Under pressure, @UNRWA starts a new gaslighting campaign to keep itself alive - and set the stage to destroy Israel ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Under pressure, @UNRWA starts a new gaslighting campaign to keep itself alive - and set the stage to destroy Israel

In 2021, Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, wrote an article in Al Jazeera where he insisted that UNRWA was not a political organization.

The charge most frequently levied against us is that UNRWA plays a political role. This could not be further from the truth. UNRWA is mandated to provide direct, vital humanitarian assistance to Palestine refugees pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. That is the agency’s priority and focus. It does not engage in politics. UNRWA, like all other United Nations agencies and international NGOs, is bound to the four humanitarian principles (humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence) that are enshrined in two UN General Assembly resolutions.

On Monday, faced with the prospect of losing its funding, Lazzarini said the exact opposite.

UNRWA is a formidable asset for ensuring a viable political transition that can provide a definitive answer to the question of Palestine.
Embedding the Agency in a political process will help to protect Palestine Refugees and maintain the long-established parameters for peace in the occupied Palestinian territory.

What happened to its mandate? Well, UNRWA feels it can change its mandate at will, without the UN General Assembly getting involved.

Up until now, UNRWA stubbornly insisted that it must provide a separate education, health, housing and other social service infrastructure even in areas where the Palestinians would receive those same benefits from the government - in the Palestinian territories (and in Jordan.)

Suddenly, UNRWA is very interested in transitioning its services to the Palestinian Authority and supposedly ending its service there.

Alternatively, we can allow UNRWA to progressively conclude its mandate within the framework of a political process like that championed by the Global Alliance.
The Agency would gradually transition its public-like services to empowered and prepared Palestinian institutions.
This is the future for which we are preparing.
Today, you will hear from my colleagues how UNRWA’s critical services, personnel and assets can be handed over in the context of a political process.
Developing the capacity of Palestinian personnel and institutions will be the cornerstone of our approach.

I've noted that Lazzarini, had expanded UNRWA's mandate to exist until Palestinian institutions were "empowered."

But the Palestinian Authority already runs schools, medical facilities and social service programs millions of its citizens. What more empowerment do they need? Why has UNRWA avoided transitioning its services to the PA for three decades, but now is pushing a plan to do exactly that? Why has UNRWA made a U-turn from doing everything it can to promote duplicative services to a supposed plan to move its services to a government, where it should have been for so long?

Lazzarini is gaslighting the world.

He was speaking at the Fourth Meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, an initiative started last September by Saudi Arabia and Norway, to pressure Israel to move to the 1949 armistice lines.

He's saying that UNRWA must transition its services - but it cannot do this until there is a fully recognized Palestinian state.

The success of our efforts depends entirely on the strength of the international community’s commitment to a political pathway.

This commitment must be backed by funding to preserve the Agency’s operations until the transfer of its services to Palestinian institutions is complete.

The world that is no longer so interested in funding an organization that has done everything possible to grow forever. Facing severe budget cuts, Lazzarini is now saying, look, we are only temporary - just fund us until we can successfully transition our services!

But make sure you pressure Israel to give up the Jewish Quarter and the Kotel first, and to allow a "right of return" for millions of Arabs who never lived in Israel. Because the Palestinian leaders have made it very clear they won't accept anything less.

Lazzarini knows Israel will never do that, so he is preparing to blame Israel for the lack of a "political pathway."

Meanwhile, UNRWA keeps getting funded as some European countries skittish about funding UNRWA indefinitely is suddenly presented with a "transition plan" that by definition will never happen.

If Lazzarini were serious, this would have happened already. Or he could start it today, both in the West Bank and in Jordan. Saying that he must wait until some political process is complete - to UNRWA's satisfaction - it just a transparent ploy to keep UNRWA funded, forever.

And, incidentally, to help destroy Israel.

The Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution is not pressuring the Palestinian Authority to accept the Clinton parameters or any other peace proposal that would maintain Israel's security. The Palestinian Authority is part of this alliance, meaning that their maximal demands - including Jerusalem and "return" - are part of the alliance's position.

UNRWA is saying that no two state solution is acceptable unless the PA supports it. The PA doesn't support any solution that doesn't lead to the end of the Jewish state.

And UNRWA wants to make sure it is funded until it sees that happen, which would fulfill its real internal mandate.