Brooke Goldstein: Stop Funding Palestinian Jew-Hatred
The social media accounts of UNRWA teachers are littered with posts that express support for terrorist groups and incite violence against Jews and Israelis. UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, has widely reported on these postings, including in a presentation to the U.S. Congress. Watchdog groups the world over have been shouting this same message for years.Palestinian Government Probed for Torture, War Crimes
UNRWA textbooks use terrorists to illustrate lessons the way American textbooks use Jack and Jill. "Martyrs" from the First Intifada are used in mathematical word problems. Students are encouraged to "defend the motherland with blood." Lessons are peppered with blatant lies, such as one about Israel dumping radioactive waste in the West Bank. Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who killed 38 civilians while hijacking a bus, is hailed in UNRWA textbooks as a role model of female empowerment.
Phillipe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, has claimed that content of this nature was published in UNWRA textbooks by accident. He has vowed to correct the oversight, and he claims that all UNRWA textbooks have now been scrubbed clean of "inappropriate pages."
However, in a report published just this month, the London-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that new materials created and distributed by UNRWA during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate distance learning continue to promote terrorism, while also denying Israel's right to exist.
It doesn't end in the classroom. UNRWA school buildings are also used by Hamas to store weapons and missiles.
All while America continues to foot UNRWA's bills.
At what point will this administration say enough is enough? What will make President Biden realize that he has aligned America with the wrong "ally?" Does a terrorist have to be wearing a UNRWA T-shirt while shooting up an American subway? Do UNRWA textbooks have to refer to America as an illicit "occupier?"
How close to home does the outrage need to hit before America turns off the spigot?
The Palestinian government is complicit in "rampant, wide-spread, and systematic torture of Palestinian nationals" and Israelis, according to a landmark legal complaint filed this week with the International Criminal Court (ICC).David Singer: Biden rejects Saudi plan for Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine
The International Legal Forum (ILF), an advocacy group representing more than 3,500 lawyers and civil society activists across the globe, is pressing the ICC to investigate the Palestinian Authority for war crimes in the first ever case of this nature presented to the court, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The organization is demanding that the ICC launch "an immediate investigation and prosecution of Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership for allegations of torture." The documents outline instances of the Palestinian government engaging in "violent beatings, arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, cruel and inhumane prison conditions, harassment, forced confessions, and summary executions."
The case comes just a week after President Joe Biden made his first trip to the Middle East and announced another $316 million in U.S. taxpayer funding for the PA and organizations that work with it, bringing the total amount of American aid to around $1 billion. The Trump administration froze this money over concerns that the Palestinian government spends international aid dollars on terror groups and imprisoned terrorists.
"It is noteworthy that President Biden has just returned from the Middle East, where he touted millions of dollars in increased funding to the Palestinians," Arsen Ostrovsky, the ILF's chairman and CEO, told the Free Beacon. "One has to ask the question, then, are U.S. tax payer dollars also going toward underwriting torture practices carried out by the Palestinian Authority?"
While the Palestinian government has long pressed the ICC and other U.N. organizations to investigate alleged Israeli human rights abuses, the ILF's complaint marks one of the first times a pro-Israel organization has attempted to force international legal authorities to investigate the PA.
President Biden’s support for the creation of an additional Arab State between Israel and Jordan constitutes his clear rejection of a Saudi plan to merge Jordan, Gaza and part of the 'West Bank' into one territorial entity to be called “The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine” (“The Saudi Solution”)
Biden’s decision to pursue the failed policy adopted by President Obama and Biden as Vice President between 2011 and 2016 (“Obama/Biden two-state solution”) was confirmed in Bethlehem on 15 July:
“Today, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. President Biden reaffirmed the enduring ties between the Palestinian and American peoples and underscored his commitment to a two-state solution on the 1967 lines with land swaps mutually agreed by the Israelis and Palestinians. He also highlighted the importance of direct negotiations leading to an independent, sovereign, viable, and contiguous Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, both enjoying secure and recognized borders, allowing the two peoples to live side-by-side in peace and security.”
Biden made this specific commitment even though admitting on arriving in Israel two days earlier:
"The two-state solution is still the best way to ensure peace and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians; however, I don't see a near horizon for this solution."
Biden’s refusal to consider or even comment on the Saudi Solution since its publication six weeks ago in a Saudi Royal Family-owned news outlet – was replicated when Biden held meetings on 16 July with:
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman
King Salman’s son and successor Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in what was described as an “extended working session” and The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)