March 7, 2024
Hon. Marco Mendicino, MP
511 Lawrence Ave. W.
Toronto, ON M6A 1A3
Dear Mr. Mendicino:
Thank you for taking the time to meet with Dr. Sean Egan (CAEF board member), Avi Attali (an Israeli-Canadian activist) and myself. Avi’s grassroots organization will be holding an information and fundraising event on March 26-27 to promote a larger multi-ethnic-religious event to take place on April 7 at Dundas Square. You are cordially invited to speak at the opening of The Music and Arts Event will be held on March 26th. We will follow up with Monica to confirm the date and time.
The main focus of our meeting was to engage your help with changing the trajectory of events in the Middle East, specifically by helping to devise a positive new vision in education as well as through the engagement of Arab leaders, untainted by terrorism or corruption and who share the vision espoused in the Abraham Accords. As noted, there are many historical precedents for this, including Konrad Adenauer, who helped create West Germany in the late 1940s. In our discussion, we made the following points and request your support for bringing these forward to the Canadian government:
1. Funding for UNRWA must be permanently withdrawn; for decades it has been known that the curriculum delivered in UNRWA-operated schools is antisemitic, and does not conform to the principles established by the United Nations for coexistence, principles enunciated in the creation of the UN High Commission for Refugees.
The texts and teachers’ manuals used by UNRWA are produced by the Palestinian Authority which maintains control and has consistently affirmed its denial of Israel’s right to exist. The children in UNRWA schools are incited to kill Jews. Canada’s funding of UNRWA has made Canada complicit in murder.
UNRWA exists for the sole purpose of probating the “right of return” for Arabs to villages and homes that no longer exist, in a country to which they have no entitlement and under the specious position that applies to no other people, that they can forever hold a “key” to a home they fled in 1948-49 during Israel’s War of Independence in which 5 Arab armies attacked nascent Israel. No such right exists, but UNRWA has educated generations of Arabs to believe this and to plan attacks, carry out intifadas, murder innocent men, women and children.
Canada must state a position that UNRWA’s mandate is no longer valid, that its entire educational system is broken and dangerous, and Canada must encourage other Western democracies to also permanently cease funding or another Hamas attack will again occur. As weapons technology advances, each conflict in the Middle East is likely to result in more deaths on both sides.
UNRWA keeps people in a permanent state of dependency not resettling them and is draining billions of dollars that fuel ongoing conflict and terrorism. The Palestinian Authority supports this view, hence even in PA-controlled areas, they do not allow the permanent resettlement of their Arab “refugee” population.
2. The Canadian government must convene the Refugee Working Group (RWG) of which it has held Chairmanship responsibilities since 1991. The Refugee Working Group has comprised 38 nations since the Madrid Middle East peace talks that were held in October, 1991.
Canada, in its RWG leadership role, should ask the 38 nations that contribute to UNRWA to reconsider the whole idea behind UNRWA and the appropriateness of having any Palestinian Arab refugees served by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which would then protect the right of refugees to be resettled instead of implementing a policy that perpetuates their suffering, while fostering the “right of return” illusion.
UNHCR operates on the principle that it helps the refugees under their jurisdiction to find solutions so that they might get on with their lives with permanency, while UNRWA operates under the premise that the Palestinian Arab refugees are still refugees even if they acquire a new citizenship,[as many have in Jordan] until they will return to their homes in Israel, from which they or their grandparents and great-great parents fled. In this regard, it must be remembered that close to a million Jewish refugees were forced to leave behind their homes and possessions in Arab-majority countries. Indeed, Jewish refugees and their descendants have moved on with their lives, as have millions of other refugees displaced by the events associated with major conflicts in the first half of the twentieth century.
The time has come for Canada to apply UNHCR principles to facilitate permanent resettlement, especially in countries where the “refugees’ have been held in squalid conditions in areas ruled by the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
3. Canada can play a positive role, with other international partners, in redeveloping the entire educational system for Palestinian Arabs living in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, the eastern side of Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. In other words for all those young people who are currently being indoctrinated with hate in UNRWA-operated schools using PA approved teaching materials. The PA approves and produces all of the texts which UNRWA buys, including teachers’ manuals. This arrangement actually makes the PA more than complicit, but responsible for training children to be terrorists and to carry out the ongoing attacks within Israel and the disputed territories; the PA is invested in keeping the conflict ongoing.
4. Canada must refuse to send any funds to the Palestinian Authority until it withdraws its pay-for-slay legislation. The Palestinian Authority (PA) tells foreign audiences that they oppose terrorism, yet they pay generous rewards to Palestinians, and/or their families, who carry out bombings, stabbings, car rammings, and other attacks against innocent people in Israel. Of those killed at least 69 were American citizens and on October 7th, a number of Canadians were killed or taken hostage. Since October 7, 2023, the PA has added numerous Hamas operatives to their list of “salaried terrorists,” in other words, members of Hamas who committed unspeakable crimes are now receiving a salary.
Salaries are based on a published scale that rewards murderers based on the age and number of Jews killed. There is also an annual cost of living adjustment! The Americans adopted the Taylor Force Act to prevent funding of this brutal, cruel policy, but under the Biden administration it has not been enforced; thus the financial incentive to murder Jews has continued with American funds. We attach a report from Palestinian Media Watch that investigates and reports on such odious practices as the PA’s paying for the killing of Jews; see link here: https://palwatch.org/page/34926
Mr. Mendicino, respectfully we ask for your support in confronting the situation that keeps the State of Israel under a permanent threat of attack, that has caused numerous wars and taken the lives of innocent Israelis-Jews as well as Arabs- Muslims, Christians, and foreign nationals. We ask that you speak to this within your government and are happy to provide information to support these efforts.
We welcome your consideration of a constructive role that Canada can play. As a nation, we can set an example by cutting all funds to UNRWA and by re-conceptualizing the long-standing Arab refugee issue, based on helping people to move forward with a positive vision for future, as opposed to perpetual dependency, resentment and indeed, violent hatred. Last, but not least, we suggest that Canada work with Israeli Jews and Arabs, with input from moderate Arab countries that have established Accords with Israel, to create a viable, accountable, and appropriate educational system which will serve Arab students in securing a bright future to meet the needs of their community in the 21st century.
Most sincerely,
Andria Spindel
Executive Director
Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation
Table 1 – Palestinian Authority’s Direct Expenditure in Support of Terrorists and Their Families as Percent of Total Budget and Foreign Aid
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
* calculation into dollars – flat exchange rate of 3.8 shekels to the dollar (Source: Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Finance, annual budgets. See Appendix 6.)
Update on Pay for Slay from Palestinian Media Watch, January 10, 2024
FACT SHEET on Pay For Slay, produced by Endowment for Middle East Truth