After UNRWA

Posted on February 16, 2024 by First.One.Through

People are trying to figure out what to do with UNRWA, the troubled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The organization has long perpetuated the Arab-Israeli conflict, fomenting hatred for Jews in its schools, and promising millions of Arabs that their future is in Israeli towns and villages where grandparents who had wished for the destruction of the Jewish State once lived.

The temporary agency is funded by voluntary contributions from UN member states, so can be dissolved very quickly, as was always intended. The issue at the moment is that the hospitals and schools still need to operate, with or without the existence of UNRWA. The five regions where UNRWA operates – Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – all have different dynamics, politics and infrastructure, and the future will be different for each.

The best solution is for UNRWA to be dissolved and its personnel and infrastructure to be handed to proper authorities: operations in Lebanon and Syria would shift to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee agency; Jordanian operations to the government of Jordan; and operations in the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, in a staged process.

Syria and Lebanon to UNHCR

There are approximately 581,000 descendants of 1948 Palestinian Arabs in Syria being cared for by UNRWA in 2022, and another 93,000 people for whom the agency also gives free services. The numbers are 487,000 and 70,000 in Lebanon for refugee descendants and other wards, respectively. All of them have been denied citizenship by their host countries.

These people and the associated infrastructure should be handed over immediately to UNHCR which cares for over 89 million people as of 2022. UNHCR would try to settle the 1.23 million people either in those host countries or find them citizenship elsewhere, just as it does with millions of other stateless people.

Jordan

Jordan was part of the original Palestine Mandate of 1922, and England separated the land east of the Jordan River to become a new country known as Transjordan in 1923. After Transjordan attacked Israel at its founding and illegally seized the eastern part of what remained of Palestine, it illegally annexed that land and renamed itself “Jordan.” It ethnically cleansed all Jews from the region, including eastern Jerusalem, and granted citizenship to everyone in 1954, as they long as they weren’t Jewish (Nationality Law Article 3).

Not surprisingly with such deep history with the land “between the River and the Sea,” roughly half of Jordan is “Palestinian”, approximately 2.6 million people including Queen Rania. These “UNRWA refugees” in Jordan have Jordanian citizenship and have zero need to collect global charity under the false notion that they are stateless and lack self-determination.

The schools and hospitals should be transferred to the government of Jordan’s control immediately. Some countries may want to continue to voluntarily contribute to the Jordanian king for some time to help absorb the hit to the country’s budget, and then slowly wean the king from the global money teat.

West Bank to the Palestinian Authority

Palestinians declared a state in 1988, and most non-western countries have recognized its independence. It is ruled by the Palestinian Authority, which elected a president from the Fatah Party in 2005 and a parliament in 2006 with a majority from Hamas.

The PA operates from the West Bank city of Ramallah and has responsibility for the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank. The Authority is viewed as weak and corrupt by Palestinians and others. It supplies money to terrorists and their families in a program alternatively called a Martyrs’ Fund / Pay-to-Slay program, which is popular amongst Palestinians and detested by civil societies for directly supporting terror. The PA has failed on all fronts, not being able to show the ability to govern internally nor to advance a future of coexistence with the Jewish State.

Alas, it’s much better than the alternative Hamas which has ruled in Gaza since 2007 when it seized control of the region from the PA. Perhaps with greater focus on good governance with western oversight, the PA can be reformed.

Handing the 96 schools and 43 health facilities operating in the West Bank to the PA should happen immediately. Funding for the operations should cover only six to nine months and a cohort of countries led by the United States, which is UNRWA’s principle benefactor, should use the time to stabilize the transition. That includes ensuring that no hatred for Jews or teaching about the destruction of Israel is found anywhere in the facilities or educational materials.

Continued funding for the schools and hospitals after the initial transition period should be captured under the United States Taylor Force Act. Just as the PA is denied getting any US monies as long as it pays terrorist salaries in the Pay-to-Slay program, it would also lose funding that used to come through UNRWA for the schools and hospitals. The historic backdoor circumventing American laws would be sealed closed, and the US and PA would need to work together to ensure that supporting terrorism comes to a definitive end for any monetary support to come to the PA.

Gaza, At Some Point, to the Palestinian Authority

While UNRWA’s West Bank operations should move to the PA immediately, UNRWA in Gaza is a different story. Not only must the PA prove it can absorb the many facilities and cleanse them of their toxic hatred, the PA will be tested as to whether it can take control of Gaza after 17 years of Hamas rule.

Hamas’s complete rule of Gaza since 2007 brought the region complete destruction. It focused all of its energies on building a war infrastructure to destroy the Jewish State next door, rather than build a functioning economy and society. It left the schools and hospitals for the world to fund and run, so cared little about letting them get destroyed while its leaders hid like cowards underground.

Neither Hamas nor the PA can take over the rebuilding of the schools and health care facilities. Over the next several years, another global cohort, perhaps similar to the one easing the UNRWA transition in the West Bank, should be tasked with building institutions anew. Basic humanitarian values and rights must be incorporated into the very foundations to chart a path for a future when the PA may be able to take over Gaza as well as the new former-UNRWA infrastructure.

*UNRWA camp with a keyhole and key on top symbolizing the false promise that through UNRWA, Palestinian Arabs will get to move into homes in Israel*

These actions, if properly executed, should empower and moderate a new Palestinian Authority which can take over Gaza at some point, and ultimately negotiate peace with Israel.

The first step in ending the Arab-Israel conflict is for the United Nations and Saudi Arabia to clearly state that there is NO RIGHT OF RETURN FOR PALESTINIANS TO GO TO GRANDPARENTS’ HOMES IN ISRAEL. Immediately thereafter, the dismantling of UNRWA should commence.

There is a pathway to coexistence, and it must be built on truths and respect which Arabs and Jews fully acknowledge and internalize.

Speaking Honestly About Lies In The Israel-Palestinian Conflict (November 2023)

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

Relief Inequity in Gaza

Posted on February 14, 2024 by First.One.Through

The images of death and destruction in Gaza are terrible. The cruelty of Hamas’s leaders of letting the population suffer while refusing to surrender and instead hiding in tunnels underground, is a shocking display of cowardice that will be marked by generations of orphans.

Many countries are trying to figure out a way to bring humanitarian supplies to the civilians of Gaza without the food and medical supplies being rerouted to the Hamas political-terrorist group which has directed the atrocities. The arguments about whether UNRWA is best qualified to handle the situation as they have existing facilities and personnel in Gaza bypasses a critical and fundamental matter.

Why should descendants of Palestinian “refugees” from 75 years ago get better medical treatment and access to food during this war than regular Gazans?

There are a few hundred thousand regular Palestinian Arabs who have lived in Gaza for generations. They are just as injured and displaced as their “refugee” neighbors who have been living next to them for the past 75 years. Will the United Nations only supply food and medicine to those who call themselves “refugees” while letting other Gazans go hungry?

The crux of the situation in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis, not a refugee crisis. It should be handled by the Red Cross which is best equipped to enter war zones and remain neutral.

UNRWA is a toxic organization which has fomented hatred and discontent which led directly to the October 7 massacre. Its mission, budget and staff are vehicles designed to end the Jewish state. It causes emergencies, it doesn’t address them.

All emergency relief for Gaza should be handled by the International Red Cross as a matter of efficiency, neutrality and equity. Showing preferences for the grandchildren of refugees is a mockery of humanity and shows the ongoing perverted nature of the United Nations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

“Politics Aside,” It’s All Politics for UNRWA (December 2021)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

A Tale of Three Palestinian Refugees, With and Without UNRWA (April 2021)

UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease (January 2018)

UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews (November 2015)

UNRWA Is Hamas’s Iron Dome

Posted on February 11, 2024 by First.One.Through

‘Shield’ is an English word which is both a noun and a verb. As a verb, it means to protect something, and as a noun, it means an emblem that represents an organization.

UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees, acts and is Hamas’s shield.

In attempting to root out the Hamas political-terrorist group from Gaza which committed savage butchery of Israelis on October 7 in line with its antisemitic genocidal charter, Israeli troops entered and dug around UNRWA schools, hospitals and administrative buildings. It found incontrovertible proof that UNRWA is part of the Hamas war machine against Israel.

Hamas not only stores weapons in UNRWA locations, it deliberately locates its command centers under UNRWA facilities to keep the IDF from bombing it. While Israel developed an iron dome defense system which uses technology to shoot down Hamas rockets targeting Israeli civilians, Hamas uses UNRWA to protect its military infrastructure in Gaza.

In New York City, where the thin veneer of UNRWA’s 100 or so Europeans cover the fact that the rest of UNRWA’s 30,000-member staff are local Palestinian Arabs, the well-dressed leaders of the “humanitarian” agency defend Hamas to its voluntary donor countries. UNRWA talking heads appeal to countries assembled at the once-respected UN halls and attempt to deflect attention from UNRWA’s complicity and participation in the sickening and sadistic attacks on innocent Jewish civilians.

The dozen-plus member of Hamas that participated in the cruelty were dismissed as a few rogue employees. The 3,000 Hamas teachers that celebrated the massacre on Telegram were ignored. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestinian territories, said (5:35) in the immediate aftermath of October 7 that “you Palestinians are always questioned, second-guessed, misinterpreted and defamed.”

Finally, many countries are looking at the plain evidence and can no longer turn away from UNRWA’s ongoing flimsy protection of vicious murderers. The UNRWA misdirection campaign which attempted to tug heart-strings is unraveling, and moral countries have begun to halt their donations to the agency which is complicit in the ongoing genocidal actions against a member state.

Unbowed, UNRWA continues to appeal directly to individuals donors on social media, hoping that they don’t read the news or despise Jews and the Jewish State to fund the UNRWA-Hamas front.

UNRWA campaign on Facebook, February 2024

UNRWA is not simply trying to defend itself against the mounting evidence of working hand-in-glove with Hamas to keep the money flowing to 30,000 Palestinian employees of the organization as well as to keep the lights on in hospitals and schools. As the world sees that UNRWA is not a neutral party, the agency loses all aspects of immunity. Its locations can be raided and bombed and its officers charged alongside Hamas with crimes against humanity.

The entire United Nations knows its on a sinking ship and is throwing the heaviest burdens overboard (firing the dozen October 7 murderers) and is spinning wild and unbelievable narratives. UNRWA is in a fight for its survival and will not pause in lying boldly and repeatedly that it is a humanitarian group that at worst is woefully ignorant and inept.

UNRWA acts as a shield FOR Hamas in Gaza, and a shield OF Hamas at the United Nations. The end of Hamas in Gaza must be coupled with the end of UNRWA at the UN.

#EndUNRWA

Sue The United Nations For Supporting Terrorism (February 2024)

The Farce of UNRWA Funding (January 2024)

UNRWA’s West Bank Terrorists (July 2023)

UNRWA Politically Correctly Condemns When It Comes To Palestinian Terror (December 2022)

“Politics Aside,” It’s All Politics for UNRWA (December 2021)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

A Tale of Three Palestinian Refugees, With and Without UNRWA (April 2021)

The Disproportionate Defenses of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (July 2015)

Sue The United Nations For Supporting Terrorism

Posted on February 7, 2024 by First.One.Through

Courts in the United States just convicted a mother of a mass murderer for not doing enough to prevent the attack which killed four people. A Michigan jury found that Jennifer Crumbley was guilt of involuntary manslaughter because she failed to act upon clear warning signs that her son Ethan was dangerous and did not lock up the weapon in the house.

It begs the question as to whether the United Nations should be held criminally liable for crimes against humanity for its complicity in the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel.

The United Nations building in New York City

The U.N. adopted Palestinian “refugees” as its perennial wards decades ago, setting up distinct agencies for them such as UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Originally designed as a temporary agency in the middle of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, the U.N. has continued to extend its mandate and mission, extending loans for businesses and folding in another 763,000 people over-and-above the descendants of refugees.

UNRWA schools teach young Palestinian Arabs to hate Jews, and that the Jews stole their land. They instill a belief that the UN will help them win back their homes that Jews stole. The “textbooks have remained openly antisemitic and continue to encourage violence, jihad and martyrdom while peace is not taught as preferable or even possible.”

UNRWA teachers have built bombs for Hamas. At least a dozen participated in the October 7 massacre and thousands more are members of the political-terrorist group Hamas. An estimated 3,000 UNRWA workers praised the massacre.

It is not surprising that they allow Hamas’s terror tunnels to be built under their schools and hospitals and permit Hamas to fire rockets from their campuses.

UNRWA works hand-in-glove with Hamas in Gaza and the United Nations did nothing to act upon the clear warning signs that Hamas had built an enormous terrorist infrastructure over sixteen years of rule.

And why should it? UNRWA is Palestinian. Almost every single employee is a Palestinian Arab other than the people in New York who serve as a front to funnel billions of dollars to Palestinians.

While the U.N. did not burn families alive, rape and mutilate women, nor shoot the elderly in the head, it was completely complicit in the atrocities. It is therefore not sufficient to simply shut down UNRWA; the world should defund the United Nations until it does so, and bring its leadership to court for its role in the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

United Nations Declares Jews May Not Judge

The UN Reminds The World That Palestinian Terrorists And Enablers Are To Be Excused

Amid The Terror, The United Nations Once Again Protects Palestinians

The UN is Watering the Seeds of Anti-Jewish Hate Speech for Future Massacres

The Farce of UNRWA Funding

Posted on January 31, 2024 by First.One.Through

In 2022, UNRWA raised $1.175 billion, quite a haul. Of that money, $751 million came from designated programs while the balance was raised in emergency appeals.

The biggest donors by far were western countries, seemingly overcome with guilt that Palestinian Arabs haven’t been successful yet in destroying Israel.

Country	2022 Contribution	$ per Citizen
United States	$344 million	$1.01
Germany	$202 million	$2.43
European Union	$114 million
Sweden	$61 million	$5.87
Norway	$34 million	$6.30
Japan	$30 million	$0.24
France	$29 million	$0.43
Saudi Arabia	$27 million	$0.75
Switzerland	$26 million	$2.99
Turkey	$25 million	$0.29

Top 10 donors to UNRWA in 2022

The Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden were by far the most drawn to UNRWA. Not only were they among the top ten donor countries, they far exceeded all countries on a per capita contribution – 20 times as much at Turkey.

There were only two Muslim countries in the top 10 donors, one of which isn’t Arab. Despite the trillions of petrol dollars coming from the Gulf, most countries couldn’t be bothered with sending money to UNRWA.

Some of the largest Muslim countries in the world – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia – gave a grand total of $459,000. The total population of those four countries is 708.2 million, meaning each person gave UNRWA an average of $0.0006. Egypt, abutting Gaza with about 85 million Muslims, didn’t send a single dollar.

Consider the countries hosting UNRWA facilities including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and “Palestine” which is not recognized by most of UNRWA’s major donors. Each only contributed “in-kind,” essentially meaning giving office space to UNRWA for free.

It’s not as though Iran doesn’t give money to Palestinians, or Qatar limits its funding to the $10.5 million it contributed in 2022. It just sends the money directly to the political-terrorist group Hamas without the pitstop at the UN.

While the United Nations might sound global, it’s funded by western democracies while serving the “global South” and agendas of dictatorships and Islamic regimes (DIRs), including 50 Muslim-majority countries. Those DIRs channel western dupes’ monies to their causes via the UN, while simultaneously directly funding the more radical parts of their agendas.

The western world is complicit in funding the fungible farce. While it knows full well that Palestinians favor terrorism and want the destruction of Israel, it sends “humanitarian” money for education and health services through the United Nations, knowing that the military component is funded directly by DIRs.

It must stop. #ShutUNRWA

UNRWA Is A Front (January 2024)

The World Ignores Peaceful Dying Refugees And Obsesses Over Murdering Synthetic Refugees (July 2023)

Nexus of Terrorism Hypocrisy: UN, Qatar and Hamas (June 2021)

What’s Wrong with UNRWA (September 2018)

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately (August 2018)

UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease (January 2018)

UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews (November 2015)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

UNRWA Is A Front

Posted on January 30, 2024 by First.One.Through

In light of the recent reports that many UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 pogroms, that over one thousand aided and abetted the atrocities and several thousand employees cheered the massacre, many western countries have suspended funding of that deeply problematic UN agency.

The evidence that UNRWA is complicit in aiding the Hamas antisemitic war has been publicly known for many years. Tunnels and armaments are found throughout UNRWA schools and a teacher was a famed bomb maker for Hamas. UNRWA textbooks have long called for jihad and killing Jews.

This reality is baked into the very nature of UNRWA staffing. While the United Nations typically appoints a White European to oversee the organization to make it appear as a European entity, almost every single employee is a local Palestinian Arab.

Using UNRWA’s own information from 2019-2020, when the agency broke information into finer detail, there is barely any international staff working in Gaza or the West Bank. Between the two regions, only 44 out of 15,850 staff, or 0.3% were from outside of the region. Further, UNRWA mostly hires the descendants of Palestinian refugees as seen in the graphic above. Roughly 96% of UNRWA’s Gaza staff claims to be a “refugee.”

According to a 2017 UNRWA report, “With the exception of 155 international staff posts funded by the General Assembly through the UN regular budget, UNRWA operations are supported through voluntary contributions.” The Swiss, Norwegian and other global staff of UNRWA are paid by the United Nations and the rest of the world contributes whatever it wants whenever it wants to the over $1 billion UNRWA budget.

And the western donors are finally done.

UNRWA is a front for the world to funnel money to descendants of internally displaced Arabs, who speak the same language near the same neighborhoods with the same people as grandparents did. The UN ignores facts and calls them “refugees,” and promises that they’re going to get to move into towns where grandparents lived 75 years ago in Israel, going from a third-world economy to a first world society, in yet another form of misplaced expiation.

In its most benevolent form, it’s ransom via guilt. In reality, it is in funding terrorism and destroying any possibility for coexistence.

And it must stop. #ShutUNRWA

UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease (January 2018)

Israel, Ceuta and Melilla: Third World Escape Hatches (November 2023)

The World Ignores Peaceful Dying Refugees And Obsesses Over Murdering Synthetic Refugees (July 2023)

“Politics Aside,” It’s All Politics for UNRWA (December 2021)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

Excerpt of Hamas Charter to Share with Your Elected Officials (May 2021)

UNRWA Artificially Extends Its Mandate (April 2020)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

Stop Genocide. End UNRWA

Posted on January 29, 2024 by First.One.Through

Israel accused the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of having many staff members involved in the October 7 Palestinian genocidal attack against Israel. In response, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asked UNRWA to investigate itself, and find out the veracity of the charges and to fire those who committed atrocities.

Several western countries, who make up the majority of the funding of the UN agency, suspended their contributions. They include the United States, U.K., Finland, Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Iceland and Estonia. So far.

This is not a surprise. UNRWA is staffed almost exclusively by Palestinian Arabs; only the thin veneer of the executive management is European.

UNRWA has long been known and accused of teaching students to kill Jews and destroy Israel. Many staff members have been bomb makers for Hamas. Tunnel shafts at UNRWA schools lead down to Hamas’s terrorist tunnels.

In February 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives put forward H.R. 1102 “The UNRWA Accountability Act” which called for withholding funds to the UN Palestinian group if “UNRWA staff and partners nor its funding and facilities are affiliated with terrorism or disseminating certain rhetoric, such as calling for the destruction of Israel or describing Israelis as occupiers or settlers.” The U.S. Senate had a similar bill, S.431.

For much of 2023, Israel had been rooting out terrorists from UNRWA schools in the West Bank, Jenin in particular. UNRWA’s West Bank terrorists committed and planned to commit several attacks against Jews. Those terrorists were not only from Hamas which carried out the October 7 massacre, but the Jenin Brigades and Lion’s Den, other very popular terrorist groups.

*UNRWA in Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)*

Guterres has asked donor countries to renew payments to the agency, arguing that a few bad apples shouldn’t mean that millions of Palestinian Arabs should suffer.

But he completely misses the point.

UNRWA is the leading CAUSE of the October 7 attacks. Its mission of funneling billions of dollars into Gaza and the West Bank to employ Palestinian Arabs and miseducate them that Israel is an illegal European colonial state and that millions of descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 have an “inalienable right” to move into the Jewish State is the main reason that the conflict has dragged on for decades. UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank must be dismantled and the agency’s operations in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan should be folded into the other agency to handle refugees, UNHDR.

The United States has taken the first steps in UNRWA Accountability. It must lead to the termination of the toxic agency to forge a pathway towards coexistence.

Has The UN Secretary General Finally Ended The Palestinian “Right Of Return,” Preparing To Dismantle UNRWA Facilities In Gaza And The West Bank? (January 2024)

The Normalization Deformity: No To Zionism and Peace; Yes To Massacres and Terrorism In a Global Intifada (January 2024)

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

“Politics Aside,” It’s All Politics for UNRWA (December 2021)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

The Embarrassment of UNRWA, By Its Own Numbers (November 2021)

A Tale of Three Palestinian Refugees, With and Without UNRWA (April 2021)

New Head of UNRWA is Another Hamas-Sympathizer Politician (March 2020)

Palestinian Arabs De-Registering from UNRWA (November 2019)

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately (August 2018)

Time to Dissolve Key Principles of the “Inalienable Rights of Palestinians” (December 2017)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

Fits One Through video:

Jordan’s Hypocrisy: Queen Rania on Palestinians and UNRWA

Has The UN Secretary General Finally Ended The Palestinian “Right Of Return,” Preparing To Dismantle UNRWA Facilities In Gaza And The West Bank?

Posted on January 25, 2024 by First.One.Through

The United Nations has long been a terrible actor in the Israeli-Arab conflict, perpetuating the conflict through terrible policies and procedures. One of the worst offenses which contributed to the October 7 massacre and the current Gaza War was backing the “right of return” for millions of Arabs into Israel.

The United Nations agency, UNRWA, services roughly 7.5 million people of which 6.7 million are registered as refugees, with another 763,000 on the global dole. The vast majority of the 7.5 million are descendants of people who used to live in Israel in 1947. Amongst these so-called “refugees,” approximately 1.8 million live in Gaza and 1.1 million in the West Bank, a total of 2.9 million, or 43 per cent of UNRWA “refugees” live inside of 1947 Palestine.

These 2.9 million have been told by the United Nations that they will get to move into Israel for the last 75 years, based on a single line in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948, that has long passed its expiration date. With that false promise, Gazans spend their time and money building a war infrastructure rather than an economy as they don’t imagine a future in their current neighborhood of historic Palestine, but in the Jewish State.

On January 23, 2024, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres may have laid the groundwork to finally end the dream of these 2.9 million Palestinians that their future homes will be in Israel.

In his remarks to the UN Security Council he said “The right of the Palestinian people to build their own fully independent State must be recognized by all. And any refusal to accept the two-State solution by any party must be firmly rejected. What is the alternative? How would a one-State solution look with such a large number of Palestinians inside without any real sense of freedom, rights and dignity? This would be inconceivable.”

The first part of Guterres’s comments is simply wrong. No state has a right to exist. None. Not Portugal, not China, not South Sudan, not Kurdistan. Individuals have a right to self-determination and there are many ways for that to be realized which do not create another Arab and Muslim country.

The second segment of his remarks, marked in bold above, is an important milestone for the UN. It is the first time Guterres essentially rejected the notion of Arabs swarming Israel – either in a one state solution or as part of a two-state solution in which 6.7 million Arab “refugees” enter the Jewish State.

Finally acknowledging that this will not happen, Guterres should make an unambiguous statement that there is no “right of return” for Arabs into Israel, a stale idea floated over 75 years ago in the midst of the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War. In addition to such proclamation, he must follow up with actions to dismantle the “refugee” camps which dot Gaza and the West Bank, where UNRWA schools teach young Arabs that they will move into Israel and where UN facilities have keys above the portal to emphasize that the doorway for Palestinians to move into Israel is via the United Nations.

*Entrance to Aida Refugee Camp (مخيم عايده) in Bethlehem with keyhole gateway and key on top to symbolize that UNRWA is the pathway for Palestinians to return to ancestors’ homes.*

The United Nations finally said the obvious, that millions of Palestinian Arabs moving to Israel is “inconceivable.” It is time to explicitly state that there is no “right of return” and to dismantle the “temporary” refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank which have long served as incubators for extremism and terrorism.

The “Context” For October 7 Is Palestinians Prioritize Destroying Israel Over Getting Statehood (January 2024)

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

Israel, Ceuta and Melilla: Third World Escape Hatches (November 2023)

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave (December 2021)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately (August 2018)

When the Democrats Opposed the Palestinian “Right of Return” (August 2018)

A “Viable” Palestinian State (March 2015)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

NO Country Has A Right To Exist. Israel SHOULD Exist

Posted on January 18, 2024 by First.One.Through

When the congressional hearing about antisemitism at universities asked three university presidents whether they believed that Israel has a right to exist, they all answered in the affirmative, either believing so or feeling the pressure to state that they did. In fact, these educational leaders should have known that NO country has an inherent right to exist.

Not Turkey, not Colombia, not Japan and not Israel.

Countries have rights to secure borders and other matters, however there is nothing inherent that they must exist or that such existence cannot be dissolved.

For example, did Yugoslavia have a right to exist and does Macedonia have such right now? Did South Sudan have a right to a country before its creation? Do the Kurds have a right to a new Kurdistan in eastern Turkey together with sections of Iraq and Syria? Countries may opt to break apart into more regional tribal countries as was the case of Yugoslavia, or merge for particular political, demographic or ethnic reasons like Egypt and Syria in 1958.

But there is no inalienable right for any country to exist.

PEOPLE have a right to self-determination. Every person should be allowed to have citizenship in a country, participate in elections and have freedom of speech, religion and movement within such country as basic human rights.

It was a missed opportunity for the university presidents to educate the world on some fundamental realities but their failures were so profound, that this one was minor, especially in failing to clearly denounce repulsive calls for the genocide of Jews.

A more nuanced and interesting question is whether a country SHOULD exist. Does a country have a sound moral basis, a common sense of community and purpose? Does it have a functioning judicial system and ability and desire to govern and be governed? Is it willing to live at peace with its neighbors?

Israel meets every criteria. It has built a thriving economy and a liberal democracy in the heart of the illiberal Middle East. It has worked to forge peace agreements and engage in trade with its neighbors.

And even more, Israel built a safe haven for the most persecuted people in the world in their ancestral homeland. In their holy land. In their Promised Land.

*Morning over Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan (photo: First One Through)*

The answer is not clearcut regarding a Palestinian state.

The most compelling argument for a State of Palestine is that the Palestinians are stateless, Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). They should have self-determination and citizenship somewhere, whether in their own country or others like Jordan and Egypt. Many of the Palestinians have lived in the area for generations and share a language and culture, and can either unify in a single entity or be part of other Muslim Arab countries nearby.

There are many arguments against Palestinians having a country. They have consistently favored killing civilians in Israel next door and celebrate their sadistic slaughter. They have spent time and resources devoted to building a terrorist infrastructure rather than an economy. They focus their education on demonizing Jews and the destruction of Israel. On a basic political front, they have been unable to reconcile between the two dominant political factions and territories.

The United Nations continues to push for a new Palestinian State, perhaps to balance supporting Israel’s creation in 1948. In the November 1974 General Assembly Resolution 3236 (XXIX), the UN claimed that Palestinians had “The right to national independence and sovereignty;” which is a bold falsehood as described above. No nation has such right and it is highly questionable as to whether Palestinians should have a country.

While no country has an inherent right to exist, the only country which SHOULD definitely exist is the Jewish State of Israel.

When Founding Fathers Are Psychopaths And Cowards (January 2024)

The Failed Palestinian State (December 2023)

Israel Teaches The World About Democracy (March 2023)

Israel And Jews Everywhere Must Be Protected As An Ethnic, Religious And Linguistic Minority (September 2022)

The Lies Conflating the Holocaust and The Promised Land (January 2021)

The Palestinian State I Oppose (April 2018)

Time to Dissolve Key Principles of the “Inalienable Rights of Palestinians” (December 2017)

Considering a Failed Palestinian State (July 2015)

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings (June 2015)

Murderous Governments of the Middle East (August 2014)

It Is Not 1947 And We Don’t Make Policy As If It’s 1947

Posted on January 15, 2024 by First.One.Through

The global population was roughly 2.5 billion people in 1947. Less developed countries had a population of roughly 1.75 billion, and there were about 800 million in the developed world. Back then, the populations of China, India, the USA and Russia were about 570 million, 360 million, 150 million and 100 million, respectively.

Quite a different world then today.

The world was once much more regionalized. In 1947, there were fewer than 25 million international tourists; that figure was nearly 1.5 billion in 2019 before the pandemic, and has slightly rebounded to just under 1 billion in 2022. There were only about 10 million foreign-born people in the US in 1947, a number closer to 45 million in 2018. The figures are similar in Europe.

Computers were just starting to be used 75 years ago, with today’s pocket smartphones having more capabilities than those gigantic governmental ones. International calls cost a fortune as opposed to today’s free over-the-top calls made to people everywhere in an instant.

Technology and transportation have made the world smaller and people migrate much more than they did 75 years ago. Just since 1990, Europe went from having a foreign-born population accounting for roughly 5.5% of the population to nearly 10.5% in 2015. In the United States, it went from 7.9% to 13.9% over those same years.

Laws and regulations changed over the past 75 years which contributed to global migration patterns beyond technology and transportation. Many more immigrants from Latin American countries come to the United States now, whereas they used to come from Europe (75% in 1950s). Countries pass laws based on current realities and desires for the future. They tinker with immigration policy based on global demand as well as their own demographic needs for labor.

No country enacts policies to RECREATE A REALITY that existed in the past. They do not pretend that it’s 1947 and that laws passed back then have relevance to today’s reality.

Except for the United Nations as it relates in Palestinian Arabs.

The UN continues to bless the Palestinian desire for a “Right of Return” to homes that grandparents once lived in inside Israel based in a resolution passed in December 1948 when the Arab war to destroy the new State of Israel was still being waged. While the UN and Palestinians ignore most of Resolution 194 as it obviously has no bearing on today’s reality, they continue to prop up a single provision, article 11 which states:

“Resolves that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.“

Supporters of Hamas express their solidarity with the Jenin refugee camp, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on April 10, 2022. Days before, gunmen from Jenin went on a shooting rampage in Tel Aviv killing three Israelis and wounding more than a dozen others. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)

People correctly point out that almost all Palestinians today are not refugees and are unwilling to live at peace with Israel as demonstrated time and time again. More basically, today is not 1947, and the same way that UNGA Resolution 194 calling for the internationalization of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem is no longer contemplated, so has the concept of a “right of return” long passed its expiration date.

The UN may advocate for Palestinian self-determination but cannot demand a right-of-return to Israel. All nations must make clear that they support terminating a concept which was captured in a single line in a resolution passed in 1948 in the middle of a war.

ACTION ITEM

Email White House “Make clear that our country opposes the idea that descendants of Palestinian refugees have a “right of return” to towns inside Israel which was contemplated as part of a broad end to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It continues to foment frustration, hatred and encourages war in the region.