01/30 Links Pt1: UNRWA is worse than you think; UNRWA exists to help fight the war to eradicate Israel; Are conspiracy theories about Oct. 7 a new form of Holocaust denial?

From Ian:

Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack

Israel says it has documented deepening ties between Unrwa and Hamas since the militant group cemented its hold on Gaza in 2007. Unrwa has admitted to finding Hamas weapons stored in schools and Israel has repeatedly said Hamas tunnels run under and through Unrwa buildings as well as other civilian facilities. The former head of Unrwa’s union in Gaza was fired in 2017 after Israel found out he had been elected to Hamas’ top political leadership.

The dossier is the most detailed look yet at the widespread links between the Unrwa employees and militants. It offers telling details regarding the events of Oct. 7. A math teacher belonging to Hamas was close enough to a female hostage in Gaza that he took a picture of her. Another teacher was carrying an antitank missile the night before the invasion.

One Unrwa employee set up an operations room for Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Oct. 8, the day after the attack. Three other employees, including another Arabic teacher at an Unrwa school, received a text from Hamas to arm themselves at a staging area close to the border the night before the attack. It was unclear whether they went.

A different elementary school teacher did cross into Israel and went to Reim, a district where a kibbutz, an army base and a music festival were attacked.

One of the intelligence reports seen by the Journal said a 13th Unrwa employee, who didn’t have a discernible affiliation with a terror group, also entered Israel. Hundreds of Gazan civilians flooded across the border as part of the Hamas-led attack, Israel says.

Teachers make up nearly three-quarters of Unrwa’s Gaza-based local staff. Unrwa schools, which use textbooks approved by the Palestinian Authority, have come under fire for using materials that allegedly glorify terrorists and promote hatred of Israel. Unrwa says it has taken steps to address problematic content, but a 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office report said that measures haven’t always been implemented.

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA exists to help fight the war to eradicate Israel

Unlike every other refugee population, the Palestinian Arabs were not resettled. They were kept in camps throughout the Middle East with the largest concentration in Gaza, which was controlled by Egypt from 1949 to 1967. They were prevented from finding new homes in Arab and Muslim countries, where they spoke the language and shared a common culture. Nor were they enabled to go elsewhere to make new lives.

Instead, they were kept in place to wait for the day when they could “go home” to their former villages in what was now Israel. Their leaders and the rest of the Arab world opposed their resettlement, doing all they could to prevent it.

And the agency that enabled this policy to continue for generations was none other than UNRWA.

It’s important to understand that at the time when all these refugee problems arose, the United Nations created two refugee agencies. One, UNRWA, deals only with the Palestinians. The other, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (or UNHCR) has the responsibility for all of the other refugees in the world.

The UNHCR has its flaws, but its job is to help the refugees by giving them not just immediate aid in surviving being displaced by wars and other disasters but also assistance in resettling in places where it will be safe for them. Their goal is to ensure that their problems are resolved and that their children will make new lives rather than continue to live in camps.

By contrast, the UNRWA exists solely to ensure that Palestinian refugees are never resettled. That’s why almost all of the people who are called Palestinian refugees are the descendants of the people who fled the war the Arab world started in 1948. Several generations have been born in the camps but, contrary to the way other populations are treated, all are given the same status as those who were the original 1948 refugees.

Of all the tens of millions of refugees of the 1940s, the only ones whose descendants have not been resettled are the Palestinians. A humane and rational policy would have led to their being absorbed into other populations. But that’s not UNRWA’s job. It operates the ultimate welfare state in which generations are kept dependent on charity. Worse than that, its programs and policies all encourage the Palestinians to go on believing that someday Israel will cease to exist, and then they can return to where their grandparents and great-grandparents lived three-quarters of a century ago. Though it pretends to be a humanitarian force, it encourages its charges to look forward to the day when Hamas’s genocidal objective—the mass murder of Israel’s 7 million Jews—will be achieved.

Therefore, it’s little surprise that UNRWA is riddled with supporters of Hamas and that among its staff are people who take part in terrorist atrocities. And that much of the aid it receives from the world goes to help Hamas continue to function. UNRWA allows the very people its donors think they are helping to be used as human shields in a cynical hopeless war.

So, let’s not waste much time arguing about the details of UNRWA’s complicity in Oct. 7 or other acts of terror. The only discussion that needs to be held is one about its abolition and replacement by a genuine refugee agency. The world needs one that can give Palestinians new homes rather than keep them in misery awaiting another Holocaust for the Jews that they’ve been led to believe will magically solve their problems.

Brendan O'Neill: UNRWA is worse than you think

Most striking is the left’s attempts to downplay the seriousness of the charges against UNRWA. These people pose as ‘anti-fascists’ yet they seem alarmingly blasé about the possibility that a UN agency employed people of such an intense fascistic persuasion that they were happy to take part in an orgy of anti-Jewish murder. It’s ‘10 or 12 individuals’ from a ‘workforce of 13,000’, said LBC’s James O’Brien. This is a man who said the right-wing media’s defence of Boris Johnson during Partygate was proof that Britain is moving in a ‘fascistic direction’. It seems a handful of pro-Boris thinkpieces is fascism, but ‘10 or 12’ UN employees allegedly kidnapping and murdering Jews is not something we should overreact to.

The Guardian’s Owen Jones dismissively says these are ‘allegations against 0.04 per cent of [UNRWA’s] staff’. Is there an acceptable number of alleged Jew-killers for a UN agency to employ? If 12 isn’t a particularly big deal, how about 50? Or 100? A hundred alleged pogromists would still only be 0.77 per cent of UNRWA’s workforce – is that cool?

Mehdi Hasan speaks of ‘the alleged acts of a handful of UNRWA employees’ and slams the ‘demonisation campaign’ against UNRWA. This is the same Mehdi Hasan who once said Donald Trump’s description of lefties as ‘vermin’ was ‘right out of Hitler’s Nazi propaganda playbook’ and that Trump should ‘terrify’ us all. If a privileged member of America’s media elites can feel ‘terrified’ of Trump’s bluster, surely Jews can feel terrified of Jew-killers, even if it is ‘just’ 12. To a Jew, a ‘handful’ of murderous anti-Semites is still a terrible thing.

The speed with which the woke left went from handwringing over racists to saying, ‘Well, it’s only 12 racists’, has been mind-blowing. These are the kind of people who denounce gender-critical feminists as ‘fascist-adjacent’ if some alt-right arsehole attends one of their demos. Who will damn the entire Tory party as irretrievably Islamophobic if one of its lowly local councillors makes a joke about Muslims. Who insisted that Wayne Couzens – the London police officer who murdered Sarah Everard – was not a ‘bad apple’ but rather was symptomatic of the entire sexist, murderous rot of the Metropolitan Police. ‘Sarah Everard’s killer isn’t one bad apple – the whole police force is rotten’, cried Novara Media in 2021 – a mag whose fanboys are no doubt all over social media saying the 12 alleged Jew-killers in UNRWA were just bad apples. Funny that.

When a British cop was unveiled as a misogynistic murderer, the left cried ‘Defund the police!’. Yet when 12 employees of UNRWA were accused of taking part in a carnival of racist rape and murder they said the opposite: fund UNRWA; give it more money. In response to Britain and other nations’ suspension of donations to UNRWA, the activist class took to X to drum up support for UNRWA. They seem blissfully unaware of how horrendous, how sick, these optics are. It boils down to this: within hours of Israel saying, ‘We believe UNRWA staff participated in the mass murder of Jews’, leftists were on social media saying, ‘Give money to UNRWA’. In all my years observing the left’s abandonment of reason and Enlightenment, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as appalling as that.

Most importantly, they’re just wrong to push the ‘bad apples’ argument about UNRWA. To haughtily tweet about the tiny percentage of UNRWA staff who are alleged to have bloodied their hands on 7 October. To go around saying ‘10 or 12’ possible pogromists does not a wicked organisation make. For the truth is that UNRWA has long been morally and politically compromised. The Wall Street Journal reports on intelligence dossiers that suggest up to 10 per cent of UNRWA’s employees have links with ‘Islamist militant groups’. A study of a Telegram channel made up of 3,000 UNRWA-employed schoolteachers found thousands of messages praising Hamas’s pogrom and expressing hatred for Jews. Analysts have found that some UNRWA-run schools ‘glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonise Israelis and incite anti-Semitism’. The truth about UNRWA, as a writer for Haaretz put it, is that it is ‘riddled with Hamas’.

And yet on Saturday, Holocaust Memorial Day, we had the chilling spectacle of the West’s supposed anti-fascists rattling the tin for UNRWA. We witnessed the self-righteous woke classes helping to fundraise for an organisation that is ‘riddled’ with links to a terror outfit that was founded with the express purpose of killing Jews and destroying Israel. The very people who claim to hate racism spent a day when we remember the victims of the worst act of state racism in history drumming up support for a UN agency that is ‘riddled’ with supporters of an avowedly racist terror group. We must be nearing the nadir of woke, surely?

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Leading military expert: " Israel has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare than any other military in history."

John Spencer is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on urban warfare. One of his books, "Understanding Urban Warfare," is considered a leading source on the topic.  He is the chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy. He served twenty-five years in the U.S. Army as an infantry soldier and is a highly decorated combat veteran. Spencer is the host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast, in which he interviews fellow industry experts.

This thread he wrote yesterday is essential reading.

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In my opinion,  Israel has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare than any other military in the history of war. This includes many measure the U.S. has (or has not) taken in wars and battles but also many measures no military in the world has ever taken.  

Precautions during the initial air campaign to target enemy military capabilities to include using precision guided munitions and strict targeting protocols in both pre-planned and dynamic strikes against only military targets. 

Use of precision guided munitions (PCMs):  Despite the ignorance of reporting on ratios of PCMs to non-PCMs, Israel has used many types of PCMs to include lower collateral damage munitions/small diameter bombs and technologies and tactics that increase the accuracy of non-PCMs (dive bombing) limit civilian causalities (sat imagery, AI, cell phone presence) 

The idea that a military must use more PCMs vs non-PCMs in a war is a myth. In the First Gulf War the U.S. fired 250,000 individual bombs and missiles in just 43 days. A small fraction of those would fit the definition of PCMs. 

Also myths about choice of munitions and proportionality assessment/value of target/collateral damage estimate such as saying a 500 lbs bomb would achieve the same military task of a 2,000 lb. bomb with no mention of tunnels that would require greater penetration or availability of types/quantity of munitions. 

Call/Text ahead of a strike with (at times) roof-knocking (no military has ever implemented in war). In some cases, IDF will call, text, drop small munitions on the roof of a building. While limited in the context of the strike it has been used in this war. 

Provide warning and evacuate urban areas/cities before the full combined air and ground attack begins. While the tactic does alert the enemy defender and provide them the military advantage to prepare further, it is one of the best ways to prevent civilian casualties. 

The U.S. did not do this in the invasion of Iraq or attack of Baghdad in 2003. Did not do this in the 2004 1st Battle of Fallujah but did do this in the Second Battle of Fallujah 6 months later because of the different context. 

In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the Iraq government told the civilian to not evacuate and shelter in place during the battle for both Eastern and Western Mosul, but later changed instructions further into the battle.

Israel provided days and then weeks of warnings and time for civilians to evacuate multiple cities in northern Gaza before starting the main air-ground attack of urban areas. 

Use of air dropped flyers to give instruction on evacuations and establishing evacuation corridors (U.S. implemented in 2nd Fallujah & assisted 2016-2017 Mosul). Israel dropped over 520,000 pamphlets, broadcasted over radio and through social media messages to provide instruction for civilians to leave combat areas using corridors.

Use of real phone calls (19,734) to civilians in the combat areas, SMS texts (64,399) and pre-recorded calls (almost 6 million) to civilians to provide instructions on evacuations. No military has never done this in urban warfare history. 

Daily pauses for civilian evacuations. Israel conducted daily 4-hour pauses over multiple consecutive days. While pauses for civilian evacuations after a war or battle have started is not completely new but the frequency and predictability used in Gaza may have been historic. 

The distribution of Israel military maps and urban warfare graphic (GRG - gridded reference graphic) to the civilians to assist with day to day evacuations, alerting civilians and enemy to where the IDF will be operating. No military in history has ever done this.

There is no modern comparison to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel is not fighting a battle: it is fighting a war. 

No military in modern history has faced 30k defenders embedded in more than more than 7 cities, using human shields and hundreds of miles of underground networks purposely built under civilian sites while holding hundreds of hostages and launching over +12k rockets at the attacking military's civilians areas. 

Again, Israel has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in the history of war. While some have argued Israel could have waited longer, used different munitions, or not conducted the war at all - but these all fail to acknowledge the context of Israel’s war from the hostages, rockets, tunnels, existential threat of Hamas, and more, but also fail to recognize what Israel has done to prevent civilians casualties. 

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I trust soldiers with real combat experience a lot more than I trust CNN or the New York Times to explain how wars can and should be waged. Soldiers also know the international laws of armed conflict far better than the "experts" at Human Rights Watch or Amnesty. 

Critics of Israel's actions never offer any alternative that doesn't involve keeping Hamas functioning as a threat to Israel's population. That is the easiest way to know that they are not showing concern for civilians, but carrying water for Hamas jihadists.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Antisemitic dog-whistles in @NYTimes coverage of University of Pennsylvania faculty protest

In December, Marc Rowan, a major donor to the University of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Board of Advisors of Penn's Wharton School, sent a letter to the trustees of the university, framed as a series of questions. The questions are all reasonable. Here are major excerpts:

What is the University’s mission? What is the process for evaluating whether the University’s actions are consistent with its mission? Is the intention to have one mission for the entire University, or does each school/college have its own mission? In what way should the mission be incorporated into academics, admissions, and faculty selection?

Does the University have proper governance and are the responsibilities of Trustees clearly

understood?

What is the role of merit/academic excellence in admissions, faculty hiring, and other areas of recruitment? Is merit/academic excellence paramount, or one of many factors?

What are the Board’s criteria for qualification and admission for membership in the Faculty?

What are the Board’s criteria for the instruction of students and recommendations for degrees in course and in Faculty?

Should any of the existing academic departments be closed and/or combined as per Provision 10.6 of the Charter?

The Supreme Court recently ruled on affirmative action in college admissions. How does the University intend to comply with the ruling?

What is the University policy on free speech, civil discourse, hate speech, outside actors, respect, and tolerance?

How important is viewpoint diversity in the hiring of our faculty, our administrators and the

remainder of the University community? If it is important, is it compatible with our current DEI framework?

While recognizing the complete academic freedom of the faculty and the freedom afforded

administrators as individuals, what is the University’s policy on faculty and administrators

promoting a particular viewpoint in their official capacity? Should a student even be able to tell the political and other leanings of their professors? b. Is academic discipline appropriate in the event if a professor or faculty member abuses their official position?

Is the University a neutral body that is a hosting entity for its community members or does it have an institutional opinion?

Is the University a U.S. institution with foreign diversity, or a global institution based in the United States?

What is the University’s policy on direct and indirect foreign donations from countries/individuals and, specifically, what is the policy on publicly identifying any such contributions? Similarly, what is the University’s policy on direct and indirect foreign donations to student organizations?

Typically, if a major donor asks fundamental questions like these, a university would scramble to address them. While the questions have a viewpoint, Rowan is not advocating any changes and even he said through a spokesperson that "ultimately, it is what the trustees and faculty want." The letter is simply asking for clarification on the University's stance on important issues. 

Yet instead of embracing transparency in answering the questions, the university's faculty is claiming that the letter itself is an assault on academic freedom.  

And the New York Times is happy to highlight that absurd viewpoint.

The early paragraphs of the article say:

Mr. Rowan sent a four-page email to university trustees titled “Moving Forward,” which many professors interpreted as a blueprint for a more conservative campus.

Amy C. Offner, a history professor who led the protest, called the document a proposed “hostile takeover of the core academic functions of the university.”

Only in paragraph 17 did the Times mention that the letter made no demands or even suggestions but only asked questions. 

There is an unmistakable subliminal message in the NYT article, and it is that rich Jews are trying to subvert academic freedom.

The article ties Rowan's letter to the larger question of antisemitism on campus. Undoubtedly the letter is related to that issue, as Rowan was a major critic both of the infamous "Palestine Writes" conference at Penn last year and of former president Elizabeth Magill’s failure to address campus antisemitism. There is nothing wrong with looking at the issue of antisemitism on campus and seeking root causes.

Yet the NYT does not look at this through that prism.

Instead, the link between the letter and the uproar over campus antisemitism is framed more as a bunch of shady Jewish billionaires trying to impose their conservative ideas on faculty from the outside.

Penn is now being assailed from many sides. It is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by Jewish students and partly financed by unnamed donors, and the subject of a congressional investigation with subpoena power. ...

Two alumni, Mr. Rowan and Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, were notable among the sponsors of a fund-raiser for the re-election of Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, whose House committee is investigating Penn and other universities over claims of antisemitism.

Mr. Rowan and Mr. Lauder did not attend the fund-raiser, but the event’s organizer — Andrew Sabin, a New Yorker who made a fortune in metal recycling — said that the sponsors shared an opposition to antisemitism and are hoping to pressure Congress to remove federal funding and the tax-exempt status of some universities.

A separate investigation by the House Ways and Means Committee has questioned whether campus antisemitism jeopardizes the nonprofit status of Penn as well as Cornell, Harvard, and M.I.T.

“We’ve got a very, very aggressive path forward,” said Mr. Sabin, who did not attend Penn.

“This is an anti-democratic attack unfolding, not just at Penn, but all across the country, including at public universities in Florida, in Texas, Ohio and beyond,” said Dr. Offner, the president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a professional faculty organization.

Penn, she said, had become “ground zero of a coordinated national assault on higher education, an assault organized by billionaires, lobbying organizations, and politicians who would like to control what can be studied and taught in the United States.”

All of these paragraphs are written before a token lone dissenting voice at the university, who the article takes pains to show is Jewish and Zionist:

The faculty, however, is not of one mind. Michael J. Kahana, a professor of psychology, responded directly in an email to the faculty senate.

“Your letter specifically calls out Marc Rowan’s questions, which I have studied and found to be reasonable and helpful,” wrote Dr. Kahana, who shared his email with The New York Times. Dr. Kahana recently organized a trip to Israeli universities by Penn professors, as a show of solidarity with academic colleagues in Israel.

The overall framing of the article is that people who care about campus antisemitism are rich, meddling Jews who want to take over campuses just as they already have taken over Wall Street and Congress. 

Unmentioned is the fact that American universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, accept hundreds of millions of dollars from countries like China, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. These repressive autocracies  have an undeniable influence on what universities teach. University faculty associations are silent about that. 

Apparently, their concern over "academic freedom" is one-sided.

On a  personal note, sometimes I wonder if I see antisemitism in innocuous articles, since antisemitism is a major focus of my website. But I read the Philadelphia Inquirer article about the same faculty protest. While that article is clearly sympathetic to the faculty, I did not detect even a whiff of  antisemitic dog-whistles in that coverage. 

It isn't my bias - it is the New York Times.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Antisemitic acts in France went up by 1,100% immediately after October 7

SPCJ, France's society to protect Jews,  issued a report on the massive increase in antisemitism in that country after October 7.

The total number of antisemitic incidents nearly quadrupled from 2022 to 2023:

But most of that increase came in October and November.

That is an 1,100% increase in antisemitic acts between September and October.

In fact, there were five days where the number of antisemitic incidents were higher than the entire month of February.

372 of the post-October 7 antisemitic acts in France mentioned "Palestine."  Of those:

* more than 33% also advocate jihadism

* more than 25% also called for murder

* more than 10%  also advocate Nazism 

The increase in antisemitic acts was most pronounced in schools, where antisemitic incidents soared by over 1,600% between September and October. In November, there were 31 incidents advocating Nazism in French schools. 

The antisemitism did not begin as a response to Israel's actions in Gaza. They began on October 7 itself, as soon as the slaughter of Jews was known.  The SPCJ notes:

It should be noted that the outbreak of anti-Semitic acts in France began on October 7, the day of the surprise attack carried out by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PFLP. Thus, on the very day that images of the massacre of Israeli civilians were broadcast, antisemitic acts increased by more than 700% compared to the daily average observed from year to year.

This similar reaction had already been observed during the upsurge in antisemitic acts following the attack on the Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 (an increase of almost 200%) and after the Hypercacher attack in 2015 (increase of almost 300%).

In light of these three events, a surprising and worrying phenomenon emerges: the media coverage of the massacre of Jews causes an increase in antisemitic acts. 

Antisemitic acts are one of the best predictors of more antisemitic acts. Jew-haters see attacks by others as a green light for them to join in. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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01/29 Links Pt2: Bibi: The Obstacle to Peace Is Not the Absence of a Palestinian State but the Opposition to a Jewish State; The Numbers Game Over the Casualties in Gaza

From Ian:

PM Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed by Tunku Varadarajan (WSJ): The Obstacle to Peace Is Not the Absence of a Palestinian State but the Opposition to a Jewish State

To "ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel" will require "durable demilitarization, which can only be carried out and sustained by Israel," along with "deradicalization," a cleansing of the ideological poison in Gaza that most Jewish Israelis on both left and right now regard as nonnegotiable preconditions for peace with the Palestinians.

How is the campaign against Hamas going? "Better than many expected. It took the U.S. and its allies nine months to defeat radical forces in Mosul" in 2016-17 against Islamic State. "Mosul is smaller than Gaza and did not have the massive terror underground infrastructure. We're now in the fourth month."

Netanyahu, like most Israelis, is aghast at the way protesters in the West - especially on American campuses - demonize Israel and, in some cases, laud Hamas. "This is a problem not just for Israel but also for America....America is the vanguard of freedom and the guarantor of liberty in this century. If a younger generation emerges in America that supports the head-choppers, it is a problem for civilization."

Asked about Washington's push for a two-state solution while Israel is in the throes of an existential war, he says, "Anyone supporting Israel and who also supports a two-state solution should ask themselves some questions. Do they support the Palestinians having an army? The answer is of course not. Should the Palestinians be able to bring in weapons? The answer is of course not. Should they be able to make military pacts with Iran? Of course not."

"In any future agreement, the Palestinians should have all the power to govern themselves and none of the powers to threaten Israel." In any agreement, "Israel must retain overall security control over territory west of the Jordan River, and that includes Gaza."

"Some in the United States believe that the obstacle to peace with the Palestinians is - me. They don't realize that I reflect the view of most Israelis." Polls confirm Netanyahu's assertion and indicate that Israelis, far from clamoring for a two-state solution, are adamant that the war should be fought with intensity.

Most of his compatriots "understand that the problem is that the Palestinians don't want peace with Israel but peace without Israel." It's "not the absence of a Palestinian state but the opposition to a Jewish state that is the obstacle to peace."

Bassem Eid: My Fellow Palestinians: It's Time to Get Rid of Our Leaders and Accept Israel's Offers for Peace

When the United Nations General Assembly voted to divide the Mandate into Jewish and Arab states in 1947, the Jewish community joyously accepted their proposal. Yet tragically, the Palestinian Arab leadership again rejected even a small Jewish state in the territory. They then invited the armies of seven neighboring Arab countries to invade and destroy the newborn Jewish state in what became Israel's War of Independence.

The trend continued with the Oslo Accords of 1993, in which Israeli leaders generously allowed a genocidal terrorist group called the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), run by the mastermind mass murderer Yasser Arafat, to take control over most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The year 2000 was a critical juncture. At the Camp David Summit, Israel extended an unprecedented offer of Palestinian statehood. They were once again met with Palestinian leadership's refusal—and the eruption of the bloody Second Intifada, a wave of suicide bombings that killed almost a thousand Israeli civilians.

The betrayal shattered any illusion of a commitment to a peaceful resolution from the Palestinian side.

Then came 2008, at the Annapolis Conference, where Israel once again reached out with a proposal for an independent Palestinian state. The refusal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accept this offer was not just disappointing; it was infuriating. Today, Abbas, who came to power in 2004, is serving the nineteenth year of his four-year presidential term, having suspended both elections and the constitution in the Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip is ruled by the vile Hamas, the ISIS of Palestine, which, on October 7, 2023, invaded the communities of Southern Israel, murdering 1,200 souls in a single day of nightmares and taking more than 240 captives to Gaza. Alongside these murders were unspeakable acts of sexual assault and continuous abuses of hostages until today, a grim reminder of the human cost of this conflict.

The sworn objective of Hamas's founding charter is not coexistence but the obliteration of Israel. Khaled Meshaal, former head of Hamas and still one of its most senior leaders, clarified just this month Hamas's position on the idea of a two-state solution: "We reject this notion, because it means you would get a promise for a [Palestinian] state, yet you are required to recognize the legitimacy of the other state, which is the Zionist entity... We will not give up on our right to Palestine in its entirety, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea." He insisted on his belief that Oct. 7 only "enhanced this conviction."

The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regarding a two-state solution reveals a harsh reality: Israel has consistently made genuine efforts toward peace, only to be met with rejection, treachery, and blood-curdling violence by the Palestinian side. This pattern of refusal, particularly epitomized by groups like Hamas, has been the real obstacle to peace.

It's time to acknowledge this truth bluntly. Those who claim to desire peace must confront and challenge the rejectionist elements within Palestinian society, including Hamas. We need to get rid of the Palestinian establishment who have ruled for 15 years without actually representing the Palestinian people. Only then can we hope to forge a path toward a peaceful, two-state future.

Bassam Tawil: Time to End UNRWA's Jihad against Israel

"Hamas is involved in everything. Hamas has their hands on UNRWA administration workers. Hamas manages UNRWA. They are those in charge in the agency. From the day Hamas came to power, they took control of everything. The UNRWA employees are from Hamas. The heads of the departments and the senior staff are Hamas members." —Palestinian from the Gaza Strip to an Israeli officer in a recorded call, X (Twitter) December 27, 2023.

It is now clear that the UN heads were lying when they said they were unaware of the involvement of their employees with terror groups. In fact, they knew but did their utmost to appease Hamas.

In a moment of rare honesty, in 2021 the UN acknowledged that UNRWA's school curriculum referred to Israel as "the enemy," taught children mathematics by counting "martyred terrorists," and included the phrase "Jihad is one of the doors to paradise" in Arabic grammar lessons.

"Before UNRWA, this terrorist accomplice [Abdallah Mehjez] worked for the BBC..." — Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

"Now is the time for reform. Reform for rehabilitation - so that the minds of Palestinian children can no longer be poisoned. So that there can be a shared vision of peace in this land." — Lt. Col. (res.) Peter Lerner, X (Twitter), January 27, 2024.

Western taxpayers should not be funding terror groups disguised as humanitarian organizations.

UNRWA was established to support the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees, not to support the development of terrorism.

UNWRA was established to aid Jewish as well as Arab refugees

Following evidence that it has colluded with Hamas in Gaza, several countries have withdrawn or paused their funding to UNWRA, the UN agency tasked with giving relief to Palestinian Arab refugees* fleeing in 1948 from what would become Israel. But there is little discussion of why an agency set up as a temporary measure should still be giving relief to ‘refugees’ 75 years later. It is not generally known that UNWRA was established with the aim of helping refugees on both sides of the conflict, but no one today talks of Jewish refugees, who have been fully absorbed.

According to Don Peretz (Who is a Refugee?) initially UNRWA defined a refugee “as a needy person who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood.

This definition included some 17,000 Jews who had lived in areas of Palestine taken over by Arab forces during the 1948 war and about 50,000 Arabs living within Israel’s armistice frontiers. Israel took responsibility for these individuals, and by 1950 they were removed from the UNRWA rolls leaving only Palestine Arabs and a few hundred non-Arab Christian Palestinians outside Israel in UNRWA’s refugee category.

At the time there was no internationally recognised definition of what constituted a refugee. In 1951, The UN Refugee Convention agreed the following definition:

“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

This definition certainly applies to the 850,000 Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Arab countries, synagogue burnings, arrests and riots. Returning to these countries would have put – and still does -their lives at risk.

The burden of rehabilitating and resettling the 650,000 Jewish refugees who arrived in Israel from Arab countries was shouldered by the Jewish Agency and US Jewish relief organisations, such as the Joint Distribution Committee. They were shunted into transit camps or ma’abarot. The conditions were appalling.

The American aid earmarked to solve the issue of Middle East refugees was supposed to have been split evenly between Israel and the Arab states, with each side receiving $50 million to build infrastructure to absorb refugees. The money to take in the Arab refugees was handed over to the U.N. agency founded to address the issue of Palestinian refugees, and the Americans gave Arab countries another $53 million for “technical cooperation.” In effect, the Arab side received double the money given to Israel, even though Israel took in more refugees, including ones from Arab nations – Jews who had been displaced by the regional upheavals. The bills presented to Congress in 1951 included a bill to send Israel aid to take in refugees. It was the first and last time that any mechanism was established for the Jewish refugees. The amount Congress allocated to provide for Middle East refugees – Jewish and Arab – at the request of then-President Harry Truman was equal to $1.5 billion today.

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Latest EoZ cartoons

If Palestinians did land acknowledgements...

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Poison Ivy League (Josh Namm)

Guest post by Josh Namm:

The Ivy Is Still Poison

We all remember the disastrous testimony of three presidents of the Ivy League when testifying before Congress at the end of last year about their schools’ dismal response to the recent, massive rise of campus antisemitism. Two of them, the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill, and Harvard’s Claudine Gay, have since resigned. The primary reason was their uniquely repulsive remarks regarding the safety and status of Jews at their respective schools. Magill resigned quickly. Gay refused to resign, doing so only after repeated revelations about her total lack of qualifications for the post, and her tendency (some would say “need”) to plagiarize.

This followed weeks of antisemitic incidents on campuses across the nation, many occurring across the Ivy League. I wrote about it back in December.

I can’t help but think, based on what I’ve personally observed, that for most Americans it was the end of the issue. Or, at the very least, the perception is that the two sacrificial resignations (both Magill and Gay remain as faculty, both retaining HUGE salaries), must have been the beginning of an end to such open toleration of Jew hatred.

If that is what you think: you think wrong.

Every single day, there are reports of incidents against Jewish students at universities across America. But recently, there were two that really caught my eye. One is egregious, and the other is egregious, heinous, and a lot of other really negative adjectives.

The nation just celebrated another Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I’m old enough to remember one of my elementary school teachers playing the “I Have Dream” speech on vinyl during class (this was in the very old days, before vinyl had any kind of retro cache). It, literally, gave me chills. The ideas that this great man so charismatically espoused, like the idea that people should be judged by the content of their character, not their skin color, pierced my elementary school consciousness. That was true of the other lofty ideals the speech is correctly revered for.

Little did I know that decades later, in another century, a prestigious, elite university would be giving something called the “MLK Jr. Social Justice Award” to someone that hates Israel, and would absolutely judge me by my religion, ethnicity, and undoubtedly for the color of my skin.

In fact, in his speech, King expressed longing for the day when “God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands…”

So giving an award to an antisemite would seem to be the opposite of King’s message. That’s obvious.

At least it’s obvious if you have a functioning mind, capable of critical thought, and aren’t suffering the brain decaying condition known as “wokeness.” That condition robs you of any ability to be intellectually honest and substitutes any sense of honor, integrity, or aversion to hypocrisy, with a cultish devotion to its contradictory dictates. 

The University of Pennsylvania gave this award to a woman named Dorothy Roberts. She is a professor of sociology and law.

 

Dorothy Roberts (Wikimedia Commons)

The announcement for the event said that “The 23rd Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecture in Social Justice proudly presents Dorothy Roberts as she reflects on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Among others, it was sponsored by the Center for Africana Studies and the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society.

You can guess the ideological leanings of the organizers.

Roberts, just 11 days after the Hamas massacres of 10/7, tweeted:

’Collective punishment of two million civilians, nearly half of them children, is a moral catastrophe to which current U.S. policy critically contributes.’ I was morally compelled to sign this US legal scholars’ letter.

What was this letter?

Signed by 178 members of the faculties of America’s law schools, it claimed that Israel was committing “internationally supported genocide,” referred to Israel as “an apartheid regime whose occupation is in clear violation of international law," claimed that Gazans "face genocide and ethnic cleansing,” and repeated the lie that the population of Gaza was being deprived of the “basic means of survival,” including water, food and electricity.”

Amazingly, this letter was written on October 16, 11 days before Israel’s ground offensive against Gaza began.

If you’re the kind of person who is fascinated by stupidity, you can read the full letter here. 

Previously, Roberts had expressed her support of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions idiocy (BDS) movement (even if she can’t spell, see the link), and claimed that Jews are white because we supposedly all have power, or run the world, or the banks…or something.

The bottom line is that this obvious bigot hates Jews and shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near anything with MLK’s name on it. Or be allowed near any classroom in the future.

Oh, and she opposes adoption because she thinks…wait for it… it’s “racist”!

Of course she does.

The entire thing was, as I said, egregious.

Another one is, also as promised, egregious and heinous.

Heinously disgusting.

Cornell University has a PhD student instructor named Alyiah Gonzales. I am sure that the irony, and cultural appropriation, of her first name escapes her completely.

This fine specimen of intersectionally driven achievement said recently that Israelis should "rot in the deepest darkest pits of hell.”

More recently, she cancelled her “English” class in “"race, writing, and power” (of course).

Why?

In her words it was: “in solidarity with collective calls for a Global Strike for Palestine.” She went on to say that she "mourn[s] the fact that all universities in Gaza have been destroyed or demolished by Israeli military forces." In lieu of class, she asked her students to write an essay on "the relationship between writing, power, and systems of oppression."

Blah, blah, blah. They all sound exactly the same.

This is the same Cornell at which a junior was arrested for posting messages saying that he was going to "bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews." That was in October.

Another Cornell professor named Rusty Rickford, a history teacher, praised the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, while saying that it was “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

Rickford was not formally punished, but instead “went on leave.”

Will the same thing happen to Gonzales? I would say no. She is higher up the DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) hierarchy. I don’t think they will touch her. I hope that I am wrong.

In fact, the only recognition of Gonzales’ behavior came from the provost of Cornell, Michael Kotlikoff. He issued the usual weak, meaningless, jargon laden, uselessness saying “Canceling classes as a political call to action, or using one's role in instruction to promote a personal or political belief, diminishes our role as educators."

Once again, the statement has nothing to do with Jews, Israel or “hate speech,” and instead is about their own narcissism and fear that they will be pressured to go the Liz Magill route (again, she resigned but is still on salary, and teaching at the school).

Alyiah Gonzales (Cornell University English Department) - Of course she is holding a book by known Israel hater Toni Morrison. Resembling Little Richard does nothing to change her odiousness.

Even more concerning than her call to cancel class, and Cornell’s refusal to treat it as what it is: an attempt to draw her students into her own web of antisemitism, is the fact that Gonzales was ever hired in the first place, and wasn’t fired long before this point.

Just since Oct. 7 she has posted a series of deeply antisemitic posts. These include saying "Me, personally, I think the fuck ass settler state of Israel and all those complicit in genocide and occupation can rot in the deepest darkest pits of hell…”

Remember, this person is teaching English.

In November she said “If you've been silent and wallowing in ignorance … wake up and stand tf up, I will forever stand in solidarity with the Palestinian peoples—land back means LAND BACK, period. … WHERE IS YOUR RAGE? RESIST. RESIST. RESIST.”

Gonzales also has a history of posting antisemitic words/images on Instagram. Two examples, of many, are below.

In one she refers to the worst attacks on Jews since the Holocaust as “decolonization.” In the other, she posted an image of a Hamas paraglider, the type used on Oct. 7, and said “Freedom has only ever been achieved through resistance. Stand with the Palestinian resistance.”

I don’t know about you, but I am so sick of these little twerps referring to the mass murder of Jews as “resistance.” They are narcistic, arrogant, pretentious people playacting at adulthood.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Gonzales’ Cornell bio claims that she is “dedicated to the queer, coalitional, and transformative possibilities of literature written by, for, and about Black womxn,” and her “research” is in "Black feminism," "Black womxn's literature," "queer theory," and "intersectionality studies."
 
Note the absurd, cultish, use of the letter “x” in women.

In her spare time, again according to her own bio, she likes to write “fantasy novels” and also write about herself in the third person. She says that she is “an unhinged zillenial who spends most of their time escaping into fantasy through both reading and writing,” and that “Iced Coffees, mean cats, and colorful hair make up the bulk of Alyiah's life.”

Most of “their” time. It's all so insufferable.

These are not intelligent people.

The only valid resistance here is forceful resistance to people like Roberts and Gonzales, their insanity, their bigotry, their dishonesty, and their ability to spread ideologically driven crap through our schools, turning kids across America into antisemitic, unthinking, ignorant members, not of a productive society, but of a dangerously obedient cult.

Never give in. Never give up.

Am Yisrael Chai. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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01/29 Links Pt1: Hillel Neuer: The UN’s Terrorism Teachers; What If the Real War in Israel Hasn’t Even Started?; Where Money for ‘Palestinian Relief’ Actually Goes

From Ian:

Hillel Neuer: The UN’s Terrorism Teachers

Many who watched the October 7 massacre likely wondered how a man’s mind can become so warped that he not only commits heinous acts of murder, rape, and mutilation, but proudly films this carnage for the world to see.

It is a complicated question. But one of the primary answers is found in the schools that mold the minds of young people in their formative years. In Gaza, the organization that does much of the molding is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA. That organization pays the salaries of teachers who call for the murder of Jews.

On Friday, UNRWA said it had fired some employees accused of participating in Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel. Over the weekend, in an unprecedented rebuke of the agency, more than a dozen of its donor states, including the U.S., Germany, France, Japan, Canada, and the Netherlands, announced their suspension of funds to UNRWA. The latest revelations follow numerous other reported cases of UNRWA’s entanglement with Hamas terrorism.

This agency was chartered after the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Since 1950, UNRWA has provided the bulk of social services at Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, including the crucial task of teaching Palestinian children and adolescents.

But the notion that it is primarily an agency for the relief of refugees is a front. UNRWA’s main task is political. Palestinians who work for UNRWA call it “the main political witness to our cause.”

UNRWA exists to perpetuate Palestinians as refugees. Unlike the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which since World War II has been responsible for the welfare of all refugees in the world, and has worked toward their resettlement and relocation, UNRWA deals only with the Arabs from Palestine and has a completely different objective.

Millions of Palestinians who attend UNRWA schools in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza are taught that the war of 1948 is not over, and that they have a “right of return”—meaning, to dismantle and take over Israel.

The UN betrays its mission by signaling to the Palestinians that the war is not over, and to keep fighting.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said he was “horrified” to discover that UNRWA employees participated in the invasion and massacre of October 7. But in reality, their actions merely translated UNRWA’s core message into action.

Matti Friedman: What If the Real War in Israel Hasn’t Even Started?

Israelis like Lt. Col. Dotan, who is 54, and me acquired a healthy regard for Hezbollah during our military service in a swath of south Lebanon that Israel held as a buffer after the Lebanon invasion of 1982, and which we called “the security zone.” At first, the zone was meant to protect people near the border from infiltrations by Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists. But as Iranian power rose the enemy became Hezbollah, which was set up and trained by the Revolutionary Guards. I served in the security zone as a radioman and platoon sergeant.

This overlooked war, which Israelis never even bothered to name when it was going on, was in fact one of the labs that produced what we now think of as “war”—not the movement of divisions across territory or battles between states, but armed groups operating in the ruins of failed states; hit-and-run attacks using IEDs, which Hezbollah did much to pioneer; suicide bombers, which Hezbollah introduced in the Middle East; the use of video as a propaganda weapon, which Hezbollah employed to great effect two decades before ISIS; and the exploitation of the civilian landscape to conceal the military landscape, with all of the consequences for innocent people.

What happened in the security zone isn’t discussed much in Israel but retains a hold on those of us who served there when we were young. We learned lessons about the limits of military power—but also about the limits of our ability to placate our enemies. Many of us also learned, in a strange way, to love Lebanon, which is a bewitching place. The echoes of that experience matter now because it’s men who began their service in the security zone as teenagers who now run the Israeli army, and who confront this new war as generals.

In May 2000, facing rising casualties and a protest movement led by the mothers of Israeli soldiers, the army abandoned the security zone overnight and pulled back to the border. This seemed to me, and to most Israelis, like the right thing to do, but it didn’t end the war. Hezbollah only grew stronger. We let it happen, as we did with Hamas in Gaza, because the alternatives seemed worse. An all-out war would have been so costly, both in lives and in the kind of disproportionate international frenzy that follows any Israeli operation, that we decided to live alongside Hezbollah and tell ourselves we’d contained them.

Fast-forward to early 2024, and Israel has a security zone again—except now it’s inside Israel.

Lt. Col. Dotan’s home is at a kibbutz in the evacuation zone. He remained there after the October 7 call-up, in uniform, while moving his kids farther south. From Hezbollah’s firing positions in the underbrush and the homes of Lebanese villages, the organization controls much of the fence and can fire at will. That means Israelis can’t go home unless the fighters are pushed back, far to the north, by diplomacy or by war. Allowing our civilians to return is the Israeli goal in the north, not destroying Hezbollah—which just isn’t possible, not only because of the group’s military power but because of the way it’s woven into the civil and political life of Lebanon.

Everyone would prefer diplomacy. Things are far too dark here already. But the distancing of Hezbollah by diplomacy was supposed to have happened long ago, by Security Council resolution, after the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006, and proved meaningless. The Lebanese Army is too weak to control its own territory, and a United Nations peacekeeping force has been ineffectual.

I’ve been speaking to reserve soldiers, some still in uniform, others newly discharged from the alleys and booby traps of Gaza City. They know what it means if we go to war in Lebanon. But they don’t say “if,” they say “when,” and expect to be there in the spring.

The United Nations — What is it Good For?

The United Nations has little to brag about. Though the organization is quick to tout what it presents as myriad accomplishments, the multi-agency behemoth founded upon promises of international peace and security does little to remedy the world’s wars, conflicts, and crises.

In 2022, when a Russia retreat from the Kyiv region revealed hundreds of Ukrainian civilians killed in the city of Bucha, President Volodymyr Zelensky castigated the U.N. for its inaction.

“If there is no alternative and no option, then the next option would be [to] dissolve yourself altogether,” he said in a Security Council address. “Are you ready to close the United Nations? Do you think that the time for international law is gone?”

Russia’s veto power on the Security Council prevented any U.N. resolution or intervention in the Ukraine war. A few months ago, Mr. Zelensky again addressed the body.

“Humankind no longer pins its hopes on the U.N.,” he said. “Ukrainian soldiers now are doing at the expense of their blood what the U.N. Security Council should do by its voting: They’re stopping Russia and upholding the principles of the U.N.”

Its inaction is not limited to Ukraine. While the U.N. is well known for its frequent condemnations of Israel, it has never once condemned China, much less done anything, about its well-documented oppression of the Uyghur people and other human rights abuses. If China moves against Taiwan, Beijing’s Security Council veto effectively blocks any useful response.

The U.N. has a 10,000-strong force on Lebanon’s border charged with demilitarizing the area. Hezbollah’s massive weapons buildup and recent, steady stream of rocket attacks speak to that force’s success.

Amid talk of what post-war governance in Gaza will look like, there is no serious discussion of the U.N. playing a significant role.

A visit to the U.N. or perusal of its literature confronts one with a great deal of high-flying sentiment about its mission to root out suffering and injustice, and to replace war with dialogue.

Yet its 70-year history is largely a record of not only failing to deliver on these promises, but in many instances of making the world’s problems worse.

Surviving on member nation donations, the U.N. is not a cheap endeavor, either. In 2022, the United States, the organization’s largest contributor, gave some $22 billion.

All this leaves many very reasonable people asking what, if any, purpose the U.N. serves. And why do American taxpayers contribute so much to keep it ticking?

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Palestinian leaders defend UNRWA - and their reasons are exactly why it SHOULD be shut down

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and the chairman of the PLO, criticized the nations who are suspending aid to UNRWA.

Read his words carefully, because they say exactly why UNRWA should be dismantled.

The Palestinian Presidency expressed today its strong rejection of the oppressive campaign led by the Israeli government against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

“The campaign aims to liquidate the issue of Palestinian refugees, contradicting UN Resolution 302, based on which the UNRWA was established on December 18, 1949, and other UN resolutions related to the refugee issue,” said the Presidency in a statement.

The Presidency emphasized that “the refugee issue is at the core of the Palestinian cause, with dozens of UN resolutions adopted on the matter. There is no solution to the Palestinian issue except for the return of refugees, in accordance with Resolution 194.”

His reasons for maintaining UNRWA are not because of humanitarian aid. He is stating - as he has stated countless times before - that the purpose of UNRWA is to keep the issue of "refugees" alive, with the ultimate aim to destroy Israel via the fictional "right of return" of millions of descendants of 1948 refugees to Israel.

Indeed, that is UNRWA's real purpose. It has taught generations of Palestinians not to accept a two state solution but that all of the area from the river to the sea is theirs and theirs alone, and Israel is an illegitimate state stealing their land. 

So when Abbas says that UNRWA must be funded, he is not talking about it to help feed or house or treat Palestinians in Gaza. He couldn't care less about them. He is saying that UNRWA is an essential Palestinian weapon to destroy the Jewish state, and that's why it should be funded to the tune of billions by the world. 

A similar message came from Hussein Al-Sheikh, Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the PLO and possible successor to Mahmoud Abbas, who also downplayed the aid aspect funding UNRWA.

 "We urge the countries that have declared a halt to their support for the UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision, which carries significant political and humanitarian risks." 

Note how "political" is ahead of "humanitarian."

UNRWA insists, against all evidence, that it is not a political organization. But Palestinian leaders know the truth - it is little but political. 

At any rate, Palestinian leaders are explaining exactly why they want UNRWA to be funded  -and it has nothing to do with helping Gaa civilians. It is their atom bomb to destroy Israel. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Most UNRWA funds go towards incitement against Jews in schools, not to food or shelter

The world is finally taking a critical look at UNRWA after Israel provided its donors with a dossier showing that at least 12 of its employees were actively participating in terror on October 7.

The accusations are contained in a dossier provided to the United States government that details Israel’s claims against a dozen employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency who, it says, played a role in the Hamas attacks against Israel on Oct. 7 or in their aftermath.

The dossier said that Israeli intelligence officers had established the movements of six of the men inside Israel on Oct. 7 based on their phones; others had been monitored while making phone calls inside Gaza during which, the Israelis say, they discussed their involvement in the Hamas attack.

Three others got text messages ordering them to report to muster points on Oct. 7, and one was told to bring rocket-propelled grenades stored at his home, according to the dossier.

Predictably, UNRWA's supporters are screaming about nations withholding funds, claiming that UNRWA services are essential. 

[UN Secretary General Antonio] Guterres strongly appealed to the governments that suspended contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s operations.

“The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences. But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized,” he said.

“The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”

A look at UNRWA's staff and budget tells a different story, though.

Most of the accused terrorists were teachers, and two others also worked at UNRWA schools. One was a social worker.

This is not surprising. The vast majority of UNRWA employees in Gaza work for UNRWA schools. According to UNRWA's 2021 budget, 83% of UNRWA employees in Gaza work in their education program. 

UNRWA controls a multi-nation school system with over half a million students - all of them in areas where there is a public education system. It is not the world's job to provide free education to Palestinians when they live in areas that the governments already provide public education to all.

We know that UNRWA schools teach incitement against Israel and Jews. They encourage students to aspire to "martyrdom" - dying while attacking Jews. The teachers have been directly supporting  terror attacks for years, - I exposed the issue over a decade ago.  And these are all being taught by thousands of employees - over 10,000 in Gaza alone - who work for the UNRWA education system. 

The bulk of UNRWA's budget doesn't go to food or housing or works programs, but to teaching kids to hate Jews and Israel. 

There are no less than 23 UN entities in Gaza, some of which actually provide essential services. There are so many UN agencies in Gaza that there are two agencies (OCHA and UNSCO)  to coordinate the other agencies. UNRWA is by far the largest, but given that most of its budget is spent on schools that are not even open and paying teachers who are not teaching, the appeals to keep it funded ring hollow. 

If critics of defunding UNRWA really cared about Gaza civilians, they would be asking for nations to compensate for suspending UNRWA funds by giving more money to UN agencies that actually do important work as their main functions, like the World Food Programme or the World Health Organization. While they are also biased against Israel, they at least do real work, and have professionals who create plans on how best to help Gaza civilians under trying circumstances. 

Those who insist on funding an agency where most of its budget does not help people in need of food or medicine don't really care about Gaza. They care about UNRWA's main mission of keeping the fictional "refugee" issue alive forever and delegitimizing Israel. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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