National calls for halt to Hamas aid

Murray McCully has called on the Government to suspend all financial support of the Palestinian Authority, now that the new Hamas Cabinet has been sworn in.

This is of course the right thing to do. Hamas remains dedicated to wiping out Israel, and carries out regular terrorist attacks. There can be no doubt that any aid given to the PA will end up helping blow up buses of school kids (if you doubt the ability to divert money, remember Arafat was possibly a billionaire from stolen money).

However this may create a political dilemma for the Government. You see Labour are very anti-Israel and as long as some of their socialist friends agree, will probably be quite happy to keep funding the PA. They will justify it on the basis of there being a truce and it is unfair to punish the Palestinian people for Hamas (despite those people electing Hamas).

However Foreign Minister Peters will not at all want to be the apologist for giving money to terrorists. So National applying pressure on this issue could see a nice wee spat between Helen, Phil and Winston.