Reuters reports:
The Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval on Monday to a bill that declares the main United Nations relief organization for Palestinians a terrorist organisation and proposes to sever relations with the body.
The vote against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is the latest step in a Israeli push against the agency, which Israeli leaders have accused of collaborating with the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza.
Western coverage of Israel's accusations against UNRWA all have the subtext of how Israel is going over the top, UNRWA might have a few bad apples but altogether it is doing good things.
UNRWA has embarked on a campaign to deflect the criticism, with op-eds written for at least 10 newspapers claiming that if UNRWA is declared to be a terrorist organization, Israel will shoot humanitarian workers with impunity. This is of course a slander.
But Israel knows things that the media doesn't.
Some documents also revealed the corruption within Hamas, showing how they not only accumulated assets but also used them. United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) apartments were registered in the name of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif's wife.Apartments of Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas head Yahya Sinwar's brother, were found to be received from UNRWA and then rented to Palestinians, according to rental contracts in possession of Military Intelligence.Documentation of Hamas operatives working for UNRWA was also found.
Is it even remotely plausible that UNRWA doesn't know that its apartments were being sublet by Hamas? That they didn't know the names of Deif's wife and Sinwar's brother?
That they don't know that UNRWA workers moonlight for Hamas?
The apartments are supposed to be free for "refugees." Yet the "refugees" are freely subletting them, profiting off UNRWA funds. Don't claim UNRWA isn't aware of this, if not profiting from it itself.
I am not sure that declaring all of UNRWA to be terrorist is a smart move politically, but Israel can and should make it illegal in Israel. It does nothing to promote peace; on the contrary, it is in UNRWA's interest that there never is peace because then it would be out of business.
