Is it time for a hostile takeover of UNRWA?
Israel’s position, that UNRWA should be dismantled and Palestinian refugees should be treated through the UNHCR along with the rest of the world’s refugees, is very good as a longer-term goal, but cannot be expected to materialize in the short term.The Palestinian Terror Party: Celebrating Murder
Pipes suggests the US continue its funding, but at the same time demand that recipients of US aid who are not among the 20,000 living refugees of 1948 – formally forgo their refugee status. That too is a good idea, but it won’t affect UNRWA’s daily damage to the future of peace.
A more practical path would be a hostile takeover.
Rather than cut its contribution, the US could actually expand it, then fire the agency’s executives, replace them, and review all UNRWA policies and activities.
UNRWA’s new executives would then shed its existing textbooks and replace them with entirely new ones, and tell its teachers that to retain their jobs they must declare in writing that they recognize Israel’s right to exist, that they believe in peace with it, and that the Jews are a nation as respectable as any other.
Under new management, UNRWA’s schools would teach the next generation of Palestinians that the Jews are not the “sons of apes and pigs” that their preachers portray, but the descendants of Moses, who banned murder, idolatry and theft; Isaiah, who envisioned world peace; Amos, who scolded the rich who abuse the poor; and the Sages, who made it law to teach every boy and girl to read and write, and to establish in every community a school – a school of the sort that UNRWA has yet to produce; a school that will teach tolerance, debate and enlightenment; a house of learning, whose graduates will enter adulthood knowing that never since antiquity has there been even one day in which there was no Jewish community in this land, and that th
What do the Palestinians think about the murder of a young rabbi and father of six? They "welcome" it with open arms.
So what if Rabbi Raziel Shevach was said to have maintained good relations with his Palestinian neighbors?
The Palestinians are still happy that he was gunned down last week as he was driving his car in the northern West Bank. They are happy because the victim was a Jew. They are happy because the victim held a religious position: Rabbi. They are happy because the victim was a "settler."
The fact that Rabbi Shevach was the father of six children does not faze the Palestinians one bit.
For them, what is important is that another Jew has been murdered. This meant, for the Palestinians, that his presence in the West Bank also carried religious weight. A rabbi living in the West Bank is emblematic of Jews' historic and religious attachment to the land. For all those reasons, the Palestinians are happy about the murder. Notably, the rabbi's political affiliation is irrelevant. He could be from the most extreme left-wing or right-wing party in Israel – this still would not make any difference. Rabbi Shevach was not murdered because of his political views.
The Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have thus far refused to condemn the murder. Abbas has been quick to condemn terror attacks around the world, from Russia to France, Germany, Turkey and Egypt. When it comes to the murder of Jews by Palestinian terrorists, however, Abbas and his aides are quick to go into hiding.
Eyewitness to 1980 Paris Synagogue Bombing Protests Release of Suspect by French Court
An eyewitness to the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris — in which four people died and dozens more were wounded — expressed outrage on Friday at the release of the terrorist allegedly behind the attack.
Shimon Samuels — international relations director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) — told French Justice Nicole Belloubet in a letter that the release of the suspect, Hassan Diab, by a Paris tribunal was “a body-blow for survivors and victims families.”
Samuels recalled his presence on October 3, 1980, on the corner of rue Lauriston, 150 meters away from the explosion. He had just wished a “Happy Succoth” (Tabernacles) to Aliza Shagrir — wife of the Israeli filmmaker, Midna Shagrir — as she turned into rue Copernic, where she met her death as one of the four street victims of the bombing that also wounded 41 inside the destroyed building.
The following morning, then-Prime Minister Raymond Barre notoriously stated that “a bomb set for Jews killed four innocent Frenchmen.”
“The bomb killed a Portuguese postman, a Chinese restaurant waiter, Aliza, and ‘an innocent Frenchman,’ wounding 41 worshippers inside the synagogue,” corrected Samuels.
In 2010, Samuels was present at Diab’s extradition hearings in Ottawa, Canada. Based on forensic evidence, Diab was finally extradited to France in 2014.