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Ryerson Social Work prof who has a problem with Jewish agencies now on leave

Ryerson Social Work student Kathryn Wallace with the coloring book her prof gave her

Good news: Heather Bain the Ryerson U Social Work prof who refused to allow a student to do her placement with a Jewish social work agency is now on leave, and “will no longer be working with” students.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that besides having a thing against Jewish agencies, Bain also seems to have a thing against agencies serving men.

Social work student Kathryn Wallace wanted to do her placement at the Canadian Centre for Men and Families. According to Wallace, Bain told her the mere existence of this centre was an act of violence. Wallace explained she’s a victim of real violence and that’s why she’s so committed to working with the male population: if men can get the help they need, it may reduce violence.

But Bain was having none of it. Rather than give Wallace the placement she requested, gave her a sexual assault colouring book. (You can’t make this stuff up. - see here.)

In fairness to Bain, she’s simply carrying out the mandate of the Ryerson School of Social Work, which divides society into oppressed groups and oppressor groups; good groups and bad, underprivileged and privileged.

Bain’s problem is that apparently no one explained to her that you’re supposed to emphasize the groups your stand with, not to make it so obvious which groups you’re against.

Read about Bain’s refusal to allow a placement at Jewish agencies here.

And here’s the relevant “Core Value” from the Ryerson School of Social Work, setting out the school’s political ideology. (Apart from the fact that their ideology reveals itself as a nasty pile of bigotry, has it never occurred to Ryerson's School of Social Work that the government gives them millions of dollars in order to educate students, not to indoctrinate them?):

"We stand with communities and populations that experience oppression and marginalization, including poverty, exploitation and domination, and seek to work with all those committed to the advancement of anti-oppression/anti-racism, anti-Black racism, anti-colonialism/decolonization, Aboriginal reconciliation, feminism, anti-capitalism, queer and trans liberation struggles, issues in disability and Madness, among other social justice struggles."

I have for my entire life been an advocate for equality. I find nothing so revolting as the fact that self-styled social justice activists are busily dividing society into good groups and bad. Nothing good ever comes of such nonsense.

Equality yes; "social justice" racism no. See here.

After the Greens adopted an antisemitic resolution, party leader Elizabeth May tells the CBC she may step down

BDS - the movement determined to put Palestinians out of work and make Israelis untouchables  

A few days ago – against the wishes of party leader Elizabeth May – the Greens passed an antisemitic resolution making itself the first officially racist party in Canada, and I called on May to resign (here).

Seems she heard me. According to the CBC, if she can't get this resolution reversed, she may indeed step down as leader.

From the CBC: Elizabeth May says she is questioning whether she can continue in her role as leader of the Green Party, after its members voted in favour of a resolution supporting sanctions against Israel, despite her own opposition to it.

The Greens became Canada's first federal party to endorse the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement during the party's biennial convention in Ottawa over the weekend. Some Canadian Jewish groups denounced the Green Party for supporting a boycott policy against Israel. The House of Commons condemned the movement in February.

"I'm struggling with the question of whether I should continue as leader or not, quite honestly," May told Rosemary Barton in an interview with The National.

BDS - the movement that picks on 13-year-old kids

"I'm quite certain most of our members don't support this policy, but weren't fully engaged in the consensus building process we normally would have had," she said.

"So if I can't find a way to bring that back and have the members review it with a consensus decision-making process, then I have to profoundly question whether I can continue as leader and that's obviously heart-breaking."

Elizabeth May says she's going to reflect on her role as leader of the Green Party after its members voted to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which she says is an 'extremely distressing' policy. (Green Party of Canada)

May added that a review could be possible if she stepped down as leader.

"One way to bring it forward is under our constitution if I step down, then we have to have a leadership convention sooner and they could deal with this issue," she said. "I mean there are other options that we are looking at that I'm trying to figure out if there's a way that… we can review this through some other mechanism."

"I don't have great answers for you now because I'm struggling with this," she said.

May had earlier said Tuesday morning in an interview with CBC Radio's On the Island she would take the next week off and "doing a lot of reflecting."

Canadian government funds antisemitic conference ~ but border services says, Go away, to 234 delegates from Iran, Africa and the Middle East

An antisemitic conference in Montreal is being funded by the governments of Canada and Quebec, the City of Montreal and other groups that apparently didn’t bother checking out who they were giving money to. The general outlook of the conference is illustrated by a visual they use showing a Wahabi terrorist coming out of the mouth of America, which in turn is controlled by the Jew, drawn in usual antisemitic style with a big hooked nose and made as Jewy-looking as possible.

This conference, the so-called “World Social Forum” brings together a collection of pro-Iranian Jew-haters, lunatic-left conspiracy theorists, and cheerleaders for terrorism. But it has to be the right kind of terrorism. This is a pro-Iran grouping, and Iran supports Hezbollah terrorists and Hamas terrorists, but regards ISIS (AKA ISIL or Daesh) as a creature of their arch-rival Saudi Arabia (the centre of Wahabi Islam), and the Saudis as controlled by the Americans, and all evil as ultimately coming from the Jews.

Other seminars at the World Social Forum include one promoting 9-11 conspiracy theories and others extolling class warfare, violence and terrorism. … more   

Among the speakers at the Forum are a number of terrorism apologists, including the fanatical Ken Stone, who is a frequently a featured speaker at Toronto's annual celebration of antisemitism known as the al Quds Day rally.

This year, at the al Quds rally, a Mississauga school teacher spoke in favour of terrorism … more.

Update: Canadian Border services have denied visas to at least 234 participants in the World Social Forum, mostly people delegates coming from the Middle East Africa and Iran. So while it looks like our government's granting agencies tossed money to this motely collection of bigots and nut-jobs, at least Border Services did their job and took a hard look at the type of people trying to attend this affair. ... more

Another update: Having been alerted to the antisemitic content of this conference, the government of Canada has told them to take the Canadian logooff the list of sponsors. MP Anthony Housefeather said the federal govt didn't provide a direct grant to the forum, but did subsidize the employment of two students working for the organization. ... more

The Greens become Canada's first officially racist political party

Resign, Elizabeth. It's your only honorable option 

The Green Party has become Canada’s first officially racist political party. They’ve endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which aim to cut Jewish Israelis off from the rest of humanity. BDS goes against Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms – and all other human rights legislation in Canada – which specifically forbids discrimination on the basis of national origin and ethnicity.

So you cannot, in Canada, boycott someone because they’re Israeli as called for by the BDS movement. It’s racist. And of course, BDS supporters have no objection to Arab Israelis (who make up 20% of Israel’s population). If an Arab Israeli student wants to attend a Canadian school, BDS movement has no objection; it’s only Jews they wish to bar. So the BDS movement is doubly racist.

Where do the Greens stand? They're now with the likes of this Cambridge professor who decided to boycott a 13-year-old girl because "the Jews have become Nazis."

Poor Elizabeth May. She spoke against the resolution. Now she’s stuck with carrying the banner of bigotry. The only honorable thing to do is resign. It wouldn’t even be a hardship. She could just cross the floor to the Liberals side of the House, where I’m sure Justin would welcome her with open arms.

But of course she’d no longer be a party leader. No guarantee even of a cabinet post. And so she might fade into obscurity. No more media scrums. No more sure spots on TV panels. The end of the lime light. It’s a tough thing for a politician to accept. But it's the only honorable curse open to her.

Resign, Elizabeth. Show the world what you’re made of. 

Mississauga teacher calls murderer of 4-year-old girl a hero

This year, on the Canada Day weekend, a Mississauga teacher spoke in support of terrorism, expressing outrage at Israeli forces "executing" a Palestinian while failing to mention he'd just murdered a 13-year-old girl in her bed. The teacher, Nadia Shoufani, was one of the speakers at the annual Al-Quds Day Rally in downtown Toronto. Founded by the leader of Iran, Al-Quds day is an antisemitic celebration at which speakers call for the destruction of Israel.

At the rally, Shoufani, a teacher for Special Education, ESL (English Second Language), Literacy and Science at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic School in Mississauga, expressed her support of the Palestinian struggle “in any form possible”, called for the liberation of “all Palestine” (meaning the destruction of the State of Israel), and called Mohammad Tarairah a “martyr.” Tarairah was shot by Israeli forces after he murdered Hallel Yaffa Ariel, a 13-year-old American-Israeli girl while she was sleeping in her own bed.

During her speech at Al-Quds, Shouafani said: “Glory to the martyrs. Victory, freedom to the prisoners and liberation for the Palestinians. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.”

Most of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were convicted for involvement in terrorist activities that includes suicide bombers captured alive, dispatchers of suicide bombers, mass murderers, leaders of terrorist organizations, terrorists who killed civilians and those who attempted or planned to kill civilians.

On her Facebook page, Shoufani revealed the extent of her support for Palestinian terrorism. On December 21, 2015, she wrote: “Samir Kuntar is one of the heroes of my land. He sacrificed himself for the struggle/ resistance and Palestine… Samir, O Fierce fighter… You have the glory and the pride of the martyrdom!”

On April 22, 1979 Samir Kuntar, one of the most infamous Palestinian terrorists and a member of the terrorist organization Palestine Liberation Front, infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon with three other terrorists, murdered an Israeli policeman and attempted to kidnap an Israeli family in Nahariya. During the terrorist attack, Kuntar killed an Israeli civilian, smashed the head of his 4-year-old daughter on beach rocks and crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle.

After being released in 2008 from an Israeli prison as part of a prisoner swap, Kuntar joined the ranks of the Lebanese terrorist Shiite Hezbollah organization and worked for building up Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure against Israel in the Golan Heights. On December 19, 2015, Kuntar was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus, Syria. ... more 

Most years, the al-Quds Day rally draws some attention from the Jwish press because of its support for Jew-hatred and terrorism, but doesn't usually receive much mainstream media attention. Back in 2013,though, Liberal party insider Elias Hazineh spoke at the rally and called for the killing of Israelis ... more

Ontario Arabic Newspaper Blames Jews for Holocaust

Ilana Shneider,  CIJ News, with additional info from the CBC

An investigation by B’nai Brith Canada – a leading Jewish advocacy group which combats antisemitism and racism – revealed that al-Saraha – a London, Ontario Arab-language newspaper published by Abdul-Hadi Shala (عبد الهادي شلا), a Palestinian Arab from the Gaza Strip – engages in gross antisemitism, Holocaust denial and homophobia.

An article called “The Question Which Everyone Ignores: Why Did Hitler Kill the Jews?” which was published in al-Saraha’s June/July 2016 issue accuses Jews of promoting “promiscuity … homosexuality … every type of sexual deviance.”, denies that six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, claims that “Jewish propaganda” inflated the number, and blames Jews for the economic collapses of 1870 and 1920.

Until July 21, after al-Saraha’s Jew-hatred was brought to light, the London and Middlesex Local Immigration Partnership (funded by the Ontario government) had been recommending Al-Saraha as the go-to source of news for Canadian Muslims, including new Muslim immigrants.

Michael Mostyn, CEO Of B’nai Brith, called the article an “obscene form of hate propaganda aimed at Canada’s Jewish community” and said that he is extremely worried that a community newspaper which hosts advertisements from mainstream political parties – including a Ramadan greeting from Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberal Caucus in the same issue – publishes antisemitic and Holocaust denying material.

Angry reaction came from across the province Thursday, including from Ontario Deputy Premier Deb Matthews.

"I want to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the statements in the Al-Saraha article," she said. "Statements like these, filled with hatred, prejudice and lies, have no place in our society."

Matthews says, neither she nor the premier knew the article would be published when they bought advertising space in the magazine. Matthews says the advertising will stop.

Al-Saraha is one of several Arab-language newspapers in Ontario that have been found to contain antisemitic articles, as well as articles supporting-terrorism.

On May 2, 2014, Mississauga-based Arabic newspaper “Meshwar” edited by Dr. Nazih Khatatba who also serves as a board member of Palestine House, which was de-funded by the previous Conservative government for its “pattern of support of extremism”, published an article titled “Why the Holocaust is relevant to us?” by Jordanian Holocaust denier Dr. Ibrahim Alloush who repeated the claim of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the “Jewish Holocaust is the biggest crime in history”, and alleged that the Jews used the “Holohoax” (as Alloush referred to it) as a pretext to “invade and plunder Palestine” after World War II.

On July 15, 2014, Meshwar published a cartoon featuring Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodthirsty vampire eating a Palestinian child.

On February 21, 2014, Khatatba published an editorial slamming Mahmoud Abbas for finally admitting that the Holocaust did transpire. In the editorial, Khatabsa asked: “Why a Palestinian, any Palestinian, has to announce his ‘belief’ in the Holocaust of the Jews, and why should we accept it as truth? Mr. President (Abbas), I reject the subservience expressed in your statements and we demand that you stop degrading our dignity and the dignity of our martyrs and prisoners.”

Al-Forqan, an Arab-language paper based in Windsor, Ontario, founded by Lebanese-born Mohamad Hisham Khalifeh, came under fire in March 2016 when Khalifeh wrote that Palestinian knife attacks against Israeli Jews are a “sacred duty of jihad”. Following a complaint by B’nai Brith, Khalifeh – who held a position with the Windsor Multicultural Council, an agency funded by Immigration and Citizenship Canada and which is entrusted with welcoming and resettlement of Syrian refugees – was subsequently suspended from the Council.

In 2012, Khalifeh, who is well known for his open support of the violent Palestinian struggle against Israel, posted a poem encouraging Palestinians to launch armed attacks on Israelis, liberate Palestine and destroy the State of Israel. In the poem, Khalifeh referred to Israeli Jews as “infidels” and “morally corrupt people.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/anti-semitic-london-ontario-1.3690263

Spain shows the joys of proportional representation: two elections in six months and still no government

Spain has just had its second election in six months, with no real change; the country remains in political deadlock; no party has enough seats to form a government, and no party can get enough support from the other parties to do anything. 

We can have political chaos like this in Canada, too. All we have to do is change our political system to some sort of proportional system. Let's hope we don't.

Coverage of the Spanish election here.

Poor Maryam Mounsef

Poor Maryam Mounsef. Her title is Democratic Reform Minister; her job is to explain away why the Liberals are acting anti-democratically. 

The Liberals want to change the way we vote and the only legitimate way of doing so is through a referendum. When Ontario, PEI and British Columbia wanted to change their voting systems, they put it to the people. When Britain and New Zealand wanted to do the same, they also held referendums. The reason is obvious: political parties get elected to govern, but the voting system itself is not theirs to change.

The Liberals know this. Everyone knows this. But although it’s obviously the only democratic thing to do, the Liberals cannot hold a referendum. Why? Because they’d lose. The polls say so, and the votes in Ontario, PEI and BC all went against changing the way we vote – in Ontario and PEI, massively so.

Trudeau himself says this is the reason he doesn’t want a referendum: “Many of the people who propose we need a referendum, well they know that the fact is that referendums are a pretty good way of not getting any electoral reform,” Trudeau recently said at the University of Ottawa.

Poor Maryam Mounsef. She is not allowed to be so blunt or so brief. She has to make actual speeches on the topic and answer repeated questions in the House. And she has to pretend it makes some sort of sense to change our voting system without a referendum.

The Liberals have consulted Canadians on twitter, she says. (I’m not making this up.) And they encourage Canadians to continue Tweeting them their opinions (tweet, tweet).

The Liberals will even hold town halls – so hundreds maybe even a few thousand Canadians can sound off on the topic. Not that the Liberals will be bound by what ordinary Canadians say.  Indeed, the well-understood purpose of town halls is to give the illusion of participation to people who are excluded from decision-making.

Will the Liberals allow 30+ million Canadians to actually determine this issue? No, no, no. That would be democratic. And the Liberals are against it.  

The Liberals are also against letting the other parties in the House of Commons influence this decision. After many months of hemming and hawing the Liberals at last created an ordinary Parliamentary Committee to guide the process – so much for the Liberal’s solemn promise to seek consensus of the issue. Because as with all Parliamentary Committees, the Liberals have a majority, so what the Liberal members of the committee decide is the way the committee goes.

What’s more, before the committee even meets, before a single town hall or even a single tweet, tweet, the Liberals have already decided the change they intend to force on Canadians: it’s called alternative voting or preferential ballot.

The way it works is that you mark the candidates in order of preference, and if no candidate wins at least 50% of the votes, then you start looking at second choices. So first choice NDP, second choice Liberals, or first choice Conservatives, second choice Liberals, third choice, I’ll hang myself.

From the Liberal perspective, this is the ideal system because it favours the party in the middle. From the point of view of the NDP, the Bloc and the Greens, this is the worst option, because over the long run, it tends to squeeze out minority parties.

For their part, the little parties prefer some sort of proportional voting system. Such systems ensure you never get majority governments, so small parties get to exercise power out of all proportion to their popularity.

Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives like proportional systems, in part because they dread the horse-trading of proportional systems, in which the government is forced to enact unpopular laws in order to satisfy the special interests represented by the little parties.

Even worse, under proportional systems parties fall apart. The social Conservatives will split from the fiscal Conservatives. The NDP radicals will split with the NDP pragmatists.

The party most threatened by a proportional system, though, is the Liberals. They’re likely to split between the old guard and the new, between the Quebec wing and the ROC, between the fiscally prudent Liberals and the spend, spend, spend Liberals. More than any other party in Canada, the Liberals are a big tent party. This has always been the party’s strength: that it’s a broad coalition of differing interests.

But in a proportional system, it makes no sense for a party to try to arrive at a broad consensus that will appeal to most Canadians. Why bother? Every politician with an ego and every special interest in the land can grab a few votes, elect a few candidates and get in on the horse-trading to cobble together enough MPs to form a government.

But poor Maryam Mounsef. Her job is to pretend the Liberals aren’t trying to re-arrange our voting system to their own advantage. The NDP suggested Parliament’s electoral reform committee be appointed according to the proportion of the popular vote they received – giving the Liberals just 4 out of 10 seats on the committee; instead of 6 out of 10.

But you can see what would happen: the committee would split 4 to 3 to 3, with the Liberals in favour of the alternative voting system, the Conservatives in favour of our current first past the post system, and the NDP and the Greens in favour of a proportional system.

The only way to break this deadlock would be to put it to the Canadian people in a referendum. In which case, whatever the result, the Canadian people would win. But again, the Liberals are against that.

Three-quarters of Canadians want a referendum before any change in our voting system

It's 2016. We've consulted Canadians by Twitter, says the Liberal Justice Minister. What more do you want?

A new poll conducted exclusively for Global News by Ipsos Public Affairs found 73 per cent of respondents “agree” the Liberals shouldn’t make any changes to the country’s voting system without a national referendum first. “There is a lot of public support for a [referendum], so you would have to have a pretty compelling reason not to have one,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos.

But the only reason the Liberals don’t want a referendum is because they know they’d lose.

Demand a referendum before the government changes the way we vote

According to polls, about 62% of Canadians like our current voting system, as opposed to only 25% who dislike it. Canadians in favour our current system include two-thirds of Liberal supporters. Yet the Liberal government wants to get rid of the way we vote.

What’s with that?

I’m sure some in the government think changing our voting sytem would make our democracy stronger. On the other hand, the Liberals intend to replace our current system with a preferential ballot, which always favours parties in the middle … like the Liberals.

Perhaps it’s just human nature for Liberal politicians to confuse what’s good for democracy with what’s good for getting Liberals elected, but the other parties don’t have those particular blinkers which is why all of them – NDP and Conservatives, the Bloc and the Greens – oppose the change the Liberals want.

About 65% of Canadians believe that, if the Liberal government does pursue electoral reform, a referendum must be held – including 68% of Liberal supporters. Only 17% of Canadians think a simple vote in the House of Commons would be legitimate. Yet, this is how the Liberal government plans to change the way we vote.

Why?

Because the Liberal government knows they’d never win a referendum. Trudeau has said as much: “Many of the people who propose…we need a referendum, well they know that the fact is that referendums are a pretty good way of not getting any electoral reform,” Trudeau explained at an event at the University of Ottawa.

It seems Trudeau doesn’t understand that’s the whole idea of a democracy: if Canadians oppose electoral reform, it shouldn’t be forced on us. But as this seems to be a blind spot for our P.M., I urge everyone to sign this petition, demanding a referendum on any electoral change: http://www.jasonkenney.ca/demand_a_vote

Where does all that aid to Palestinians go? About 16% goes to funding terrorism

President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority celebrates with
convicted murderers released from Israeli prisons 

Where does all that aid to Palestinians go?

TZIPI HOTOVELY

Wall Street Journal Jan 24

Note: Canada spends about $27 million a year in aid to the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Authority spends 16% of its budget supporting terrorists, so if Canadian aid went directly to the Palestinian Authority, $4 million of it would be spent on terrorism. However, Canada puts its money into to specific projects, mainly the development of a legal system to try to improve the rule of law in the Palestinian territories – an aim any thinking person can support. But of course any money spent by Canada in the Palestinian territories is money that the PA does not have to spend itself, allowing it to divert more money into terrorism. ~ Brian

+ + +

One often-cited key to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is economic development. To that end, there seems to be broad agreement about the importance of extending development aid to help the Palestinians build the physical and social infrastructure that will enable the emergence of a sustainable, prosperous society. But few have seriously questioned how much money is sent and how it is used.

Such assistance will only promote peace if it is spent to foster tolerance and coexistence. If it is used to strengthen intransigence it does more harm than good—and the more aid that comes in, the worse the outcome. This is exactly what has been transpiring over the past few decades. Large amounts of foreign aid to the Palestinians are spent to support terrorists and deepen hostility.

For years the most senior figures in the Palestinian Authority have supported, condoned and glorified terror. “Every drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem,” President Mahmoud Abbas said last September on Palestinian television, “is holy blood as long as it was for Allah.” Countless Palestinian officials and state-run television have repeatedly hailed the murder of Jews.

This support for terrorism doesn’t end with hate speech. The Palestinian regime in Ramallah pays monthly stipends of between $400 and $3,500 to terrorists and their families, the latter of which is more than five times the average monthly salary of a Palestinian worker.

According to data from its budgetary reports, compiled in June 2014 by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the PA’s annual budget for supporting Palestinian terrorists was then roughly $75 million. That amounted to some 16% of the foreign donations the PA received annually. Overall in 2012 foreign aid made up about a quarter of the PA’s $3.1 billion budget. More recent figures are inaccessible since the Palestinian Authority is no longer transparent about the stipend transfers.

Embarrassed by public revelations of the misuse of the foreign aid, in August 2014 the Palestinian Authority passed the task of paying stipends to terrorists and their families to a fund managed by the Palestine Liberation Organization, also led by Mr. Abbas. Lest there be any doubt as to the purely cosmetic nature of the change, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah made assurances as recently as September 2015 that the PA will provide the “necessary assistance” to ensure these terror stipends.

This procedural ruse apparently calmed the consciences of donor governments that continue to transfer aid. It is difficult to think of another case in which such a forgiving attitude would be taken regarding foreign aid to an entity that sponsors terror.

This situation is particularly disturbing given the disproportionate share of development assistance the Palestinians receive, which comes at the expense of needy populations elsewhere. According to a report last year by Global Humanitarian Assistance, in 2013 the Palestinians received $793 million in international aid, second only to Syria. This amounts to $176 for each Palestinian, by far the highest per capita assistance in the world. Syria, where more than 250,000 people have been killed and 6.5 million refugees displaced since 2011, received only $106 per capita.

A closer look at the remaining eight countries in the top 10—Sudan, South Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—is even more alarming. CIA Factbook data show that these countries have a combined population of 284 million and an average per capita GDP of $2,376. Yet they received an average of $15.30 per capita in development assistance in 2013. The Palestinians, by comparison, with a population of 4.5 million, have a per capita GDP of $4,900.

In other words, though the Palestinians are more than twice as wealthy on average than these eight countries, they receive more than 11 times as much foreign aid per person. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a case in point: Its 79 million people have a per capita GDP of $700, yet they receive only $5.70 in aid per person.

Between 1993 (when the Oslo Process began) and 2013, the Palestinians received $21.7 billion in development assistance, according to the World Bank. The Palestinian leadership has had ample opportunity to use these funds for economic and social development. Tragically, as seen in Hamas-run Gaza, it prefers to use the funds on its terrorist infrastructure and weaponry, such as cross-border attack tunnels and the thousands of missiles that have rained down in recent years on Israel.

In Judea and Samaria, the “West Bank,” the situation is equally disturbing. Aside from funding terrorists and investing in hate speech, the PA stubbornly refuses to remove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from “refugee” rosters, deliberately keeping them in a state of dependence and underdevelopment for no purpose other than to stoke animosity toward Israel.

It is difficult to come away from these facts without realizing the deep connection between the huge amounts of foreign aid being spent, the bizarre international tolerance for patently unacceptable conduct by the Palestinians and the lack of progress toward peace on the ground.

Donors to the Palestinians who support peace would do well to rethink the way they extend assistance. Money should go to economic and civic empowerment, not to perpetuate a false sense of victimhood and unconditional entitlement. It should foster values of tolerance and nonviolence, not the glorification and financing of terrorism.

Ms. Hotovely is the deputy foreign minister of Israel.

Canada is the most tolerant country in the world

A new ranking has named Canada as being the most tolerant country on earth.

Canada also stood out this year for being the “freest country in the world” with its tolerance of immigrants, minorities, freedom of expression and beliefs.

In fact, an overwhelming percentage of Canadians -- 92 per cent -- agreed that their country is a good place for immigrants, and another 94 per cent said they believe that they have the freedom to choose the course of their own lives.

More here.

Earlier this year, Canada was ranked as the most admired country in the world, with the best reputation - for the fourth time in five years ... here.

Of course, this isn’t really news. Canada consistently ranks at or near the top in every international ranking going. Something I’ve commented on in the past here.

The Palestinian Children's Intifada ~ why does a child become a terrorist?

A soccer tournament was named after
 Palestinian child terrorist Muhannad Halabi. Photo: Facebook.

What makes a 14- or 15-year old Palestinian kid become a terrorist? In part, the answer is obvious: they’re told from birth that killing Jews is the highest honor any Palestinian can aspire to. So these children murder for glory. And usually end up dead themselves.

But criminologist Anat Berko, who has interviewed dozens of terorists for hundreds of hours, has additional insight. Theses young terrorists know when carrying out their attacks they're likely to be killed, but if so, they believe they'll go to paradise. And in paradise, they’ll get everything denied to them in life. 

Many young Palestinians live in communities with a tremendous amount of social pressure, prohibitions and shame, says Berko. In paradise, they can experience all the things that are forbidden in real life.

In paradise, “they will meet 72 virgins, drink until they’re intoxicated and have lots of sex.”

As for what female attackers can hope to get in paradise, it is often as basic as the right to marry for love. One prisoner, who tried but failed to carry out a suicide bombing, told Berko, “In paradise I will be like a queen and sit in my kingdom and marry anyone I want to. I want someone who is handsome [giggling], and Allah will receive me.”

Many of the terrorists Berko interviewed did not come from poor families, but they did suffer from violence at home.

For instance, a woman she interviewed who had tried to stab an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint related: “My brother is twenty-five; he rapes me and doesn’t want me to tell anyone. I’m twenty-three. My father died four years ago. I told my mother and uncle about my brother, and my uncle hit me and said my brother hadn’t raped me. My brother said he hadn’t done anything. I asked them to take me to a doctor. I went to the Palestinian police and a policeman said, ‘I can help you, but your brother is a friend of mine.’ He wanted to have sex with me, and he said, ‘Your brother won’t know.’”

In paradise, a young woman can escape being raped by her brother and hit by her uncle, can marry for love, and be remembered as a hero. If she kills enough Israelis, she may have a soccer team named after her or a summer camp or a school.

During the current children’s intifada, a 13-year-old has already had a soccer tournament and a street named in his honour and the Palestinian Bar Association awarded him a posthumous law degree (here).

You can read more about how the Palestinian leadership has been teaching kids to become terrorists in this piece I wrote for the Jewish Tribune seven years ago: here.

Read the entire article about Anat Berko on the motivation of young terrorists here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-portrait-of-the-terrorist-as-a-young-man-or-woman/