifelong liberals who

00:08:48.660 are Jewish that I've heard from, that don't really have much in the way of high expectations from the

00:08:53.880 liberals now, but a couple of years ago did. And a couple of years ago, kind of would never have

00:08:58.560 expected what's happening now from this party that they've been part of for, in some

00:09:02.120 cases, decades?

00:09:04.260 Yes. Well, I mean, of course, I can't speak to what's going through the mind of members of the

00:09:10.660 Canadian Jewish community. I can tell you what's going through my mind, which is that if I were

00:09:17.600 Jewish, and I were looking at the equivocation of the government of Canada, their complete unwillingness

00:09:23.260 to be crystal clear about the fact that Canada, as a Western democracy, supports the only Western

00:09:30.060 democracy in the Middle East, which is Israel, one that is under the rule of law that makes its

00:09:35.480 decisions by democratic means, that is entirely legitimate under international law, and is being

00:09:42.740 attacked by people who do not share those values. If I were a Jewish Canadian, I were looking at the

00:09:49.060 government of Canada fumbling the ball over and over again, when being asked to confirm that they are going

00:09:55.380 to support Israel, and the values that Israel represents in the Middle East, and the government

00:10:00.440 of Canada said, well, maybe until someone makes me uncomfortable politically, and then maybe not.

00:10:08.820 But this, this is completely at odds with the historical behavior of the government of Canada, and

00:10:15.880 with, I believe, the values that the government of Canada and the Canadians have pursued for generations.

00:10:24.000 So where do you see it going from here? I mean, the situation domestically has gotten very ugly. I mean, we've

00:10:30.920 just abandoned any pretense that this is about Israel or Zionism, when you have Jewish schools and neighborhoods

00:10:36.800 being targeted. We have police that have been, I think, very, very shy about getting involved. And

00:10:43.240 part of this is because they don't want to be in the middle of some, you know, ethnic turmoil,

00:10:47.520 basically, or some, you know, cultural spat. And police in general don't want to be the ones in the

00:10:52.160 line of fire when government comes and second guesses whatever decision was made. So where do you see

00:10:56.520 this going? Because I fear, and every Jewish person I've talked to about this says it's going to get a

00:11:00.820 heck of a lot worse.

00:11:02.860 Yeah, well, I think you really touched on something very important there, Andrew. And that is that I think

00:11:09.580 one of the reasons, not the only reason, I think one of the reasons the police have been so ineffectual,

00:11:14.680 in my view, in protecting the Jewish community in Canada and asserting the right of all Canadians to

00:11:21.540 carry out their ordinary lives, free from fear and intimidation. That is what the, that is what the police

00:11:27.320 are for. That the police have learned that if they do not follow the line that the government wants

00:11:38.140 them to follow, that the government will not be there to support them. And that means that they are

00:11:45.100 quite reluctant, I think, to get into the, get into the dirty business, and it will be, it will be

00:11:53.100 unpleasant. There is no way to deal with, you know, tens of thousands of people in the street shouting

00:12:00.660 hateful slogans, you know, intimidating citizens. This is completely different than the hot tubs of

00:12:08.020 the, of the, of the freedom, I got to tell you. Completely different. And, and many laws are being

00:12:17.340 broken. That the laws that police traditionally use to police unruly demonstrations, they're not being

00:12:24.220 pursued. The government, the police are hanging back. And I think one of the main reasons is that

00:12:29.980 they do not think they will be supported by public authorities if they, if they exercise their legitimate

00:12:36.060 authority in these, in these situations. And the people who are paying the price are, of course, the

00:12:42.780 vulnerable members of our Jewish community, who feel completely unprotected and unsupported by the

00:12:48.940 rest of the country. And I, I don't know how we can do something about this in the absence of public

00:12:58.300 authorities who are willing to take responsibility for what's going on. And I just don't see that right

00:13:03.660 now. No, you're, you're quite right to Brian. I mean, it's an absolute tinderbox. And I think it's,

00:13:08.860 it's incredibly dangerous and disheartening. And I am glad people like you are lending your voice to

00:13:13.600 speaking up against it. Uh, Brian Lee Crowley, McDonald, Laurie Institute, I feel you frozen or

00:13:18.320 are deep in thought. So, uh, fitting that we have to bring it to an end here, but thank you so much

00:13:22.060 for coming on, sir. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the

00:13:27.180 program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - March 16, 2024

Liberals resume UNRWA funding despite alleged Hamas involvement

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