Australia gives $90 million support to Palestinians
Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Bob Carr, today announced Australia would support additional teachers and doctors for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, with a $90 million funding agreement signed with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Canberra this afternoon.
Bob Carr
The agreement would provide the $90m in overseas aid to be distributed by UNRWA over five years, supporting education and medical care for Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The agreement would be signed by Senator Carr and UNRWA Commissioner General Mr Filippo Grandi in Canberra today.
“More than 1.4 million Palestinians live in recognised refugee camps in the Middle East, including those fleeing ongoing violence in Syria,” Senator Carr said.
“The total number of Palestinian refugees in the region could exceed five million.
“Today’s funding agreement means more Palestinian children will go to school, and more doctors will be supported to work in refugee camps and Palestinian communities.
“That’s good news on humanitarian grounds, and good news for Middle Eastern regional stability.”
Senator Carr said while Australia’s first priority was always its own citizens, there was room for wealthy countries to also do their part in fighting poverty overseas.
Since 2007, Australian aid has:
helped more than 470,000 Palestinian refugees attend school in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, including more than 200,000 girls; and
supported 4200 health workers to provide basic and emergency care to Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees. Australia has provided over $119 million to UNRWA since 2000, to deliver education, health, housing and infrastructure services to Palestinian refugees.
A spokesperson told J-Wire the money would be distributed through AusAid.
Peter Wertheim, the executive director of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said: “Australia acts as a responsible middle power and also has a stake in international peace and security, so the provision of genuine humanitarian assistance to civilians who are caught up in the world’s trouble spots is to be welcomed.
Whilst UNRWA does invaluable humanitarian work, we believe that it is wrong in principle for there to be one UN agency specifically for assisting Palestinian refugees, and another that is responsible for all other refugees, namely the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
It is also wrong in principle for the descendants of the 1948 refugees, now into their 3rd and 4th generations, to be classified as Palestinian refugees, even though they are natives of other countries and have never fled from their homes. For no other group of refugees is refugee status passed down from one generation to another in this way.
This is an iniquitous practice that perpetuates disadvantage, grievance and hatred, artificially ensures that the number of Palestinian ‘refugees’ continues to increase rather than decrease over time, and thus does more to aggravate the refugee issue than to solve it.”
So Carr is a friend of the Jewish community for giving the Palestinians $90 Million so they can free up another $90 Mill to purchase arms to kill more Jews…The Palestinians get more money than any other group in the world, let their oil rich cousins in the gulf support them . If our government is so flush with cash { money that stems probably form those grubby Minning magnates in the West that labour hates so much] let them give it to people a lot closer in our neighborhood that are not obsessed with hating Jews As an Australian I am offended that one dollar of my taxes goes to these people.
Now I know why Bob Carr is Minister for Foreign Affairs and who’s paying his salary. Sinister, Bob. Sinister.
Shame on you Rodney, Paul, David, Lynne, Michael !
Bob Carr is the best friend of the Australian Jewish community !! Ask ANY of our communal leaders.Actually, only second to Cardinal Pell. Ask again the same communal leaders.
Tut, tut, Otto. You do remember that it was he who snarled at the Jewish community for daring to voice its opposition to his presenting the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi, the Christian Arab spokesperson for jihadis. It’s time to jump in front of a fast moving car if one has no better friend than Carr.
Forget Hanan Ashrawi. Sydney Peace Prize was nothing compared to the Yom Haatzmaut 2002 function organised by NSWJBD with haver Bob as guest of honour. At the same function, you’d remember, my friend , the then Federal sitting member for Wentworth, Peter King, was also invited. Peter made arrangements with the Board to read at the function a letter of congratullations for the State of Israel sent to us by the then PM John Howard, a REAL friend of ours.
During the processions Peter King was told that he will NOT be allowed to read John Howard’s letter as it would “offend” Bob Carr, him being a Labor leader. Peter could not read the letter and, subsequently John Howard felt seriously insulted and rightly so. Since that occurance Howard never sent such a public letter to the Sydney cellebrations. The excuse given by ALL communal leaders at the function was that “protocol” would not allow such a …”clash” of plotitical sides to take place…………..
So , it is not only Carr improvising “reasons” for outrageous gestures toward Israel. At least we know some of the causes for his impunity…………
Cardinal Pell friend of Jewish community?? where you came from Mars??? according to Cardinal Pell all Jews have genetic backward mental disability, and when he was confronted and reminded about who got the most Nobel Prices he backed out and said it was taken out of contest, just like his mate Shaike Rock and roll of Islam.Somebody tell Bob what the $90 million are really going to in Palestine, not schools and teachers that for sure, more like building more mansions for the Pal leaders and more rockets to destroy Israel.Hey Bob not for my money!!! We in Australia need the money for our teachers and schools where children are suffering from heat in summer with out air conditioning in school rooms.And what about teachers for the ingenuous in Australia???
All one can say at a time like this is, “GOODBYE GILLARD, GOODBYE CARR”. Such irresponsibility while Gillard and the looney unions don’t want overseas workers in WA’s mining industry where at least they would be giving something in return for their wages, but give handouts to those who contribute nothing to our nation. The money won’t be given to the right cause and will probably, as usual end up in the hands of terrorists. The mind boggles. Who voted for these people?
Since the Palestinian Arabs are the highest grant recipients from the international community, one would have thought that our Foreign Affairs Minister could have used the funds more appropriately in hel[ping to relieve starvation in West Africa and on the Horn of Africa. The funds sent to the”refugees” makes it so much easier for them to finance their rearmament. Purely to advance peace of course. After all Australia is so concerned by the murder of civilians that it has just kicked out two Syrian embassy officials. But silly me; the Syrian civilians being killed are not Jewish.
In view of the fact that Palestine was recognised as a state on 31 October 2011 and Australia has done nothing since then to challenge the constitutional validity of that decision – surely Australia should be calling for UNRWA to close the refugee camps at the same time that it commits another $90 million to improve services over the next five years.
How can refugee camps be kept open now that the Palestinian Arabs have their own internationally
recognised State?
It is also time that Australia took the American lead and extended aid to refugees only and not their descendants. This permanent state of welfare extended to no other refugee group in the world has been a discriminatory and a massive con job over the past 64 years.
A great friend of Bishop Pat Power who called on Israel to “stop abusing Palestinians where never a day passes where he isn’t appaulled at their plight and apparent indifference to the injustice’s of these beleaguered people”
He also once claimed that celibacy wasn’t an issue within the Catholic Church, yet was party to a brother priest who had fathered a child, coerce the disorientated, mother to relinquish her newborn.
A man I’m sorry to say, in two minds can never be trusted..
Good idea but a token gesture, considering Successive governments’ subsurvience to he US in maintaining a total silence on the question of Palestinian national rights.
BoB Carr Palestinian representative for Australia..
Surely there are other more deserving people in Africa or beyond that are not fighting amongst themselves using violence and intolerance and racism to achieve their goals?
I thought we were short on funds for our hospitals, Schools , Pensioners its obvious the labour party has plenty of Cash { thanks to those dirty rich capitalists in WA} to splurge on the poor Palestinians for forever hands their hands out for charity.
Could it be our large and ever growing Muslim population mostly Labour voters that Carr and his comrades would like to keep happy..or am I being cynical