Critique of Australian aid to the PA, citing PMW material

SO Bob Carr has slipped his hand into my pocket - and yours - and pulled out $90 million of Australian taxpayers' money and given it to the Palestinians, among whom are some of the most virulent racists on the planet.

Among the Palestinian Authority leadership are some smooth talkers keen to milk a sometimes gullible world for aid money they insist they need because Israel is next door.

It's an odd excuse. Most nations would be more than happy to have an educated, industrious, inventive and robustly democratic country such as Israel as a neighbour.

Once they were almost ours. The plan for the Holy Land to be in the Kimberley flourished through the 1930s, but was killed off by one of the first recorded episodes of political correctness.

Instead, Israel was established in the Middle East, near Jerusalem. Well, it had been their home for some millennia.

One day over lunch, Bob Carr told me one of his regrets as NSW premier had been not to fully engage with the Islamic community that is centred on the Sydney suburb of Lakemba.

By then it was too late and the largely Lebanese Muslim population there was "led" by the sexist Sheik Hilaly, who's happy to proclaim the innocence of men convicted of planning to kill many of us.

He said of terrorist kidnappers who were holding Melbourne's Douglas Wood in Iraq that, "I value your jihad". Wood called his captors "a--------". I'm with Doug.

Perhaps there is a connection between Carr's failure as premier and his extraordinary gesture of goodwill to some people others might see as undeserving.

The Palestinian Authority represents the people of the region, many of whom have escaped to other countries, but then many live happily in Israel, voting and sharing in the wealth of the region's lone democracy. And the Authority knows well who is really to blame for the not-so-blighted lives of modern-day Palestinians.

Until Palestinians rise up and demand a leadership that will point them towards modernity and away from the ancient hatreds of uneducated Islamism, I'd be reluctant to give them one cent from Australian taxpayers. Too many Palestinians are eluding peace by choice.

STATISTICS suggest that about $9 of that money earmarked for Palestinians is mine, and I want it back. Not to put in my pocket, but to give to a people much more deserving and who are keener to take their proper place in the world.

Islamist terror breeds in Gaza and on the West Bank with its bombs, rockets and kidnappings.

Its adherents do not believe in Israel's right to exist.

An even cursory look at the online files of the Palestinian Media Watch shows the extent of the problem. The region's broadcasters and newspapers make celebrities of suicide bombers, the mostly young "martyrs" sent to crowded streets to claim as many innocents as they can.

Depending on how "successful" their mission, the terrorists' names may adorn a Palestinian street, a sports event, or even a school.

The Palestinian Authority shows little concern that these killers are turned into role models that may inspire others. It is like Tasmanians changing the name of Port Arthur to Martin Bryant Fields.

Alarmingly, it has already been claimed that one of these groups has benefited from Australian aid to the region, and Carr has promised to thoroughly investigate the issue.

But why would we spend money on "aid" to Palestinians, many of whom resent the West, when deserving people, to whom we are greatly indebted, live on our doorstep?

East Timorese are poorer than the Palestinians, spend fewer years at school, are more likely to be illiterate and are much less likely to have access to electricity and sanitation.

On the United Nations' Human Development Index, the Palestinian territories appear at No.114 as part of a group listed as having "medium human development".

East Timorese can only dream of that. They are rated at No.147 among nations listed as having "low human development". They supported us in World War II, but that didn't stop us betraying them to the Indonesians in 1975, and allowing the vicious annexation of their country in which so many died.

On average, Palestinians live for more than 72 years. East Timorese life expectancy has risen, but they can expect to live to only 62.

Bob Carr is giving the Palestinians $90 million. According to AusAID, we are giving the East Timorese $91.6 million in development assistance this year.

Here's a plan: let's give nothing to the Palestinians and $180 million to East Timor.

There, I feel better already.