Canada Must Do More Than Just Throw Money At Palestinian Refugees
This article was originally published on August 28, 2017 on Huffington Post Canada.
Last Thursday, the Trudeau government announced another $25 million in aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees. Within hours, Canadian pro-Israel lobby groups had criticized the decision, dredging up spurious arguments to subvert any potential public sympathy for Palestinians, refugees or otherwise. But average Canadians can reasonably be excused for asking, "Why should Canada support Palestinian refugees?"
Believe it or not, Canada is partly to blame for the fact that there are over five millionPalestinian refugees today. The refugees today are the descendants of Palestinians who became refugees over several months between 1947 and 1948. Canada was one of the countries at the UN which voted in 1947 to partition historic Palestine, which ultimately resulted in 700,000 Palestinians losing their homes in the territory of what became the state of Israel.
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