Earlier this year the TPA produced a report on Hate Education in the Middle East showing how millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money is being used to support hate eduction through Palestinian Authority school books and state sponsored radio and television. Financial support from Britain and other donor nation gives them the financial room to manoevre that makes, for example, a TV station where speakers call for the destruction of Israel, the United States and Britain possible.
Itamar Marcus, the head of Palestinian Media Watch, makes a powerful case on this issue in the Jerusalem Post:
"THE WORLD was incensed when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced his vision of a world without Israel, and there were calls to put him on trial. Yet when Abbas's TV teaches Palestinian children the identical vision of a world without Israel, Western countries run for their checkbooks to keep funding him."
It is easy to understand his evident frustration. We loudly proclaim our support for a two state solution while failing to confront one side using our money to encourage their people not to respect the other side's right to exist.
In the end, we could have the best peace deal in the world but it would count for nothing if the Israeli and Palestinian peoples weren't committed to peace. Politicians and commentators tend to understand peace as being the outcome of negotiations, summits and hand shakes between the powerful but they are wrong. Far more important are the attitudes of countless ordinary people. Donor nations that aspire to prepare the ground for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East need to make sure they aren't enabling the radicalisation of the Palestinian population. British taxpayers' money can't be used to encourage hatred and violence.