On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about aid to Gaza.
The article reports:
Israel’s ground assault on the Gaza Strip has yet to begin, but already, politicians and liberals are demanding Israel pause its assault to enable humanitarian relief to flow into Gaza. Speaking on the floor of the Canadian Parliament, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared, “Canada is calling for unimpeded humanitarian access and a humanitarian corridor so that essential aid like food, fuel, and water can be delivered to civilians in Gaza. It is imperative that this happen.”
…The problem in Gaza, however, has seldom been a lack of aid. Beyond apocalyptic claims, Gaza was never a prison or concentration camp. Its population was not barely sliding by. It outperformed many countries such as India, Bosnia, Brazil, and oil-rich Azerbaijan in key health and welfare indicators. The Gaza Strip is dense, with around 15,000 people per square mile, but that is less dense than Tel Aviv (21,000 people per square mile), at which Hamas regularly launches missiles.
There are other reasons to be wary about international aid. Hamas rules Gaza with an iron grip. To channel assistance into Gaza while Hamas remains empowered is akin to trusting the North Koreans to distribute oil and food to citizens rather than to fuel their military. Then, there is the diversion of assistance in other ways. Hamas videos openly bragged about digging up water pipes to convert them to rocket launchers, and the Japanese aid logo marks Hamas sandbags. To bail Hamas out simply signals there will be no consequence for such diversion.
This brings us to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, founded in 1949. The UNRWA helped settle Palestinian refugees displaced in Israel’s War of Independence. Israel settled a near equal if not larger number of Jewish refugees, who today are fully integrated into the Jewish state. In 1951, UNRWA reported, “There must be a firm goal of terminating relief operations. Sustained relief operations inevitably contain the germ of human deterioration.”
Hamas is not interested in forming a viable state–they are simply interested in driving Israel into the sea. Until they stop training kindergarten children to hate Jews and be terrorists, they will not be a contributing member of the world community. Giving them aid only reinforces bad behavior.