Israel wants UNRWA out of Gaza

David Isaac JNS. See http://tinyurl.com/3nzm8xnf

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has put together a classified report calling for the removal of UNRWA from the Gaza Strip in the long-term, noting that the U.N. relief agency works against Israel’s interests.

The report’s recommendations set out a three-stage process for shrinking and eventually eliminating UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, from the Strip: 1) Prepare a case detailing UNRWA’s cooperation with Hamas; 2) Reduce UNRWA’s field of activity and find replacement service providers; and 3) Transfer UNRWA’s responsibilities to another entity.

Channel 12, which revealed the existence of the secret report on Thursday, noted that Israel wants to move slowly, recognizing that the U.S. sees UNRWA as a positive player in humanitarian efforts in the Strip. The ministry hopes to gradually build the case for ousting the organization, linking that goal to discussions on “the day after” Hamas.

Israel must convince the U.S. and the international community of UNRWA’s unfitness by pulling together research, much of which has already been performed, on the U.N. group, (Michael co-authored a damning report on UNRWA in 2020). Israel should also highlight what UNRWA’s own people have revealed about it, he said, noting especially James Lindsay.

James G. Lindsay, an American civil servant, worked with UNRWA from 2000 to 2007, he has called for a close examination of UNRWA’s activities, saying it doesn’t solve the Palestinian refugee problem, but rather perpetuates it.

Lindsay has pointed out that aside from the fact that UNRWA is the only U.N. refugee organization dedicated to a single population, the Palestinians, it defines refugees differently than the United Nation’s Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which handles all the rest of the world’s refugees.

“UNHCR does not consider someone a refugee who has acquired citizenship in another country. In other words, if you have been a refugee but then you become a citizen, you can no longer be a refugee,” Lindsay told UN Watch in 2019.

“If you can’t be a refugee under those definitions, then a very large number of UNRWA Palestinian refugees would not be refugees at all. For instance, in Jordan approximately 90% of the people UNRWA considers Palestine refugees are citizens of Jordan, and they would not be refugees under the UNHCR, or the U.N. Convention [Relating to the Status of Refugees] terms,” he said.

The Palestinian refugee population is the only one that increases each year. Starting from 700,000 in 1948 it has grown to 5.9 million refugees registered with UNRWA as of mid-2023.

Said Michael, “The idea that we are still talking about Palestinian refugees is not reasonable. We’re talking about fifth-generation refugees when actually they are not refugees at all.”

Controlled by Hamas

The worst aspect of UNRWA is that it’s controlled by Hamas. “All the workers of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip—something like 13,000—all of them are approved by Hamas,” he said.

In 2020, 58% of UNRWA’s then-$800 million budget (it has since ballooned to $1.6 billion) went to education. Michael says education isn’t even part of its mandate.

The curriculum in UNRWA-run schools has been repeatedly exposed for its glorification of jihad and antisemitism.

More than 100 of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who carried out terrorist attacks and murdered Israeli citizens on Oct. 7 were graduates of UNRWA’s education system, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found.

In another report, it found at least 14 teachers and staff at UNRWA schools publicly celebrated the Hamas massacre and other Hamas attacks on their social media accounts.

Noting that the U.S. is UNRWA’s largest donor, disbursing almost $1 billion in funds to the U.N. agency over the last five years, IMPACT-se head Marcus Sheff said in early November that taxpayer funds pay for “the production of inciteful supplementary teaching materials by UNRWA staff,” “textbooks glorifying violent jihad against Jews” and “the salaries of UNRWA teachers, who are responsible for teaching them to students. . UNRWA is essentially Hamas’s educational arm, which is funded by the international community ”

The “Palestinian national consciousness is very ill, sick. During the three decades under the umbrella of the Oslo process, the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people were poisoned by the Palestinian Authority, and later on by Hamas,” he said.

IDF Uncovers Shocking Hamas Operation

TBN Israel's Yair Pinto reports from the frontlines of 

the Israel-Gaza War while on active duty with the IDF. 

Pinto gives a behind the scenes look at the work being done 

on the Gaza Strip. Last week IDF soldiers found 4.2 million 

Israeli shekels at the home of a terrorist operative. 

Hamas always finds a way to provide its militants 

with money while mistreating the residents in Gaza.

Who Supports Hamas?

by Alan M. Dershowitz  •  December 28, 2023 

• Many of the current protests that now demand a unilateral ceasefire – including the attempts to shut down Christmas celebrations -- are orchestrated by some of the same radical groups that organized the pro-Hamas demonstrations before Israel went into Gaza.
• Demonstrations and protests by groups such as the Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace or the National Lawyers Guild seem anything but spontaneous and grassroots responses to "Israel's military actions in Gaza." They are not demonstrations against what Israel does; they are protests against what Israel is, namely the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people.
• Recall that these protests began before Israel counterattacked against Hamas. They were in full bloom on October 8, even while the bodies of 1,200 murdered Israelis, including babies burned alive, were still being gathered and counted, and the roughly 240 hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza identified.
• Where are the calls for anything that would actually help the Palestinians or make their lives better: freedom of speech, equal justice under the law, freedom of the press, better job opportunities, and an end to government corruption and abuse?
• The protests are exclusively anti-Israel, anti-American, pro-Hamas, and pro-terrorism.
• So when you watch an anti-Israel demonstration on television, please understand who is behind it and what are their ultimate goals, because the next target is American democracy -- and you.

The main groups that comprise the bulk of organizers and demonstrators who have supported the Hamas barbarism against Israel are:

1) Radical Islamic groups that, like the Islamic Republic of Iran after the 1979 revolution, regard Israel as the "Little Satan" and America as the "Big Satan."

2) American revolutionary groups who used to be affiliated with Communism but now call themselves radical socialists or workers parties. Their goal is to overthrow our government and they attach themselves to every disruptive movement in the hope of garnering support and creating distrust for American democracy.

3) Old-fashioned anti-Semites who hate anything associated with Jews and concoct conspiracy theories that blame "the Jews" for all evils.

4) Useful idiots who have little or no knowledge of the issues but march in lockstep with all "woke," "hard left," and "anti-colonial" causes on the theory that "if it's left, it must be right."

The Show Must Go On

For the full article see  https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-779137

During World War II, life for the Jews had stopped. They were busy trying to survive – hiding, running, and escaping. They were forced into ghettos, where they faced immense challenges just to try to stay alive until they were taken to some concentration camp or mass grave, where they were tortured and eventually killed.

The non-Jews in Europe continued with their daily lives, aware that something was happening to the Jews but often choosing to ignore it.

Today, for Israelis, the situation feels like a mini-Holocaust after the events on October 7, especially for those who were directly hit in the South. Yet despite the ongoing conflict, daily life continues at an abnormal normalcy. While not confined to ghettos or seeking refuge in other countries, we still grapple with the emotional toll of the situation.

There is one big difference: We have our own country. In fact, for most of us life goes on as usual. Our kids go to school, we work, we go to eat in restaurants, we celebrate weddings, we go to concerts. Yet spiritually, in our souls and hearts, we are going through something that we have never experienced before, even though we have already been through many wars in Israel.

This analogy between the experiences of Jews during World War II and the current situation in Israel provides a powerful perspective on the complexities of daily life during the conflict.

In spite of all, the country continues to function perfectly amid these challenges, showing a remarkable strength and unity prevailing despite the emotional roller-coaster. Indeed, the ability to navigate such multifaceted and overwhelming circumstances showcases the resilience and strength of the Israeli people.

No other country in the world could face so many ongoing dramatic situations while fighting a war. No other country could show such strength and unity while facing so much drama and disaster. No other country in the world can celebrate the festival of Hanukkah and light candles, trying to fight the darkness around us while singing songs with tears in our eyes and a smile on our face.

We are so unique. We have that crazy ability to contain in our minds and hearts sadness and happiness together while faith makes us move forward every single day, believing that there is a reason for everything, and eventually it will be good.

“Yihiye tov” as we say in Hebrew, or “It will be good,” has become our motto.

Another year has gone by. Hashem chose us as his nation for a reason; we are so powerful.

So we go on, like robots. We have no time to waste; we have families, we have children, we have work, we have a country to run. And if we don’t do it, we are going to lose it.

We dance, we sing, and if there’s a siren we run, we hide, we breathe, and then we go back out and keep dancing. Just keep dancing.

Hamas Weaponised anti-Zionism

 

Written by Richard Kemp. For full article see http://tinyurl.com/yead3yn9

Hamas is by far the most successful antisemitic entity in the world today. Beyond all competition, it has mobilized Jew-hatred around the world, using the State of Israel both as its target and its primary weapon. By waging war against Israel over many years, Hamas has inspired and energized international organizations such as the UN and the EU; governments and parliaments; the Western media; university authorities, professors, and students; human rights groups; businesses; and large sectors of the general population.

 All dance to its pernicious tune: some out of malevolence, some out of ignorance, and others blindly jumping on the virtue-signaling woke bandwagon.

Majority of Arab citizens feel part of Israel, most fear for their safety

 Consequently, the global scope and scale of Hamas’s antisemitic influence dramatically exceeds even the Nazis from whom it takes much of its own inspiration.

The foundations of Hamas’s success lie in the Soviet Union. Back in the 1950s and ’60s, when Israel aligned with the West rather than the USSR, the Soviet Zionism leadership decided to undermine American and British influence in the Middle East by fomenting a war of national liberation against Israel. Moscow invented a Palestinian national identity in order to turn religious malice against the Jews of Israel into a struggle over land, a cause it correctly understood would gain much greater traction and support in the West than a religious war.

That developed into the most successful slur campaign in history, giving rise to accusations of land theft, unlawful occupation, illegal settlement, apartheid, and all the other lies and distortions that are now accepted as undisputed facts by so many around the world. Decades of this anti-Israel propaganda have taken us to the dangerous position we are in today.

 That means that whatever is done to Israel and its Jews is justified as legitimate resistance. I’ve even heard some saying that the people of Israel brought upon themselves the undiluted evil and savagery of Oct. 7. They had it coming. By the same token, any action taken by Israel to defend its people is unjustified, unlawful, and unacceptable. 

Like so much else in our post-truth world, facts and reality don’t matter. If the “oppressed” Palestinians are doing anything, it’s justified and understandable. If Israel is doing anything, it’s intolerable and wrong.

An Arab blogger @hodajannat writes:

🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza, which is inhabited by 2 million people... has 36 hospitals

There are Arab countries with 30 million citizens and do not have this number of hospitals.

🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was getting water, electricity, gas, and fuel for free from Israel.

Of course, there is no Arab citizen who does not pay water, electricity and fuel bills.

🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was receiving $30 million a month from Qatar alone

And $120 million a month from UNRWA

And $50 million a month from the European Union

And 30 million dollars a month from America.

 There are Arab countries drowning in debt and cannot find anyone to help them, even with one million dollars.

🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was not besieged, and all goods were entering it, as were foreigners and people of foreign nationalities. Its residents were traveling to Egypt and from there to the rest of the world, and Fafo is the biggest example.

🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was living better than many Arab countries...and its people were living better than many Arab peoples.

Suddenly...we discovered that our minds were besieged by a programmed lie...by the (Muslim) Brotherhood media

Are The Gazans Indigenous?

Typically, Palestinian’s family names give a clue as to their origin. Thus, we find that a clan of Palestinians located in Gaza that are called Al Masri came from Egypt.

Other names to be found in Gaza are:-

Al Hirqwi who came from Iraq

Al Horani from a region in Syria

Asurani from Tsor in Lebanon

Segawi from Sidon in Lebanon

Tarabutzi from Tripoli in Lebanon

Zarkawi from Jordan

So just where is the land of Gaza they say has been inhabited for generations?

Shurat Hadin Takes ICRC to Court

 The ICRC Also known as the Hamas-ISIS Uber service should not speak about moral failure when they fail to give even the basic medical attention to the Israeli hostages saying they have no power at all!

This level of hypocrisy is astonishing. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross - ICRC , Mirjana Spoljaric, is calling the war in Gaza a "moral failure".

Has she called the brutal and savage attacks of October 7th by the terrorist organization Hamas on innocent civilians a moral failure? How about Hamas using the Palestinians as human shields? Or Hamas launching rockets from schools and hospitals?

We're now 78 days into this war. Which in case anyone at the ICRC has forgotten, Israel did not start. Has the Red Cross actually done its job and gone in to see the hostages and make sure they at least have the medications they need to survive? Anyone at the ICRC calling the kidnapping of innocent civilians and holding them hostage a moral failure?

Mirjana, take a good look in the mirror. You are a moral failure. The ICRC is a moral failure. You and your organization are a disgrace.

 Raz and Ohad Ben Ami were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7, and were held separately in Gaza. Ohad, 55, remains a hostage and Raz, 57, was released after nearly two months in captivity. She was kept in inhumane conditions and her health deteriorated since she did not receive the medicine she takes for a chronic illness. While she was in captivity, her family members begged International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials in Israel, Germany and the United States to try to deliver the medicine to her, but they were rejected.

One of the ICRC officials even sent an email to the family, in which he wrote: "I wish you success in re-establishing contact with your family members."

Now, the Shurat Hadin Israeli Law Center organization has submitted a claim to the Jerusalem District Court on behalf of Raz and Ohad Ben Ami and their families against the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The lawsuit accuses the Red Cross of not acting to fulfill its mandate to visit the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and for not guaranteeing their safety or acting for their release.

 

Noa Tishbi challenges Greta Thunberg

 HOW DARE YOU @GretaThunberg

. How DARE you call for ethnically cleansing the Jewish people from our ancestral land?? You know nothing. No history, no reality, no truth. So I have this to say to you. Israel is not a colonialist state – it’s a refugee state which was literally decolonized from Britain. The majority of Israeli Jews are people of color, whose families were ethnically cleansed from other parts of the Middle East. Throughout history, the only indigenous sovereign entities to exist in the land have been Jewish states.

Doctors Without Borders, (MSF) an Accomplice of Hamas?

 The neutrality and independence of yet another international organization is called into question in Gaza.

• Since October 7, MSF, which is extremely active on X, has not made a single tweet denouncing the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, including the abduction of over 240 Israelis and others who have been held in Gaza as hostages, and the use of hospitals as barracks or human shields. MSF has constantly denounced Israel in virulent terms, but never the violations of humanitarian law committed by Hamas.
• The information provided by MSF, which often repeats without proof the words of its local Palestinian employees, should therefore be no more credible than that of Hamas.
• MSF must be irreproachable and neutral in its work. This is clearly not the case in Gaza.

One after another international organisations have totally ignored the massacre of October 7th. Israel has to prove and justify every claim it makes whilst Hamas statements are accepted without question. 

IDF's Robust System For Operational Conduct

 "We do our best to conduct our operations as carefully

and as professionally as possible...there may be deviations

that require further examination. The IDF has a robust system

for doing so, and it starts with the IDF’s General Staff Fact

Finding and Assessment Mechanism.

New Rule - From the River to the Sea

 Even with humour, this history lesson says it all.

IDF rescues abandoned pets, exotic birds and even a lion from Gaza

 Coverage of the Israel-Hamas war often focuses on humans affected by the conflict. Still, many of the IDF’s heroic efforts may go unnoticed, including the rescue of abandoned animals from Gaza.

Since the ground war in Gaza began, the IDF has rescued cats, dogs, parrots, owls, and even a neglected lion from the Gaza zoo.

Lieutenant Lihi Agiv, a communications officer in the 12th Division described rescuing a puppy while serving on the front lines.

Lt. Agiv told Ynet: “I was touring with the division commander when I noticed a skinny, scared little puppy that ran to us. She was shaking. I have a dog at home so I’m very sensitive to animals. I picked her up and took her with me.”

After Lieutenant Lihi fed the puppy and gave her water, she knew that Beit Hanoun was no place for such a vulnerable creature.

The puppy was sent to her new owner, and all of the soldiers gave her a warm welcome.

“As soon as I took her, all the soldiers wanted to pet her. People were so crazy about her that they gave her their food. The 12th Division is filled with incredible decency and humanity that you don’t see everywhere,” said Lt. Lihi.

Towards the end of one of the Shaked Battalion’s missions in Gaza, Platoon Commander Lieutenant Eran Admoni found a white fluffy cat that had been abandoned.

He said, “They gave her a kind of shelter. When the mission was over, they took her back to Israel. The fighters searched for people to adopt her and finally found an adoptive family.”

The cat wasn’t the only animal the Shaked Battalion rescued in Gaza; Major Tal Attias and Lieutenant Yoav Sander shared the privilege of walking with a large, colorful parrot on their shoulders.

The troops rescued the parrot which was trapped under the rubble in Gaza’s Palestine Square, a place that holds special significance for the current war because it was the first location in Gaza where the hostages were brought.

When the Israeli navy was sailing off the coast of Gaza, an injured owl landed on the deck. The sailors fed the owl and made a small cage for him.

Lieutenant Jonathan, an Israeli Navy officer, reports that when they reached Haifa, they placed the owl in a wildlife hospital and since then, the owl has made a full recovery and was released back into the wild.

Perhaps the most astounding and heart-rending rescue is still in process and involves saving a malnourished lion from a Gaza zoo.

The Nature and Parks Authority is in communication with the IDF to determine how and when to rescue the lion from Gaza safely.

Myth: Hamas doesn't represent the Palestinian people

(With thanks for this data from IDSF) 

Figures show that an extremely significant portion of the Palestinian populace favors the Hamas terror organization and would even elect it in a landslide if Palestinian elections were held today, both in the Judea and Samaria area and in the Gaza Strip. Support in the social media, in the Palestinian street, and even in student elections at the Palestinian universities in Judea and Samaria — ostensibly the academic and intellectual stronghold of the social elite — along with immense outdoor demonstrations of support in Gaza and Ramallah, empirical figures, and qualitative analyses of Palestinian public opinion, leave little room for doubt: support for Hamas among everyday Palestinians is significant, and that painful truth must be faced.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), based in Ramallah and headed by Dr. Khalil Shkaki, finds Palestinian support for Hamas steady and consistent both in the Judea and Samaria area (“West Bank”) and in the Gaza Strip. In a survey held between September 6 and 9, 2023 — a mere month before the October 7 massacre – 44% of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip replied that they support Hamas, along with 24% of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. 

The IDSF Research Department examined the results of Dr. Shkaki’s public-opinion polls covering the past five years, rather than merely the results of a single survey, and found a consistent, stable trend of decisive support for Hamas, with a landslide for any Hamas candidate against any other candidate if Palestinian elections were to be held. In almost every public opinion poll, Hamas won against Fatah on the question of “Who would be suitable as the true representative of the Palestinian people?” From May 2018 to September 2023, Hamas maintained its strength at 42.75% support among Palestinians in Gaza as against 30.6% support for Fatah.

The Myth of 'Settler Violence'

 

By the end of October some 1900 journalists had descended on Israel to “cover” the war, “Swords of Iron”. However, as time has gone on, they have got fed up with the routine reporting and have decided to look for “other subjects” to write about. The top subject on their agenda is “settler violence”.

 According to police statistics, the number of these alleged attacks had fallen by 50% in the period Oct 7^th to Nov 7^th. However, they all ignored the fact that in June alone before the war started there were 3640 attacks of one form or another by Arabs in Judea and Samaria. So by selectively picking the statistics they want, these reporters present a totally one sided biased view of what is actually happening.

How many violent incidents between individuals in a foreign country warrant the attention and repeated mention of the American State Department, the secretary of State, and the president of the ,nited States of America? To warrant attention from the highest and most powerful people of the world these incidents must be so heinous and so frequent that by their nature they alter the course of global events. 

It’s curious how the “settler violence,” rare and infrequent especially in relation to the daily Palestinian terrorism which occurs in the same region – justifies the attention and repeated mention of the US president. 

There are more than 500,000 Jews who live in the region of Judea and Samaria, the area global nations, media, and activists prefer to call “The West Bank.” The overwhelming majority of these Jews choose to live in these areas for comfort, convenience, or economic advantages. They aren’t ideologues and they’re not violent. They believe they have a right to live in this area just as much as Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. 

Like any population, the Jewish community in Judea and Samaria has its small numbers who are detached from mainstream thought, (outliers), and some can be extreme and violent. This is no different than any other community in the world. Most communities are peaceful and contribute to their cities and countries. Although every community has its criminals, they are outliers. It would be racist to make assumptions about an entire community and claim it has a crime problem because of the few outliers in its community. The same is true of the settler community. It is a peaceful community that contributes to Israel and the world. To claim there is a “settler violence” problem is to vilify an entire community based on the actions of their outliers. 

 

Revisiting Gaza Again

 Cross posted from Grandma's Army

From the burning of the fields in 2018 in kibbutz Be’eri, 
 to burning families in kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th, 2023.

In 1978, when Simcha my oldest daughter got married, she and her husband went to live in the second moshav (agricultural settlement), Gannai Tal, to be established  in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip. Since the houses had not yet been built, the other married members lived together as bachelors in one building, in order to work on their farms. On weekends they went to their respective homes.

Simcha and her husband, Gideon, were newly-weds so they started their married life living in Gush Katif in an old caravan, which was too small for Gideon’s long legs. Their next “home” was an ancient bus from the time of the British mandate, which Gideon picked up from the Tel-Aviv old bus station. There was still a notice stuck up from that time “beware of pickpockets”. It happened to be in the makeshift shower stall and toilet, which Gideon had constructed. When they finally moved into their permanent two-bedroom home it was just in time for their oldest boy to be born.

Gideon grew flowers and red peppers for export, but his main source of income was working for the army, erecting and fixing fences around settlements all over the country for defense purposes.  He hired a 16 year-old bare-foot Bedouin youth from Khan Yunis (the second largest town in Gaza), who worked for him in his greenhouses - until the moshav was destroyed in 2005. Working for Gideon enabled this worker - who was treated like one of the family - to eventually “buy” a wife and build a large home.

In those days, the settlers in Gush Katif had a good relationship with the Gazan Arabs. They did their shopping in Khan Yunis.  The worker’s father came for a visit, riding on a donkey! Simcha learned to drive, in the Gaza Strip, with an Arab male teacher. She took the oral driving test when pregnant - the only woman in the room, together with at least fifty Gazan Arabs!

I remember Gideon taking us to Gaza City to look at  all the evidence of a past thriving Jewish community. On one pillar of the great mosque was the inscription of the name of a well-known Jewish sage from the 2nd century CE. Above was a menorah, with a shofar  on one side and an etrog on the other. But the biggest attraction were the mosaic tiles, part of the floor of a synagogue, which probably served the Jewish community in the days of the Talmud. The name "David" in Hebrew can be seen very clearly.

                                                                            

On January 12th, 2005, our beloved son, husband, and father Gideon z”l, was murdered by terrorists in the Gaza Strip. To compound the tragedy, in August of the same year, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip became Judenrein.

My daughter and her five children were left homeless. Simcha is still in touch with their Arab worker, who was left with no regular work. She does her best to help him out from time to time.

Islamic fanaticism is a fast growing cancer, not only confined to Israel, but spreading relentlessly over civilised society. Unless we kill this cancer now, it will continue to metastasize, as it has been doing for decades. Global jihad has declared war on the “infidels”, and Israel is yet again the canary in the coal mine.

U.N. Teachers Celebrate Hamas Massacre

As war wages on between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, a watchdog group is releasing a new report that reveals how UNRWA teachers in the enclave, funded largely by the U.S. and EU, indoctrinate Palestinian children and promote terrorism and antisemitism.

Entitled “UNRWA: Hate Starts Here,” today’s report uncovers 20 UNRWA teachers and other staff members who celebrated the October 7th Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on their social media accounts, collected by the non-governmental organization UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring group based in Geneva.

The new cases are in addition to 133 UNRWA educators and staff who were exposed for promoting hate and violence in UN Watch’s last report, released in March 2023.

UN Watch today submitted the report to EU foreign affairs commissioner Josep Borrell, and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, whose governments are among the top funders of UNRWA, as well as to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini. UN Watch is calling on the agency’s major funders—including the U.S., Germany, the UK and the European Union—to ensure that none of their combined $1.2 billion of donations to UNRWA will fund teachers of hate, and to hold the agency accountable to its own standards and commitments.

Among the educators who used their personal social media channels to propagate hate and celebrate the Hamas terror attack on October 7th:

• UNRWA Gaza teacher Osama Ahmed posted “Allah is Great, Allah is Great, reality surpasses our wildest dreams” as the massacre was unfolding.
• UNRWA school principal Iman Hassan justified the massacre as “restoring rights” and “redressing” Palestinian “grievances.”
• Director of the UNRWA Khan Younis Training Center Rawia Helles, who is featured in and UNRWA campaign, glorified one of the terrorists as a “hero,” “raider,” and “prince of Khan Younis.”
• UNRWA English teacher Asmaa Raffia Kuheil excitedly posted “7th, October, 2023! Sculpture the date!” adding a heart emoji.
• UNRWA school administrator Hmada Ahmed posted “welcome the great October.”

The report only examined a sample of Facebook users who publicly identified themselves as UNRWA employees, and therefore UN Watch estimates that the number of UNRWA staff who incite violence and hatred includes hundreds if not thousands among the agency’s 30,000 staff.

Western Countries Fund UNRWA’s $1.6 Billion Budget

The teachers of hate at UNRWA are largely funded by Western countries who contribute the lion’s share of UNRWA’s $1.6 billion-dollar budget. Amounts pledged for 2022 included $344 million from the United States, $122 million from Germany, $107 million from the European Commission, $61 million from Sweden, $17 million from the UK, $24 million from Switzerland, $32 million from Norway, $28 million from France, $24 million from Canada, and $15 million from the Netherlands.

Comment by UN Watch  

“We call on the governments that fund UNRWA to declare that they will stop enabling a system that teaches new generations of Palestinians to hate and murder Jews.”

 “Let us be clear: the problem is not the social media posts, but rather the unconscionable employment of teachers who preach antisemitism and terrorism.”

“The hate that led to the October 7th massacre did not appear out of thin air. It was inculcated at UNRWA schools over many years. One of the Hamas terrorists who carried out the massacre on Israeli families was even found to be carrying his UNRWA diploma on him as he butchered innocent civilians.”

“The U.S., EU, Germany, UK, Canada and other donor states cannot morally send more money to UNRWA until it shows a genuine commitment to basic norms of education in its schools. This means the agency must publicly condemn UNRWA employees who incite terrorism and antisemitism, remove them from their positions, and create an independent and impartial investigation of all of its staff,” said Neuer.

Hanukiah in Gaza

 

When Jews tell you “Chabad is everywhere,” they’re

not kidding. Chabad Chassidic emissaries have

made a point of finding their way into Gaza to

accompany IDF troops as they battle for Israel’s

existence against the enclave’s barbaric Hamas

terrorist organization — and now they have also

made certain to “publicize the miracle” of Hanukah

as Jews are told to do. Chabad makes a special

point of placing public menorahs in as many places

as possible in Israel and around the world. Now

they have extended that mandate to Gaza. Behold!

Media don't like the truth, you get cut.

 When the truth comes out in an interview then 

it is suddenly cut as being "out of time"

The outcry of an Israeli woman, a peace activist

The letter below is from a friend, a peace activist who for many years headed MASHAV, the Israeli development agency, and was involved many UN agencies in the international arena dealing with human rights and specifically human rights. She feels betrayed and ignored by former "friends".

This is an abridged version and i can send the full letter on request.

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For more than 25 years, I was a true militant of peace, creating dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian women, believing strongly in peace-education and in building bridges between communities! What a terrible wake-up I had!!! How could I be so naïve? Peace???   With whom??? With Hamas ??? -  A terrorist group that doesn’t value the lives of its own brothers, maintaining them as refugees for more than 75 years for political purposes; taking the billions of dollars provided by the EU, US and other generous donors, to buy weapons and to build underground tunnels, instead of investing in education, health and economy, and using civilians as human shields, and then accusing Israel of the killing of innocent people in Gaza.  

For the information then of those who prefer to ignore the truth: Israel is apparently the only country in the world to have liberated territories, gained during a defensive war, for the purposes of achieving peace.   And what has it received in return?  Years of more and more terrorist attacks against innocent civilians!...

Wake up, dear world!  Can’t you see the reality? How dare you judge us when you ignore true facts and rely on lies and false information? Why don’t you take the time to check the information you get before sharing fake news, and before rushing to join demonstrations against Israel, adding your voice to all those antisemites who were just waiting for the “right” moment to express their hate against the Jews and against Israel, with slogans such as “Free Palestine from the river to the sea”.

I furthermore wonder how the UN which is responsible for the “Child Rights Manifesto”, signed by most of its Member countries in 1989, does not take a minimal initiative with the International Red Cross organization to protect the rights of dozens of children who were so taken as hostages; and who are being held in despicable conditions? How can the UN not act for their immediate release?  And where is the Red Cross??

The world must realize the magnitude of the tragedy we are facing, and must understand that this war is a matter of good vs evil, civilization vs. barbarism…  For us, the Jews, this is a second Holocaust, and it must be recognized as such.  

Where are my own rights, and the rights of my children and grandchildren, to live a normal life?  I realize though and with much sadness that I am asking a stupid question!!  Who really cares??

This is a question of moral compass, and choosing not to unequivocally condemn the inhumane crimes committed by Hamas on that tragic day of 7 October is not OK.

Today, I have decided to stop trying to explain to some of my colleagues from women’s organizations, regionally and internationally, from the human rights’ associations around the globe, and from colleagues from UN WOMEN and UN specialized agencies with whom I have cooperated for decades, contributing to the empowerment and well-being of women in the developing world, that silence on their part cannot be an option.  I had expected them to stand-up in full solidarity with the women in Israel.  I had expected them to take a very clear stance against terror… I had expected them to call for the immediate release of the hostages…  I know, all of them consider rape in a war zone as a crime, but that seemingly is only as long as the victims are not Jews!

I had expected the UNWOMEN to comprehend the enormity of the tragedy, to recognize the fact that what happened on the 7 of October was a mass feminicide, since women were violently raped, tortured, humiliated before being savagely murdered.

UNWOMEN your silence regarding the war crimes committed by Hamas against Israeli women is UNFORGIVABLE!  Your organization will go down in the history books sitting idly by…

Furthermore, I just heard that the UN has appointed Iran’s Ambassador to chair the Human Rights Council!  To laugh or to cry??

 We have no choice but to defend ourselves from a murderous terror organization, and its allies, that seek the annihilation of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel.   Nobody can convincingly deny that this is their final objective.   So, what do you expect us to do?  To let them exterminate us? However, we will win! We will win because we have no other alternative if we want to survive as a nation.   As Golda Meir once said, “we will win because we have no other place to go”.

We need to make sure that the civilized world will prevail in the war against evil and terror.  For our struggle is also the struggle of democratic and civilized societies.

Yesterday, I heard with horror and immense pain that my friend and colleague, Vivian Silver, was declared dead after her remains were found at her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, among the tortured innocent victims of October 7 massacre.  Vivian, a lifelong feminist, a fearless leader who has devoted her entire life to the cause of peace and to Arab-Jewish partnership, who was one of the founders of the Israeli movement Women Wage Peace!  

Another friend and colleague of mine who had been kidnapped from her house by Hamas, together with her grandchildren, is Dr. Shoshan Haran, a woman who, through her humanitarian organization “Fair Planet” has dedicated her career to the wellbeing of the poorest of the poor in Africa, ensuring food security and helping local women farmers to overcome their hardships. Shoshan’s husband, her brother and sister-in law, have been found murdered in kibbutz Be’eri.

My soul and my heart are broken…

However, despite my hard “wake-up” from many years of naivety and blindness, during which I did not want to believe that there exists an incredible hypocrisy, a lack of integrity and a double standard when the issue involved is about Israel and the Jews, I refuse to lose my humanity - even in the grip of the trauma caused by the Hamas horrendous carnage…  And so, I will continue my own battle for women’s rights and social justice, whenever and wherever it is necessary.  This engagement is due to the support and sympathy I personally received during this dark period from true friends, whom I salute for their courage and humanity. Their solidarity is particularly appreciated in this time of adversity, where the global waves of antisemitism that we are watching play out on social media can make Jews feel alone.