Unicef funds terror training?

Tricked by UNICEF
>> Financing of Palestinian terrorism makes for one scary Halloween.
>>
>> By Dave Kopel
>>
>> Americans mostly know UNICEF through the "trick or treat for UNICEF"

>> campaigns. The "trick" is on the donors who think that UNICEF is all

>> about helping
>> poor children.
>>
>> UNICEF has been a major financier of Palestinian "summer camps"
which
>> encourage children to become suicide bombers. One such camp is named

>> for Wafa Idris,
>> a female suicide bomber.
>>
>> During the late 1990s, UNICEF served as a propaganda organ of the
>> Saddam Hussein regime. Relying solely on Iraqi government
statistics,
>> UNICEF and the
>> Saddam government co-authored a report asserting that over a million

>> children in Iraq died because of U.N. sanctions. A map on the first

>> page of the report
>> depicted Kuwait as a province of Iraq.
>>
>> UNICEF is the primary funder for the "Palestinian Youth Association

>> for Leadership and Rights Activation" (PYALARA), which UNICEF calls

>> "a major strategic
>> partner in Palestine." Materials produced by the group are
frequently
>> used in schools operated by UNICEF.
>>
>> PYALARA publishes a 16-page newspaper for young people, The Youth
>> Times (TYT). It is distributed at Palestinian universities,
colleges,
>> community centers,
>> and in the many U.N.-operated schools in Palestinian areas.
>>
>> The organization claims that its mission is "expanding awareness of

>> one's roots and identity, environment and culture, as well as of
>> other countries and
>> the world at large." Yet PYALARA's products follow the typical line

>> of terrorist propaganda, in which nothing is the fault of the
>> Palestinians, everything
>> is the fault of the Jews, and there is never any effort to consider

>> the merits of Israel's position on anything.
>>
>> For example, one PYALARA article was admiring a biography of the
>> recently-deceased terrorist Abu Ali Mustafa.
>>
>> Mustafa was the head of the terrorist group the Popular Front for
the
>> Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a branch of Yassir Arafat's
Palestine
>> Liberation
>> Organization (PLO). Mustafa met his demise at the hands of Israeli
>> forces in 2001. In the months before Mustafa's death, his terrorist

>> group had assassinated
>> an Israeli Cabinet Minister, set off three car bombs in Jerusalem,
>> and carried out many other terrorist attacks.
>>
>> Earlier, Mustafa and the PLFP had worked with the Japanese Red Army

>> (a Communist terrorist group) and slaughtered 24 people at Israel's

>> Ben Gurion International
>> Airport. In 1976, the PFLP hijacked an Air France flight. After
>> refueling in Libya, they flew to Entebbe, Uganda, which was, at the

>> time, ruled by the
>> insane, genocidal tyrant Idi Amin.
>>
>> The PFLP hijackers, assisted by Amin's army, demanded that five
>> nations release 53 named, convicted terrorists, or else the plane
and
>> its passengers would
>> be blown up.
>>
>> The Israeli Defense Forces carried out a daring raid on the Entebbe

>> airport, killing the hijackers and their Ugandan accomplices, and
>> rescuing all the
>> hostages. The IDF rescue planes touched down at Ben Gurion Airport
on
>> July 4, 1976.
>>
>> One of the few Israeli casualties in the rescue was Lt. Col. Yoni
>> Netanyahu, whose brother Benjamin would later become Prime Minister

>> of Israel.
>>
>> So what did the UNICEF-funded PYALARA have to tell young people
about
>> the terrorist mastermind Abu Ali Mustafa? That he was "a political
>> leader...whose
>> history prides his nationalistic activism." Mourning the death of
the
>> terrorist, the magazine whined "this is a human being who has a
>> family that awaits
>> his arrival every day." Sympathy would have been better directed to

>> the many innocents who were murdered at Mustafa's direction.
>>
>> Then, in a lie typical of the Palestinian propaganda press, the
>> PYALARA claimed "the Israelis could have turned to Abu Ali Mustafa
to
>> talk peace if peace
>> were what they truly wanted." In truth, Mustafa was always an
adamant
>> foe of negotiations, opposed even to Arafat's strategy of going
>> through the motions
>> of peace negotiations in order to distract attention from his
>> devotion for war.
>>
>> Shortly before becoming head of the PFLP, Mustafa was interviewed by

>> Al-Jazeera. He stated: "We believe the conflict and the struggle
>> against Israel is
>> a strategic [principle] that is not subordinated to any
>> consideration." Thus, "We believe the Palestinian people, both in
the
>> Diaspora and under occupation,
>> have the right to struggle using all means, including the armed
>> struggle, because we think the conflict is the constant, while the
>> means and tactics are
>> the variables."
>>
>> Not that UNICEF blames Israel for everything. Bianca Jagger, in her

>> official capacity as "UNICEF ambassador," has toured the Middle East

>> telling audiences
>> that the United States is the source of evil in the modern world.
>>
>> As for the actual needs of children, UNICEF is sometimes an obstacle

>> to progress. For example, UNICEF has been pressuring Guatemala to
>> stop allowing inter-country
>> adoptions. That is, UNICEF would prefer a child to languish in a
>> Guatemalan orphanage rather than be adopted by a loving family in
the
>> United States.
>>
>> UNICEF's focus on politics and political correctness has come at the

>> expense of saving the lives of the approximately ten million
children
>> under the age
>> of five who die each year from preventable causes.
>>
>> According to UNICEF, the major cause of child poverty in the world
is
>> the free market-even though countries with free markets have vastly

>> lower levels
>> of child poverty than do the kleptocratic, statist economies
extolled
>> by UNICEF.
>>
>> A 2003 report praised the North Korean dictatorship:
>>
>> the particular strength of the DPRK's policy framework lies in its
>> comprehensiveness, integration and consistency in addressing the
>> interests of children
>> and women. It has been aligned with the collective production
system.
>> The Government has proactively broadened and updated its laws and
>> policies on an
>> ongoing basis, also making an effort to harmonize with international

>> innovations and standards.
>>
>> Given UNICEF's affinity for the extreme left, it should be no
>> surprise that UNICEF helps fund the gun- prohibition lobby in
Brazil.
>>
>> The Executive Director of UNICEF is traditionally chosen by the
>> United States (although nominally appointed by the U.N.
>> Secretary-General). All of the
>> abuses described above took place during the tenure of Executive
>> Director Carol Bellamy, who was selected by President Clinton in
>> 1995. In May 2005, President
>> Bush chose former Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman as executive

>> director.
>>
>> While there is no reason to believe that Veneman shares Bellamy's
>> extreme Left agenda, it would be fair to say that she has a long way

>> to go to fix UNICEF.
>> The organization today stills promotes the Brazilian gun prohibition

>> lobby Viva Rio, and funds the pro-terrorist Palestinian Youth
>> Association for Leadership
>> and Rights Activation as one of its "partners" in what it calls "
>> occupied Palestinian territory." UNICEF also "partners" with the
>> Palestinian Red Crescent
>> Society, which uses ambulances to transport terrorists and their
>> weapons, and whose personnel have participated in suicide bombings.
>>
>>
>> UNICEF's executive board includes China (whose forced abortion
policy
>> is neither pro-life, nor pro-choice, nor pro-child) and Bhutan
(where
>> children are
>> among the many victims of the regime's human rights abuses). UNICEF

>> has doled out unaccountable money to the North Korean regime.
>>
>> Under Veneman, UNICEF is not as bad as it was under Bellamy, and
even
>> under Bellamy, the organization performed some good works. However,

>> most people who
>> give money to groups which help children would prefer that none of
>> their donations be used to finance terrorism, the destruction of
>> civil liberties, or
>> tyranny.
>>
>> The good-hearted children who "trick or treat for UNICEF" don't know

>> about UNICEF's sordid allies, of course. So instead of simply
>> rejecting the requests
>> of the children, gently explain that you don't want to give money to

>> UNICEF because dictatorships like China help run the organization,
>> and some of UNICEF's
>> money helps pro-terrorism groups. Then, put a dollar (or five, or
>> ten) in a bag of your own, and tell the children that because of
>> their trick-or-treating,
>> you will be giving more money to a different charity (which you can

>> name for them) which uses all of it money to help children. And if
>> your child's school
>> is contemplating a UNICEF fundraiser, politely encourage the
>> administration to pick a better charity.
>>
>> Dave Kopel is research director of the Independence Institute, in
>> Golden, Colorado.
Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg