With the Palestinian Authority recently caught using $10 million of Australian aid money to fund payments to Islamic "martyrs" the Conservative Party says Australia should embrace the only truly democratic country in the Middle East, Israel.
Last year, Conservative party leader Cory Bernardi pointed to the Palestinian authority paying stipends or "martyr payments" to the families of those killed or jailed by Israeli authorities of up to US$3,500 a month.
Funding cuts by the United States to the Palestinian Authority in January last year reignited debate about funding the Palestinian Refugee Agency.
After an expose in The Spectator, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade acknowledged that those payments were in conflict with Australian values and they have now been diverted to the United Nations for use in Israel.
Australia allocates around $43 million in humanitarian assistance to the region every year and Conservative Party Victorian Senate candidate Kevin Bailey says if it's for humanitarian assistance, it should be going straight to Israel and not the anti-Israeli United Nations and the Australian government to follow America's lead and move our embassy to Jerusalem.
