Tag: UNRWA

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The UN: Used and Abused by Terrorists

Recently, it has been reported that an employee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza was elected to the Hamas political leadership. This employee has been fired pending an investigation. If the aforementioned is proven true, this should not come as a surprise to anyone who is aware of the way the Palestinian terrorists use and abuse the UN and its institutions, particularly the UNRWA.

The UNRWA has been operating since 1950 to provide Palestinian refugees with education, health, relief, social services and other services until they can be permanently settled in their own state. They are the only refugee group to receive such a huge amount of resources and money with their own special UN institution exclusively dedicated to helping them with their needs. No other refugee group receives such attention and help. Beneath this superficial idealism that is the official position of the UNRWA, lies an institution that is used and abused by terrorists to kill and maim innocents and to advance their radical agenda.

Since the Second Intifada, there have been videos and pictures that show UNRWA vehicles being used by armed terrorists as getaway cars. UNRWA workers have been caught using their vehicles to transport weapons, ammunition and explosives for terrorist groups.

UNRWA funds have been used to print anti-Semitic books and summer camps for aspiring young martyrs for terrorist groups have been held at UNRWA schools.

Recently it was reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute that the UNRWA had decided to shelve plans to make changes to the Palestinian school curriculum that, among other things, would have removed maps showing Palestine from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea and would have taught about the Holocaust. Due to pressure from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas these changes were not carried out, because in the words of the UNRWA, “in conformity with its practice since the 1950s based on an agreement with UNESCO, UNRWA teaches host-country curricula in its schools.” In other words, the PA and Hamas dictate what should be taught in UNRWA schools not the UNRWA.

Another NGO, the Palestinian Media Watch, have documented multiple examples of the misuse of UN funds. This includes when the UNRWA, along with other sponsors, sponsored a tree planting ceremony in memory of the terrorists who died during the September 2015 terror wave. This terror wave claimed the lives of 34 and injured 400 Israelis. The ceremony was conducted by the Palestinian NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees which is co-sponsored by the UNRWA. A further example is when the UN funded an event at al-Quds University, that honoured a terrorist that killed 2 and injured 13 people in a car ramming attack in Jerusalem.

Since the Gaza Strip was taken over by Hamas following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal, the abuse has multiplied greatly. In the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, three Israeli soldiers were killed when they found a booby-trapped tunnel that was connected to a UNRWA building. In that same war, multiple rockets were stored on UNRWA sites, such as hospitals and schools; particularly sensitive locations. Therefore, when Israel justifiably attacks these locations, it serves as a media weapon against them when the pictures of bombed out schools and hospitals are printed in the press.

The UNRWA Commissioner-General, Pierre Krahenbuhl, even admitted that terrorists were using their buildings to store rockets in the summer war in 2014. During the same war it was reported by several media outlets that Hamas terrorists had threatened to kill UNRWA workers if they revealed that Hamas were using UN buildings for war purposes.

The NGO UNWatch held a joint subcommittee hearing on the 2 February 2017 before the U.S. Congress and expressed concern about the number of UNRWA school teachers in the Palestinian camps who had expressed on Facebook incitement to Jihad, anti-Semitism, holocaust denial and praising Hitler. This list is made up of 40 teachers working in camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, and Syria. With comments like; “I pray to God that you all die from a stroke, otherwise you will die from an axe”, posted by Tarek Abu Ghazelah from Lebanon, after a synagogue massacre in Jerusalem. Or, a further example; “We don’t want no truce or solution. All we want is to strike Tel Aviv,” and “We have filled up their air raid shelters – oh Palestinians, you can be proud”, in a song posted by Adnan Serdanah. See the link below for the full report: https://www.unwatch.org/130-page-report-unrwa-teachers-incite-terrorism-antisemitism/

It is not just in Palestinian camps that this abuse goes on, but also in Syria it was reported that the Al-Qaeda branch, Jabat al-Nusra, had captured vehicles and uniforms of UN workers and was using them to carry out attacks. A UN vehicle had been used in bomb attacks in Daraa in the southern west Syria against Assad’s army. In a similar vein, a picture of a UN vehicle with the black flag of Al-Qaeda raised on top was circulating the web. The neutrality of the UN is trampled on and taken advantage of to advance their evil agenda.  

Within the UN Security Council, Israel is condemned again and again while tyrants and others who deny other humans of their basic rights are not mentioned and are allowed to speak against the only democracy in the Middle East. The abuse of the UN against Israel can be encapsulated in the moment in 1975 when Idi Amin, the tyrant and dictator of Uganda who had people thrown alive to crocodiles and ate the flesh off his decapitated victims, submitted a resolution condemning “Zionism is racism”. The resolution was passed by 72 to 35 votes.

This goes far beyond irony.

The examples mentioned above are a small insight of what has gone on within the UN and its institutions.

The abuse of the UN is a not a minor matter. It white washes and provides cover for the actions of terrorists and condemns those who speak for human rights and democracy. Unless there are some changes, this great institution will continue to be used and abused for the foreseeable future.

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THE LESSONS OF THE HAMAS WAR

Israel’s strategic mistake.

The State Comptroller’s Report on Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, is exceedingly detailed. The problem is that it addresses the wrong details.

Israel’s problem with Hamas wasn’t its tactics for destroying Hamas’s attack tunnels. Israel faced two challenges in its war with Hamas that summer. The first had to do with the regional and global context of the war. The second had to do with its understanding of its enemy on the ground.

War between Hamas and Israel took place as the Sunni Arab world was steeped a two-pronged existential struggle. On the one hand, Sunni regimes fought jihadist groups that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood movement. On the other, they fought against Iran and its proxies in a bid to block Iran’s moves toward regional hegemony.

On both fronts, the Sunni regimes, led by Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates, were shocked to discover that the Obama administration was siding with their enemies against them.

If Israel went into the war against Hamas thinking that the Obama administration would treat it differently than it treated the Sunni regimes, it quickly discovered that it was mistaken. From the outset of the battle between Hamas and Israel, the Obama administration supported Hamas against Israel.

America’s support for Hamas was expressed at the earliest stages of the war when then-secretary of state John Kerry demanded that Israel accept an immediate cease-fire based entirely on Hamas’s terms. This demand, in various forms, remained the administration’s position throughout the 50-day war.

Hamas’s terms were impossible for Israel. They included opening the jihadist regime’s land borders with Israel and Egypt, and providing it with open access to the sea. Hamas demanded to be reconnected to the international banking system in order to enable funds to enter Gaza freely from any spot on the globe. Hamas also demanded that Israel release its terrorists from its prisons.

If Israel had accepted any of Hamas’s cease-fire terms, its agreement would have constituted a strategic defeat for Israel and a historic victory for Hamas.

Open borders for Hamas means the free flow of armaments, recruits, trainers and money to Gaza. Were Hamas to be connected to the international banking system, the jihadist regime would have become the banking center of the global jihad.

The Obama administration’s support for Hamas was not passive.

Obama and Kerry threatened to join the Europeans in condemning Israel at the UN. Administration officials continuously railed against IDF operations in Gaza, insinuating that Israel was committing war crimes by insisting that Israel wasn’t doing enough to avoid civilian casualties.

As the war progressed, the administration’s actions against Israel became more aggressive. Washington placed a partial embargo on weapons shipments to Israel.

Then on July 23, 2014, the administration took the almost inconceivable step of having the Federal Aviation Administration ban flights of US carriers to Ben-Gurion Airport for 36 hours. The flight ban was instituted after a Hamas missile fell a mile from the airport.

The FAA did not ban flights to Pakistan or Afghanistan after jihadists on the ground successfully bombed airplanes out of the sky.

It took Sen. Ted Cruz’s threat to place a hold on all State Department appointments, and Canada’s Conservative Party government’s behind-the-scenes diplomatic revolt to get the flight ban rescinded.

The government and the IDF were shocked by the ferocity of the administration’s hostility. But to his great credit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surmounted it.

Netanyahu realized that Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood nexus of jihad and also supported by Iran. As a result the Egyptians, Saudis and UAE rightly view it as a major enemy. Indeed, Egypt was in a state of war with Hamas in 2014. Gaza serves as the logistical base of the Salafist forces warring against the Egyptian military.

Netanyahu asked Sisi for help in blunting the American campaign for Hamas. Sisi was quick to agree and brought the Saudis and the UAE into an all-but-declared operational alliance with Israel against Hamas.

Since the Egyptians were hosting the cease-fire talks, Egypt was well-positioned to blunt Obama’s demand that Israel accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms.

In a bid to undermine Egypt, Obama and Kerry colluded with Hamas’s state sponsors Turkey and Qatar to push Sisi out of the cease-fire discussions. But due to Saudi and UAE support for Sisi and Israel, the administration’s attempts to sideline the Egyptians failed.

The cease-fire terms that were adopted at the end of the war contained none of Hamas’s demands. Israel had won the diplomatic war.

It was a strange victory, however. Netanyahu was never able to let the public know what was happening.

Had he informed the public, the knowledge that the US was backing Hamas would have caused mass demoralization and panic. So Netanyahu had to fight the diplomatic fight of his life secretly.

The war on the ground was greatly influenced by the diplomatic war. But the war on the ground was first and foremost a product of the nature of Hamas and of the nature of Hamas’s relationship with the PLO.

Unfortunately, the Comptroller’s Report indicates that the IDF didn’t understand either. According to the report, in the weeks before the war began, the then-coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eitan Dangot, told the security cabinet that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was at a crisis point and that hostilities were likely to break out if Israel didn’t allow humanitarian aid into the Strip.

On Wednesday we learned that Dangot’s view continues to prevail in the army. The IDF’s intelligence chief, Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel must send humanitarian aid to Gaza to avert a war.

There is truth to the IDF’s position. Hamas did in fact go to war against Israel in the summer of 2014 because it was short on supplies.

After Sisi overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt the previous summer, he shut Egypt’s border with Gaza because Gaza was the logistical base of the insurgency against his regime. The closed border cut off Hamas’s supply train of everything from antitank missiles to cigarettes and flour.

The problem with the IDF’s view of Hamas is that providing aid to Gaza means supplying Hamas first and foremost. Every shipment into Gaza strengthens Hamas far more than it serves the needs of Gaza’s civilian population. We got a good look at Hamas’s contempt for the suffering of its people during Protective Edge.

After seeing the vast dimensions of Hamas’s tunnel infrastructure, the then-OC Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Sami Turgeman, told reporters that Hamas had diverted enough concrete to its tunnel project to build 200 kindergartens, two hospitals, 20 clinics and 20 schools.

Moreover, the civilian institutions that are supposed to be assisted by humanitarian aid all serve Hamas. During the war, three soldiers from the IDF’s Maglan unit were killed in southern Gaza when they were buried in rubble of a booby-trapped UNRWA clinic.

The soldiers were in the clinic to seal off the entry shaft of a tunnel that was located in an exam room.

Hamas had booby trapped the walls of the clinic and detonated it when the soldiers walked through the door.

All of the civilian institutions in Gaza, including those run by the UN, as well as thousands of private homes, are used by Hamas as part of its war machine against Israel.

So any discussion of whether or not to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza is not a humanitarian discussion. It is a discussion about whether or not to strengthen Hamas and reinforce its control over the population of Gaza.

This brings us to the goals of the war in Gaza in 2014. At the time, the government debated two possible endgames.

The first was supported by then-justice minister Tzipi Livni. Livni, and the Left more generally, supported using the war with Hamas as a means of unseating Hamas and restoring the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority to power in the area.

There were four problems with this notion. First, it would require Israel to reconquer Gaza.

Second, the Obama administration would never have agreed to an Israeli conquest of Gaza.

Third, Israel doesn’t have the forces to deploy to Gaza to retake control of the area without rendering its other borders vulnerable.

The final problem with Livni’s idea is that the PLO is no better than Hamas. From the outset of the war, the PLO gave Hamas unqualified support. Fatah militias in Gaza manned the missile launchers side by side with Hamas fighters. PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas represented Hamas at the cease-fire talks in Cairo. He led the political war against Israel in the West. And he financed Hamas’s war effort. Throughout the war Abbas sent a steady stream of funds to Gaza.

If PLO forces were returned to Gaza, they would behave precisely as they behaved from 2000 until Hamas kicked them out in 2007. That is, they would have acted as Hamas’s full partners in their joint war against Israel.

The second possible endgame involved a long-term strategy of defeating Hamas through attrition. This was the goal the government ended up partially adopting. The government ordered the IDF to destroy as much of Hamas’s missile arsenal as possible and to destroy its offensive tunnels into Israel. When the goals had been achieved to the point where the cost of opposing Obama grew greater than the battle gains, Netanyahu agreed to a cease-fire.

For the attrition strategy to have succeeded, the cease-fire would have only been the first stage of a longer war. For the attrition strategy to work, Israel needed to refuse to resupply Hamas. With its missile arsenal depleted and its tunnels destroyed, had Israel maintained the ban on supplies to Gaza, the residents would have revolted and Hamas wouldn’t have had the option of deflecting their anger onto Israel by starting a new war.

The IDF unfortunately never accepted attrition as the goal. From the Comptroller’s Report and Halevi’s statement to the Knesset this week, it appears the General Staff rejected attrition because it refuses to accept either the nature of Hamas or the nature of the PLO. Immediately after the cease-fire went into force, the General Staff recommended rebuilding Gaza and allowing an almost free flow of building supplies, including concrete, into Hamas’s mini-state.

The Comptroller’s Report is notable mainly because it shows that nearly three years after Protective Edge, official Israel still doesn’t understand what happened that summer. The problem with Hamas was never tactical. It was always strategic. Israel won the diplomatic battle because it understood the correlation of its strategic interests with those of the Sunni regimes.

It lost the military battle of attrition because it permitted Hamas to resupply.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

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United Nations agency continues to incite anti-Semitic violence

A recent report presented by UN Watch to the United States congress has uncovered more than 40 alarming new cases of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school teachers in Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria inciting Jihadist terrorism and antisemitism. The 130-page report, titled “Poisoning Palestinian Children” identifies Facebook accounts of teachers which include Holocaust-denying videos and pictures celebrating Hitler.

In September and October 2015, UN Watch documented UNRWA staff posting anti-Semitic material and supporting terrorism on social media. At that time, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness originally said:

Where we find credible allegations of neutrality violations among our staff, we investigate and where it’s appropriate we take disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal”Chris Gunness

Gunness also took to twitter to attack UN Watch and call the reports “baseless allegation[s]”. However, in late October 2016, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that UNRWA employees have “in a number of cases” been subjected to disciplinary action, including suspension and loss of pay. No specific teachers were named and no other details given. Now, even more UNRWA employees have been found to be spreading anti-Semitic material and inciting violence.

The most recent exposé of incitement from UNRWA staff also follows questions around the practices of UNRWA: the inefficiency when compared to UNHCR, its treatment of refugees, the UNRWA school curriculum, policies around granted loans, and their role as an obstacle to peace. The incitement to violence by UNRWA employees constitutes a violation of their legal obligations on at least five counts and has been linked to the “stabbing intifada” that began in September 2015.

The recommendations of the report are that all donor states:

(a) Demand that UNRWA be in full compliance with its obligations, including each of the provisions outlined above, prior to donor states releasing any further funds to UNRWA;

(b) Demand that UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl immediately condemn their employees’ incitement to terrorism and antisemitism; and

(c) Demand that UNRWA adopt a zero tolerance policy for employees who incite racism or murder by immediately terminating their employment, and prominently post on its website these and other actions it is taking to root out this insidious conduct by UN staff.

Over the past seven years, New Zealand has contributed $6.3m to UNRWA and not once publically spoken out against such practices. In fact, New Zealand has praised UNRWA’s work on the occasion of its 65th anniversary in 2015, but there has been no public criticism of UNRWA in light of any of the UNRWA staff incitement. Foreign Minister Murray McCully did say that he was aware of concerning behaviour when he was interviewed in May, 2016:

“UNRWA certainly deserves criticism and the example that particularly sticks in my mind is the occasion where some rockets were found in a school and rather than confiscate them and make sure they were in a position where the could no longer do any harm, they were handed back to people who could do harm with them. On one of my visits around that time to Jerusalem, I met with the UNRWA leadership … I can assure you there is not any element of doubt in their minds about the views of the New Zealand government and the funding that has been provided … has been put at risk as a result of their actions. We’ve discussed that quite frankly and will do so if there are further examples.”Murray McCully

New Zealand continues to fund UNRWA to the tune of approximately $1m annually. There has been no comment about the recently uncovered actions of UNRWA staff from any government official and none have responded to Shalom.Kiwi for comment. It’s time New Zealand spoke up about UNRWA’s support for terrorism and anti-Semitism and reconsiders its core-funding commitments.

Originally Published on Shalom.Kiwi.

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Do We Spray the Ants or Eradicate the Nest?

(The views in this article are those of the author)

In light of the horrific attack in Tel Aviv where 4 Israeli civilians were murdered by Arab terrorists dressed in suits, we find ourselves in yet another quagmire. The issue is how to respond.

Prime Minister Netanyahu says “we will attack those who attacked us.” Exactly what does that mean Mr. Prime Minister? Is Israel going to launch a targeted strike on Hamas operatives in Gaza or Judea/Samaria?

What will that accomplish? Indeed, it may take out some Arab terrorists, but what will it accomplish in the end? Will it prevent future attacks from taking place? Will it deter leadership from promoting jihad against Israeli Jews? Will it foster a better environment for peace?

Killing Arab terrorists is the equivalent of spraying a trail of ants with pesticide. It only eliminates the ones you see. In order to stop more of them from coming, one must go all the way to the nest and root it out completely.

Other suggestions include halting the influx of Arabs for Ramadan. I find no problem with refusing to allow thousands more Muslims into Israel, which can only increase the chances of more violence.

Still others are suggesting clamping down on goods being shipped into Gaza. This has been an ongoing seesaw issue for years. Every time Israel relents and expands the array of allowable goods, Hamas ends up stealing much of it and using it to manufacture weapons, terror tunnels, or underground bunkers so their leadership remains protected during outbreaks of war with Israel.

What sense does it make to allow shipments of materials that everyone knows will be used for military purposes? Yet world pressure continuously and relentlessly mounts on Israel to “lift the siege of Gaza.”

Pressure also continues against Israel to end the “occupation,” and relax the checkpoints coming in from Judea/Samaria.

Do those who promote said suggestions actually believe such acquiescence would result in peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs? If they do, they are either more naïve then Neville Chamberlain, or they have little or no concern for the safety of Jewish lives. The other possibility is they are just plain anti-Semitic.

In actuality, counter attacks by Israel will not address the problem. Clamping down on Gaza will not address the problem. Even if nothing other than basic items, such as food, water and medicine is allowed in. Tightening checkpoints, temporarily revoking permits or razing homes of terrorists in Judea/Samaria won’t remedy the situation. These are all symptomatic remedies, which do nothing to address the core issues.

Turning the tide should be seen as a comprehensive plan that involves a combined effort across many fronts.

One place to start is the classroom. Arab Palestinian children do not receive an “education,” as normal school children do in most countries. They are taught to hate Jews, and to die as martyrs. Take a look at this recent clip below. This is a typical example of how children are “educated” in UNRWA run schools in Judea/Samaria and Gaza.

What kind of adults do you think these children become having been “educated” like this? UNRWA receives over $1 billion annually. The largest donors are the US – $400 million, followed by the EU, Saudi Arabia and the UK. Together they provide over 50% of UNRWA’s funding.

This is where a change must take place. The donor countries should demand their funds be used for proper education, rather than allowing these ‘schools’ to be nothing more than terror training facilities. Further, independent monitoring should take place on an ongoing basis to ensure appropriate education is being administered.  If the schools refuse to provide normal education and continue their terror training, the funding for them should be cut off, period.

Another systemic issue is religious ‘education.’ Religion plays a huge role in the upbringing and character building of people from all cultures and countries. When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict Arabs again are being ‘educated’ to hate and kill, rather than coexist with Israel. Take a look at this clip.

The imam is supposed to be a man of God. He is supposed to provide teachings which reflect how we are to treat our fellow man in a way which God honors. What kind of god would bless the words that come out of that imam’s mouth? Yet this another huge component in weaving together the fabric of Arab Palestinian society.

Once again, I believe independent monitors should be at every mosque, and when such messages are delivered said leader should be warned that this type of hate mongering will not be tolerated. If he refuses to comply he should face criminal charges.

Will these suggestions be easy? No. Will they immediately change the atmosphere in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unlikely. However, something must be done, because we know what has been done until now has not produced fruit. What have we to lose?

I have only addressed two particular segments of society with this essay. There are more that need addressing to be sure. However, these two are of huge significance and influence.  If the fundamental institutions of their society are ignored and allowed to maintain the status quo, this is tantamount to declaring the future will continue to be one of symptomatic  remedies.

We can either keep spraying the ant trail and allow it to keep coming back, or we can pursue it to the nest and eradicate it. We have a choice.

 

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Headlines May 30: 3rd of US is Pro-BDS, Arab Youths Arrested, UNRWA Rumors

Ipsos Survey: One Third of Americans Support Boycotting Israel The good news is that a 62% majority of US respondents believe that the BDS movement is a form of modern anti-Semitism.
[The Jewish Press]

 

Arab youths arrested for brutal attack on elderly Jewish women. Stabbing attack in Jerusalem earlier this month left two women in their 80s seriously injured; terrorists planned second attack.
[Arutz Sheva]

 

1 Wounded in Evening Terror Attack on Jerusalem Bus. The terror wave that is supposed to be fading is not yet over — terrorists are still trying to pick off buses and cars on the roads, trying to kill families and individual men, women and children.
[The Jewish Press]

 

UNRWA facing refugee protests, closings, and rumors. UN body responsible for Arab refugees – but which actually perpetuates them – denies it plans to close Gaza office.
[Arutz Sheva]

 

Dozens of packages containing drone parts and other communications equipment en route to terror cells operating inside the Gaza Strip were intercepted by Israeli security forces in recent weeks.
[Times of Israel]