Murderous Hypocrisy: Cutting Off UNRWA Funding
Defunding UNRWA will increase the effects of Israel's genocidal war exponentially
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A new attack on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the key agency providing services for Palestinian refugees is an unexpected effect of the International Court of Justice’s ruling that South Africa has made a plausible case for charges of genocide against Israel.
The timing of the release of this accusation, which Israel apparently had been holding for some time, is not coincidental, but clearly intended to shift the conversation away from the ICJ’s ruling on several counts. Still, the accusations are troubling, and have to be taken seriously.
That said, the response from the United States, Canada, and a number of European countries has been nothing short of criminal. Nuremberg-level criminal.
Let’s start with a few salient points. The Israeli right hates UNRWA, and the mainstream Israeli “left” such as it is, and the center aren’t too fond of it either. Yet in practice, Israel has long recognized that UNRWA plays a necessary role in Palestinian refugee communities in the region, especially in the West Bank and Gaza. The sort of international popular pressure (not reflected in many governments) that Israel has faced since October 7 would have been evident for many years if not for UNRWA supplying food, education, shelter, and many other basic necessities to Palestinian refugees. So Israel has used UNRWA as a verbal punching bag and propaganda target, but has stopped short of going all out to eliminate its presence.
Now that a program of genocide is underway, however, Israel has less use for UNRWA. Indeed, UNRWA spokespeople have been at the forefront calling out Israeli atrocities in Gaza for the past four months.
In theory, painting UNRWA as being in league with Hamas—which won’t be convincing to anyone familiar with the situation in Gaza, but that still leaves the vast majority of the western world—also helps bolster Israel’s political case that Gaza’s civilian infrastructure is a terrorist infrastructure. While that won’t help them in court, it does help in the court of public opinion.
So, the question then becomes how credible these accusations are?
It certainly is possible that, out of some 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, a dozen might have been involved in some way in the October 7 attack in Israel. But a credible accusation is not evidence.
Circumstantially, UNRWA’s own response can be interpreted as an indication that there is some fire causing the smoke. They’ve fired nine of the accused employees, and stated that two others were dead.
But that’s hardly convincing considering the threat UNRWA is facing. The loss of their services in Gaza under current circumstances would be calamitous. UNRWA itself provides much of the humanitarian aid to Gaza, and it is their infrastructure that facilitates the entry and distribution of a great deal of the aid from other agencies. Without UNRWA, the already massive humanitarian crisis in Gaza immediately grows exponentially worse.
Given that magnitude of threat, it is at least as credible that UNRWA fired the employees in the hope that it would forestall the cutoff of funding as that doing so is an admission that the employees might have been involved in the Hamas attack.
Of course, the problems here go well beyond that question. The idea that UNRWA is somehow complicit, as an institution, with acts of violence is patently absurd and without any basis in fact, despite hysterical remarks from Israeli leaders looking for a good headline over the years. Indeed, that idea can be dismissed out of hand, but because of the massive bigotry out there against Palestinians, we have to examine the case of the accused employees.
There is apparently an Israeli dossier which lays out its case against the UNRWA, but there has been little public disclosure of the evidence in it. The New York Times seems to have gotten the most definitive description of the dossier’s contents and it presents a considerably less than conclusive case.
The Times article says that cell phone data was used to confirm the employees’ involvement, but that they were not privy to the actual data. It also describes information seized from computers during operations in Gaza, again without details. Finally, it reports of information gained from interrogations, which, given the numerous known cases of torture by Israeli officials on all levels is thoroughly unreliable.
Tellingly, the Times also cites two western officials who told them “they had been briefed on the contents of the dossier in recent days, but said they had not been able to verify the details.” The Times also notes that the U.S. had not verified the Israeli claims, but found them “credible enough to warrant suspending aid.”
That is a stunning statement, and really should have been the headline. The ICJ has just ruled that there is a plausible case to be made that Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza. Not a few Israelis, but the state itself as a whole. Yet the arms still flow, the U.S. is getting deeper and deeper into a regional quagmire, American blood has now been spilled over this. And the weapons still flow.
But twelve out of 13,000 employees are accused, with thin evidence thus far, of an act for which they have been fired, might face criminal charges, and which is explicitly contrary to the agency’s policy and the U.S. not only cuts off its funding but presses other countries to follow suit.
On top of all that, it was just a little over two years ago that Israel declared six human rights groups as terrorist organizations citing trumped-up evidence that was so threadbare even the hyper-gullible Biden administration, which has routinely accepted Israeli claims at face value only to be embarrassed when they turned out to be false, did not consider the evidence credible. Yet now, they would deprive Gaza’s 2.2 million starving people of even the meager aid they were getting.
I know it gets tiresome pointing out the hypocrisy and double standards of the United States and its allies. But in this genocide it has reached such stunning new heights of racist cynicism that it bears repeating often.
Interestingly, given the ICJ ruling ordering Israel not to take actions that contribute to genocide, the states that are cutting off funds to UNRWA may well be in breach of the Genocide Convention, in defiance of the ICJ.
The UN’s Special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albenese, wrote on Twitter, “Defunding UNRWA at this critical time overtly defies @ICJ's order to allow effective humanitarian assistance ‘to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza.’ This will entail legal responsibilities - or the demise of the int'l legal system.”
The Convention, as well as ICJ rulings, are not only binding on the parties involved in the case, but also to all signatories of the Convention and all member states of the United Nations, respectively. It is indisputable that defunding UNRWA contributes to “adverse conditions” in Gaza that could lead (in fact, are leading) to genocide.
At this point, the United States has been joined by Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Austria and Romania in abetting genocide by cutting funds to UNRWA.
The complete absence of humanity in those countries that are capable of doing this is absolutely stunning. The silence of the vast majority of their citizens is sickening. Those arguing these days that humanity is utterly lost, well, I’m not sure how one debates them. The apathy of most, the outright bloodlust of many others is truly disheartening. That is the legacy of Gaza, even if the absolute worst is avoided, an outcome seeming less likely all the time.
News Roundup
Once a week, I am going to include in this newsletter, beginning with this edition, some notable news articles that I recommend.
Facing AIPAC Onslaught, Rep. Summer Lee Announces Record Small-Donor Fundraising Haul
By Akela Lacy, The Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2024/01/25/aipac-summer-lee-fundraising-squad/
Nearly 180 percent spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents in US: Report
Middle East Eye, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nearly-180-percent-spike-anti-muslim-and-anti-palestinian-incidents-us-7-october-report-says
ICJ Ruling is Not Good Enough, and This is the Way Forward
By Ilan Pappe, Palestine Chronicle, https://www.palestinechronicle.com/icj-ruling-is-not-good-enough-and-this-is-the-way-forward-ilan-pappe/
'Messianic' ministers exploiting Gaza war to displace Palestinians, Israeli expert says
By Thomas Helm, The National News, https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2024/01/29/messianic-ministers-exploiting-gaza-war-to-displace-palestinians-israeli-expert-says/
What Does It Mean to Be Palestinian Now?
By Noura Erakat, Ahmed Moor, Noor Hindi, Mohammed El-Kurd, and Laila Al-Arian, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/what-does-it-mean-to-be-palestinian-now/
Why do America’s liberal hawks attack Russia while giving Israel a free pass?
By Peter Beinart, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/29/why-do-americas-liberal-hawks-attack-russia-while-giving-israel-a-free-pass
My latest articles
Biden is following Netanyahu off a cliff
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/biden-is-following-netanyahu-off-a-cliff/
Biden has boxed himself into a corner by allowing US policy toward Gaza to be determined by a far-right foreign leader. He may not care about what that has done to Palestinians, but now that the effects are showing throughout the region and in his polls, he can’t find a way out.
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