On March 5, 2022, there will be races in Brooklyn, NY and Washington, DC to raise money for the mental health of the children in Gaza. Unfortunately, the fundraiser is to promote mental and emotional dysfunction.
Promotion for “Gaza 5K” run in Prospect Park, Brooklyn
The Gaza 5K race is sponsored by UNRWA, the Palestinian-political agency that masquerades as a global humanitarian organization. The fundraiser aims to raise $350,000 to:
“Your fundraising can enable UNRWA to employ mental health counselors recruited locally from the Palestine refugee population. UNRWA counselors provide psychosocial support to address the mental health needs of refugee children and families in Gaza. The people of Gaza suffer from trauma due to repeated Israeli military assaults and the continued blockade. Counseling offers kids in Gaza a safe space to express their emotions and fears and a way to learn valuable coping skills.“
Almost the entire UNRWA staff of 29,000 are local Palestinian Arabs. To say that the counselors are “recruited locally” serves to further the lie that UNRWA is run by a bunch of peace-loving Europeans, and these counselors are an aberration.
These days, as people watch over a million people flee the war in Ukraine, as well as the wars in Syria and Afghanistan, it is shameful to use the concocted phrase Palestinian “refugee children.” These kids aren’t fleeing a war zone. They, their parents and their grandparents were all born in Gaza. They live next to cousins – many, who are not refugees – with the same language and culture. The fact that their great-grandparents lived for a few years about 20 miles away in what is now Israel does not make them refugees.
Further, the “repeated Israeli military assaults and the continued blockade” are in REACTION to the aggressive goals and tactics of the Gaza leadership. The political-terrorist group Hamas that runs Gaza is a genocidal anti-Semitic group that has repeatedly engaged in crimes against humanity in their attacks on Israeli civilians. UNRWA’s distortion reverses cause-and-effect and therefore, perpetrator-and-victim.
Further, the lie once again proves that UNRWA is not a humanitarian aid agency that simply seeks to simply provide healthcare and education to Gaza’s youth, but a charged anti-Israel political group.
The children of Gaza do need mental health counselors – to deal with their society that instills hatred for Jews and women.
Gaza is one of the worst places in the world for “honor killings,” in which family members kill a woman in the family that brings shame to the family “honor.” Palestinian courts routinely give a pass to family members who engage in the heinous act.
Consider the mental health of a Palestinian child who participates in the killing of his sister, and is celebrated by the community.
Hamas runs summer camps for children where they are taught to make “sacrifices” in the war against Israel. These child soldiers are as young as 10 years old. A spokesperson for the terrorist defended the practice saying “The Al-Qassam Brigades has organized the Vanguard of Liberation camps for over ten years, as it believes that the youth have a significant role and that it has a responsibility towards the generation that all sides are trying to tempt and divert their attention from their cause and priorities.”
Palestinian children compelled to participate in a Hamas military parade. Photo: Twitter.
Girl schools in Palestinian territories are named after Dalal al-Mugrahbi, a terrorist who killed 37 Israeli civilians, including a niece of a U.S. senator and 13 children in the infamous Coastal Road Massacre in 1978.
Yehuda DimentmanIn February 2022, Palestinian Authority TV airs ethnic cleansing comments of daughter of Palestinian terrorist who shot and killed unarmed Israeli in December 2021.
Consider the mental health of a Palestinian child who is brainwashed that killing Jews is a cause to be celebrated.
UNRWA is a disgraceful anti-peace organization disguised as a humanitarian agency. If you are at the UNRWA 5K race on Saturday, wear an Israeli flag to demand radical changes in the UNRWA-HAMAS alliance.
In his effort to be “politically correct,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutterres is completely off mark as it relates to vaccinations for COVID-19.
On February 28, 2022, Guterres spoke to the Human Rights Council that portrayed the fight for human rights as a problem of wealthy nations exploiting poorer countries. It’s a dangerous and naive sentiment which harms people everywhere.
“The pandemic is a clear demonstration of the universality and indivisibility of all human rights — civil, political, social, economic and cultural. The vulnerable and marginalized continue to suffer most. High-income countries have administered 13 times more doses per person than low-income countries. Vaccine inequality demonstrates an utter disregard for the human rights of entire countries and regions…. the unequal recovery from the pandemic has revealed the moral bankruptcy of our global financial system. That system has failed to protect the rights of millions of people in the global South. The pandemic has squeezed developing economies dry.“
This statement is a purely political one and cannot stand to the light of truth for a world trying to deal with a serious healthcare situation. Guterres attacked wealthy nations and accused them of “utter disregard” for poorer countries.
The fact is that COVID-19 was by-and-large a wealthy virus. The world’s poorest nations had very few deaths from the pandemic.
The global average number of deaths from COVID-19 was 768 per million as of March 2, 2022. The poorest nations came nowhere near that rate of death. The pandemic wreaked havoc in eastern Europe, with Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Georgia, Croatia, Czechia, Slovakia and Romania each having between 3,300 and 5,200 deaths per 1 million, a rate roughly 75 times suffered by the poorest countries. Consider that the GNI per capita of Bulgaria is $9,540, or 35 times that of Burundi ($270), while the rate of death is 1,731 times as high (5,194 to 3 per 1 million population).
Why condemn the wealthier countries which developed the vaccine that have populations dying at much higher rates, for not shipping off all the vaccines to poorer countries where the people are barely impacted by the virus? It’s nonsensical on a factual level, and insidious on a political level.
The dishonest and dangerous socialist worldview is permeating the United Nations, condemning the rich, dying Europeans and demanding a transfer of wealth and work product to poorer African countries.
Guterres continued on this theme when he condemned wealthy countries for causing climate change for which the poorer nations pay the price, saying “a few countries are trampling on the rights of the rest of the world. A few companies are reaping rich rewards, while ignoring the rights of the poorest and most vulnerable.“
While it is true that wealthy countries have factories and industry that cause pollution, the vast majority of the global problem is caused by a single country, China, with more than 10,065 million tons of CO2 released or as much as the United States, India, Russia and Japan combined. But the small wealthy island of Bermuda (presumably very impacted by climate change) is 11 times as wealthy as polluting China ($117,740 versus $10,610). Iceland is 7 times as wealthy as Russia ($72,930 versus $10,690), and Ireland is 33 times as wealth as India ($63,470 versus $1,900).
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the High Level Segment of the 37th Session of the Human Rights Council. 26 February 2018.
Guterres used incendiary language for wealthy countries calling out “utter disregard for the human rights of entire countries and regions” and “the moral bankruptcy of our global financial system,” but couldn’t utter a negative word to China regarding its vast human rights abuses including the detention of Uyghurs, the suppression of basic human rights of expression and freedom of the press.
The UN Secretary General went to the Human Rights Council (which includes some of the worst human rights abusing countries such as China, Cuba, Russia, Somalia and Venezuela), to condemn wealth rather than human rights abuses. In doing so, he absolved the poor autocracies that crush individual rights, echoing the socialist call for a global “class war.“
On January 20, 1942, Germans met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to develop the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.” The persecution of Jews was already well underway, and on that day, the Nazi regime put into place a program to push the Jews to extinction. They succeeded in wiping out nearly all of the Jews in Europe, about one-third of global Jewry.
Since the end of World War II, the Arab and Muslim world picked up the fight to “the Jewish Problem.”
The Arabs in Palestine were successful in lobbying the British in impeding Jewish immigrants desperate to leave the Holocaust in Europe with the “White Papers”, likely causing well over 100,000 Jewish deaths. The remaining Holocaust survivors landing on the shores of Palestine after World War II were very vulnerable targets. The Palestinian Arabs enlisted the help of neighboring Muslim countries to complete the genocide of the Jews, killing nearly one per cent of the region’s Jews in the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War. The Arabs then ethnically-cleansed all Jews from the lands they seized, and forbade Jews from visiting their holiest locations in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Angry at the survival of the Jewish nation, Muslim Arab countries purged their Jews. Roughly 99% of the region’s Jews were forced out, an estimated 850,000 Jews, a total which excludes the Jews who fled Afghanistan and Iran.
Algeria 140,000
Egypt 75,000
Iraq 135,000
Lebanon 5,000
Libya 38,000
Morocco 265,000
Syria 30,000
Tunisia 105,000
Yemen 55,000
Arab countries attempted to kill all of the Jews in Israel again in 1967, though they failed spectacularly. Stinging from the loss, the Arab League adopted the Khartoum Resolution which called for “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.” The Arabs soon launched another war against Israel – during Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur – in 1973, while pushing the noxious idea that “Zionism is a form of racism” at the United Nations under the watch of former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, who was serving as the UN Secretary General.
Meanwhile, Christianity rethought its complicity in the European Holocaust and declared in 1965 that Jews were no more responsible for the death of Jesus than anyone else, and declared clearly that Jews should not be persecuted. Less than 25 years later, the “Iron wall” in the Soviet Union crumbled and allowed thousands of Jewish “refuseniks” to leave the country to Israel and elsewhere.
But the bile in the Arab Muslim world did not let up during this time, even as Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.
The Palestinians declared themselves to have an independent state in 1988 on all of the land of Israel including the “West Bank” and Gaza, a move which was rejected by much of the western world. At the same time, Hamas introduced its foundational charter calling for the death of Jews and complete destruction of the Jewish State. The group (and other Palestinian terrorist groups) became immensely popular and received funding from Iran and Syria.
Iran and its proxies like Hezbollah, together with Palestinian Arabs, targeted and killed thousands of Jews around the world in the following decades. Iranian leaders have continued to hold Holocaust denial conferences, call for the destruction of Israel and pursue nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missiles.
On the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the United Nations approved a resolution condemning Holocaust denial, with only Iran standing in opposition. The story was covered by The New York Times and other media outlets which wrote about the resolution and described today’s prevalent “right-wing” anti-Semitism and completely ignored that the vast majority of anti-Semitism stems from the Islamic world.
Not only will Muslim anti-Semitism not go away by ignoring it, but it may enable the leading state sponsor of terrorism and Holocaust denial to obtain weapons of mass destruction to carry out another genocide of the Jews.
The office of the United Nations Secretary General has a template for how it responds to acts of terrorism. The thrust of the official statements has four parts, modified for the particular event or based on the attitude of the crime:
Condemnation. The act may be called an “attack” or “terrorism” which the head of the UN either “condemns” or “strongly condemns”
Condolences. Connecting with the impacted victims, the UNSC would offer “deep condolences” or “sympathies”
Demand for Justice. The statement would call for the perpetrators of the crime to be captured and punished
Solidarity. Lastly, the leader of the global body would express solidarity with the people of the nation. If it was a community of faith that was attacked, the language might change slightly or be omitted
This format has been used consistently with few exceptions. Well, it actually doesn’t apply to the Jewish State or even for Jews.
Here are some quotes from the United Nations Secretary General after attacks against civilians around the world:
Nigeria January 10, 2022: “The Secretary-General strongly condemns the appalling attacks perpetrated over the weekend in Nigeria’s Zamfara State in which scores of civilians were killed. He extends his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. The Secretary-General urges the Nigerian authorities to spare no effort in bringing those responsible for these heinous crimes to justice. The Secretary-General reaffirms the solidarity and support of the United Nations to the Government and people of Nigeria in their fight against terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime.“
Somalia November 26, 2021: “The Secretary-General strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack on a United Nations-affiliated convoy in front of the Mucassar School in Mogadishu, resulting in many casualties. The Secretary-General extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a swift recovery to those injured. He calls on the Somali authorities to bring those responsible to justice. The Secretary-General expresses the full solidarity and support of the United Nations with the Government and the people of Somalia in their fight against terrorism and violent extremism.“
Uganda November 16, 2021: “The Secretary-General strongly condemns the terrorist attacks in Uganda on 16 November. The Secretary-General expresses his deepest condolences to the families of the victims of these despicable acts of violence and wishes a full recovery to those injured. The United Nations expresses its hope that all persons involved in the commission of these attacks will be swiftly brought to justice.”
Tunisia, Kuwait and France June 26, 2015: “The Secretary-General condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France today. Those responsible for these appalling acts of violence must be swiftly brought to justice. The Secretary-General affirms that, far from weakening the international community’s resolve to fight the scourge of terrorism, these heinous attacks will only strengthen the commitment of the United Nations to help defeat those bent on murder, destruction and the annihilation of human development and culture. The Secretary-General extends his condolences to the families of those killed and injured in today’s attacks and expresses his solidarity with the peoples and Governments of Tunisia, Kuwait and France.“
In cases where the attack happened against a house of worship, the format is generally the same with slight tweaks:
Mosque in Afghanistan October 15, 2021: “The Secretary-General strongly condemns the despicable attack today on the Imam Baragah mosque in Kandahar City, Afghanistan. The Secretary General expresses his deep condolences to the bereaved families and wishes those injured a quick recovery. The perpetrators of this latest crime against civilians in Afghanistan exercising their right to freely practice their religion must be brought to justice.”
Mosques in New Zealand March 15, 2019: “The Secretary-General is shocked and appalled at the terrorist attack at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government and people of New Zealand. The Secretary General recalls the sanctity of mosques and all places of worship. He calls upon all people on this holy day for Muslims to show signs of solidarity with the bereaved Islamic community. The Secretary-General reiterates the urgency of working better together globally to counter Islamophobia and eliminate intolerance and violent extremism in all its forms.“
Church in Philippines January 27, 2019: “The Secretary-General condemns the terrorist attack on 27 January at the Jolo Cathedral in Sulu in the Philippines. He expresses his sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a speedy recovery to the wounded. The Secretary-General calls for the perpetrators of these crimes to be swiftly brought to justice. He reiterates the support of the United Nations to the Government and people of the Philippines in their efforts to fight terrorism and violent extremism, and to carry forward the peace process in Bangsamoro region.“
Church in Pakistan December 18, 2017: “The Secretary-General strongly condemns the attack on a Methodist church in Quetta, Pakistan. He extends his sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wishes speedy recovery to those injured. He calls for the perpetrators of the attack to be brought to justice.“
The Secretary General treated each attack roughly the same.
But the sentiment changed for attacks against Israel and Jews.
Jerusalem January 9, 2017: “The Secretary-General condemns the terrorist attack by a Palestinian assailant which took place in Jerusalem yesterday. He conveys his condolences to the bereaved families and wishes a swift recovery to those who were injured. Violence and terror will not bring a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — quite the opposite. All those responsible for such acts must be brought to justice, condemned and disavowed. Their acts should not be allowed to deter from the need for a renewed commitment to dialogue.“
The call by UNSG Antonio Guterres for the Arab terrorists to be brought justice was an outlier.
Tel Aviv June 8, 2016: “The Secretary-General condemns tonight’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in which at least four Israelis were killed by Palestinian assailants and another four injured. He conveys his condolences to the families of the victims and the Government of Israel. The Secretary-General reiterates that there is no justification for terrorism nor for the glorification of those who commit such heinous acts. The Secretary-General is shocked that the leaders of Hamas have chosen to welcome this attack and some have chosen to celebrate it. He calls upon the Palestinian leadership to live up to their responsibility to stand firmly against violence and the incitement that fuels it.”
How can anyone be shocked that Hamas celebrates attacks when its entire mission is about killing Jews and destroying Israel?
Synagogue if Pittsburgh October 27, 2018: “The Secretary-General is deeply shocked at and strongly condemns the shooting today at the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue in Pittsburgh in the United States. He expresses his deepest condolences to the families of the victims. The shooting in Pittsburgh is a painful reminder of continuing anti-Semitism. Jews across the world continue to be attacked for no other reason than their identity. Anti-Semitism is a menace to democratic values and peace, and should have no place in the 21st century. The Secretary-General calls for a united front — bringing together authorities at all levels, civil society, religious and community leaders and the public at large — to roll back the forces of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hatred, bigotry, discrimination and xenophobia gaining strength in many parts of the world.“
Where is the call to bring the perpetrator to justice? Why wasn’t there an expression of solidarity with Jews specifically – not lumping them in with other groups?
Synagogue in Jerusalem November 18, 2014: “The Secretary-General strongly condemns today’s attack on a synagogue in West Jerusalem which claimed four lives and injured several persons. He extends his condolences to the families of the victims and wishes the injured a speedy recovery. Beyond today’s reprehensible incident, clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli security forces continue on a near daily basis in many parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Secretary-General condemns all acts of violence against civilians. Attacks against religious sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank point to an additional dangerous dimension to the conflict which reverberates far beyond the region. The Secretary-General calls for political leadership and courage on both sides to take actions to address the very tense situation in Jerusalem. All sides must avoid using provocative rhetoric which only encourages extremist elements. In this regard, the Secretary-General welcomes President Abbas’ condemnation of today’s attack. The steadily worsening situation on the ground only reinforces the imperative for leaders on both sides to make the difficult decisions that will promote stability and ensure long-term security for both Israelis and Palestinians.“
This is outrageous. Four rabbis were slaughtered with meat cleavers while they prayed in a synagogue and the UN Secretary General used the opportunity to berate Israel. Not only did he not call for the Arab terrorists to be brought to justice, the UNSG PRAISED the leader of the Palestinian Authority who was then going to reward the terrorist families with funds for life.
Palestinian Arabs holding the pictures of the two Arab terrorist who slaughtered Jews in a Jerusalem synagogue and throwing candies as they celebrated the murder of Jews, November 2014.
Anti-Semitism is the oldest and most popular form of hatred, and the Jewish State of Israel suffers more terrorist attacks than any other country. Yet, the United Nations is seemingly incapable of unambiguously condemning the vile hatred and attacks. If the head of the United Nations cannot stand in solidarity with Jews and demand that anti-Semitic terrorists be brought to justice, it is time for Israel to consider leaving the global body and manage its affairs only on a bilateral basis with countries of conscience.
UNRWA is a deeply flawed organization that manages to get worse.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East claims that its mission is one of humanitarian work devoid of any politics but that is plainly not so. It proclaims to be independent when it it is clearly not.
“Independence is understood to mean that “humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented.” In other words, without independence and the autonomy that it affords the Agency, UNRWA would be at risk of being diverted from its humanitarian trajectory and its commitment to the other three Humanitarian Principles of humanity, impartiality, and neutrality.“
“It is only by being truly independent that UNRWA can respect the principles of neutrality and impartiality, and therefore only be driven by humanity.“
While UNRWA claims to understand that neutrality, impartiality and independence are critical for its mission, it remains a tool for the roughly 30,000 Palestinian Arabs who work for the agency, the 6.4 million (and growing) people who are registered with the agency, and the global anti-Zionist community which enjoy ripping at the seams of the Jewish State.
In time for the holidays and tax planning, UNRWA continues to ask Americas for money, seemingly unsatisfied with the $7.6 billion that tax payers have given to the Palestinians since 1993, which has yielded no peace. The agency which claims that politics is poison to its mission, led with politics in its 2021 year-end appeal:
UNRWA led with distorted politics in its year-end appeal for donations
UNRWA asked for money for “families in Gaza and Lebanon to secure their basic needs, giving them options and hope. (UNRWA’s emphasis),” ideally with donations of as large as $1,000. The reason that they need this money is declared in the opening lines: “Occupation, repeated military assaults, crippling blockades.” Are these three lines anything but smears and politics? Are they even factually correct? Since when is Lebanon under theses stresses? The Gazans initiate the repeated military assaults and are the cause of the blockade.
Knowing that it led with inflammatory language, the second paragraph backtracks and starts “Politics aside,” Indeed, politics. What else can be expected from an organization run by the largest political machine in the world, which makes it particular inept at carrying out humanitarian missions.
UNRWA is a prison which keeps millions of people tethered to the organization with the threat that if they deregister, they will no longer be classified as refugees and not entitled to millions of dollars from Israel.
It unilaterally extended its mandate beyond the contours of its formation which called for its wards to be either compensated or settled somewhere, with the declaration in April 2020 that it will live on until “a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution.” That’s ridiculous. Why would a future-compensated descendant of a refugee living in Lebanon continue to need free housing, healthcare and education from UNRWA while Israelis and Palestinians debate water rights in the Jordan Valley?
Entrance to UNRWA’s Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem portrayed as a keyhole with a key on top, demonstrating that the pathway to ancestors’ homes is via UNRWA.
And it is bad at what it does. It is proportionately staffed by 20 times as many people as the UNHR which cares for actual refugees. Palestinian parents who have a choice, send their children to non-UNRWA schools.
UNRWA is a political tool dressed as a humanitarian organization. It is an embarrassment for the UN, the Palestinians forced to stay tethered to the over-staffed beast, and the well-meaning countries and people who fall for the marketing and advertising blitz with donations of hard-earned monies.
Queen Rania of Jordan – herself a Palestinian Arab – at a United Nations event in September 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary of UNRWA
While many people consider the Muslim Arab – Israeli Conflict to be a complicated matter, there are some simple facts beyond dispute: Hamas is a vile anti-Semitic terrorist group, that is very popular among the stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). The political-terrorist group demonizes Jews, calls for Israel’s destruction and is flatly against any type of peace deal with the Jewish State.
So it is surprising that Hamas barely gets mentioned in the repeated United Nations Security Council meetings on the conflict, which are presumably about finding a peaceful solution in the region.
On December 21, 2021, the UNSC met – as it does regularly – to hear a report from Tor Wennesland, the highly-biased Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. In response to his remarks, the fifteen member countries of the council responded in an echo of condemnation against Israel for building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria. Somehow they have been brainwashed by the SAPs’ narrative that they cannot have a viable state if there is a Jewish kindergarten nearby.
Remarkably, there was only one country – Kenya – that called out the Palestinian terrorist group for condemnation.
Gideon Kinuthia Ndung’U of Kenya condemned the “recent terror attacks and shootings that Hamas and other groups continue to laud and claim, [and] stressed that no cause can justify the deliberate targeting of civilians. These acts of terror must cease.“
It’s a simple statement that should be repeated everywhere (and is, except when the terrorists are Palestinian Arabs), but alas, Kenya was the sole voice to condemn this vile terrorist group.
Richard Mills of the United States “urged [Israeli and Palestinian] authorities to condemn violence and respond in a proportionate and reasonable manner,” but did not do so himself.
T.S. Tirumurti of India noted that “violent attacks against Palestinian and Israeli civilians, acts of destruction, provocation and incitement have continued during the reporting period. Condemning all such acts, he called upon the parties to immediately make concrete efforts to reverse these negative trends.” It was a balanced approach, but failed to called out the persistent underlying cause for violence stemming from Gaza.
Nicolas de Riviere of France didn’t offer a word about Palestinian Arab attacks and opted to use his time to condemn Jewish homes, while calling for donations to the Terrorist Enclave in Gaza.
The most appalling speaker was ISIS Azalea Maria Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines who read a script that may have been produced by the media outlets Al Manar (Hezbollah) and Al Aqsa (Hamas), spewing vitriol against Israel and defending all Palestinians, including the terrorists in Gaza.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, hold flags of their countries at State House in Nairobi, Kenya, July 5, 2016
Thank Kenya for calling out the evil and violence of Hamas at 202.387.6101, 202.796.2079 or 212.421.4744. Their email is information@kenyaembassydc.org.
The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, visited Lebanon on December 20, 2021 to show support for the country as it continued fail on multiple fronts. Already floundering due to an economic crisis, Lebanon’s falling fortunes are being exacerbated by the pandemic since March 2020, the explosion in the port that damaged much of the capital in August 2020 and infighting between various factions that make up the country’s political landscape and demographic mix.
Guterres spoke to the Lebanese cabinet in a lengthy speech that painted the people of Lebanon as particularly warm and welcoming in the face of adversity. However, various comments made – and parties unmentioned – reveal a dangerous UN bias for the future of the country and region.
Guterres called out Israel both directly and indirectly, and never favorably.
Palestinian refugees. The UNSG recalled Lebanon’s welcome of Syrian refugees and then appended “not to mention the old Palestinian community of a million.” That’s a complete lie. Lebanon welcomed several thousand Palestinian Arabs in 1948-9, and that total grew to 568,000 in 2021, half of Guterres’s figure. Further, Lebanon places severe restrictions on the professions for the stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs), forcing two-thirds of the population into poverty.
Coexistence. Guterres continued that Lebanon was an “extraordinary example of religious tolerance of the capacity to create a diverse society that was harmonious, that was prosperous and that was, I would say, the centre of the region.” Lebanon was engaged in a religious civil war from 1976 to 1990, a point completely omitted and whitewashed in the speech. It has been nearly fifty years since the country had a semblance of religious tolerance. Such tolerance at the “centre of the region” is found in Israel today, not Lebanon.
But Guterres wanted to castigate Israel in his remarks, not elevate it as an example of coexistence.
Israel’s belligerence. While noting for a just a second that Lebanon bore some responsibility for its current state of affairs, Guterres called out outside actors that hurt Lebanon, in particular “the Israeli invasion several years ago.” That invasion in 1982 was in the midst of Lebanon’s Civil War in which the country acted as a terrorist save haven for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) that repeatedly attacked Israel, forcing a response from Israel.
The unmentioned evil actors. Not only did the PLO go unmentioned in the speech, so did Hezbollah, the terrorist group that controls southern Lebanon, as well as Iran, which backs that terrorist group.
Hezbollah was directly responsible for the Beirut port blast which exacerbated the current situation. It has threatened judges investigating the case, lest the terrorist group be cast in a negative light before elections scheduled for March 2022.
Hezbollah is estimated to have well over 120,000 missiles with a range that covers all of northern Israel. The missile launch sites are nestled among 230 Shiite villages in southern Lebanon. Those rockets were purchased with funds from Iran, including the $400 million in cash sent by President Obama to seal the Iranian nuclear deal. This terrorist army was armed and missiles deployed right under the nose of the United Nations, where UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) is charged with maintaining the peace with Israel and keeping Hezbollah from rearming as part of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006).
Hezbollah is likely to become fully active over the next several months as the Lebanese economy collapses, elections happen or are canceled, and the terrorist group’s sponsors in Iran are forced to either accept de-nuclearlization or full economic sanctions. Hezbollah has already begun to test the situation, firing 19 missiles into the Jewish State in August 2021. The UN did nothing, other than voting to continue to fund UNIFIL while it berated Israel and refused to mention Hezbollah.
Which begs the question of what was being accomplished with the head of the United Nations visiting Lebanon at this time. Was it seeking an economic package from world governments? That was mentioned (as was promoting the involvement of women in government), but so was this troubling statement:
“I want to say that our mission is essentially a mission of solidarity. You can be sure that Lebanon is today in the centre of all our strategies and efforts, both at the level of the Secretariat and at the level of the different agencies that are cooperating with the Lebanese authorities, not to mention our two missions, and in particular now, UNIFIL that we want to be more and more actively cooperating with the Lebanese army as a fundamental factor of stability and security in the southern part of Lebanon.“
UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have no sway in southern Lebanon. Guterres’s refusal to call out the main troubling actor in the region that has been firing missiles at its neighbor to the south is outrageous, dangerous and ominous.
Israeli forces fire artillery from their position on the border with Lebanon after a barrage of rockets were fired from Lebanon, Friday, Aug. 6, 2021. The militant Hezbollah group said it fired rockets near Israeli positions close to the Lebanese border, calling it retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon a day earlier. (Ayal Margolin/JINIPIX via AP)
The UN Secretary General came to stand in solidarity with Lebanon and ignored the dangerous and dominant role that the terrorist group Hezbollah has in the failing state. In the likely upcoming war with the Israel, it appears that Guterres just placed his chips with the puppet state controlled by Iran.
UNRWA, the controversial UN agency which is solely devoted to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and other local people, held a two day fundraising appeal which began on November 16, 2021. Led by the governments of Jordan and Sweden, they appealed to countries around the world to donate to a temporary agency which was established in 1949.
According to UNRWA, it serviced 5.7 million refugees and 685,000 other people (mainly poor people and those married to descendants of refugees) in the five fields of operation. That means that 10.7% of the UNRWA’s wards are not refugees, even under the exaggerated definition that UNRWA uses. In the West Bank, the numbers are even more stark, where 19.5% of the UNRWA base are “others.” Many of these extra clients are poor Arabs in Jerusalem, as noted in the fine print of the UNRWA report.
UNRWA added services to thousands of poor Arabs in the eastern portion of Jerusalem, resulting in an inflated 19.5% of UNRWA wards in the West Bank being “others” compared to just 10.2% in Gaza.
As evidence of distortion in the West Bank, there are very few students relative to the population, especially compared to Gaza. While the percent of the population below 14 years old is high in both locales at 35.3% and 42.5% in the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, (and 17.4% and 18.0% for 15-24 year olds) only 4.2% of UNRWA’s West Bank wards are in UNRWA schools, while the figure is 17.4% in Gaza – four times the rate! That’s because children in the West Bank have many more options and prefer to stay away from UNRWA’s schools.
UNRWA services 287,000 students in Gaza but only 46,000 in the West Bank. The youth in the West Bank prefer using non-UNRWA schools because they have a choice while there are few options in Gaza.
Despite UNRWA’s schools being unpopular in the West Bank, the agency continues to hire. The pupil-to-student ratio was 20, in sharp contrast to 30 students per teacher in Gaza.
The US Ambassador to the UN may be in on the joke as she tweeted during her visit to a UN school on November 17: “Today, I met with educators and students at Jalazone @UNRWA Girls School in Ramallah. I was inspired by their stories and dreams for the future, and I spoke to UNRWA officials about how to make their work stronger, more efficient, and more accountable.“
Moves of UNRWA to Jerusalem and Wards to Statelessness
For the period of January 1, 2012, UNRWA began to break out the “other” category for the first time. It was also the last year that it published the annual report from Gaza. Starting the following year – a year which saw the US Democratic Party yell at its national convention that it no longer considered Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – it began to publish its report in Jerusalem, as noted at the bottom of the reports.
Over the nine years since this breakout started, the refugees in the West Bank grew from 727,471 to 871,537, a growth of 20%, while the other wards grew from 147,156 to 211,116, a 43% jump – over twice the rate. The situation was even more dramatic in Jordan, where the UNRWA refugee population grew 17% while the other category grew by a whopping 130%. It’s not hard to speculate that people married in to get free services from UNRWA, and the fat agency could funnel cash and services to actual refugees from the Syrian civil war who flooded into Jordan.
The majority of UNRWA’s clientele actually had Jordanian citizenship from the time the agency was founded until 1988. Jordan illegally annexed what is now commonly called the “West Bank” in 1950 and gave all the Arabs there citizenship. Many Arabs moved back-and-forth between Jordan and the West Bank (both part of the original Palestine Mandate) until 1967 when it became harder to do so after Jordan (and West Bankers) attacked Israel and lost the region. Jordan continued to give those Arabs Jordanian citizenship until it withdrew it abruptly in July 1988, making these Arabs stateless.
A total of 55.5% of UNRWA wards would still be Jordanians had the king not removed their citizenship.
Staffing
In 2000, UNRWA had a staff of 22,447 to address a population of 3,806,055, or a staff member for every 170 registered persons. At the end of 2020, the staff was down from immediate prior years due to the Trump administration cutbacks, but up overall to 28,563 staffers for 6,388,887 people, or one staffer per 224 people. By way of comparison, in 2020 the UNHCR global refugee agency had to deal with 76.7 million people fleeing wars far from their homes requiring brand new housing and schools, was staffed by only 17,300 people, or a staffer for every 4,433 real refugees.
UNRWA has operated in the exact same geography with the same people speaking the same language for decades but still has a staff that is 20x the size proportionately of UHCR which has to handle real refugees fleeing across the world requiring everything new.
Summary
UNRWA is grossly over-staffed, especially relative to the global refugee agency that really does need the resources. It inflated its mandate by adding nearly 11% new people to its roster and moved its center to the contested city of Jerusalem and began servicing eastern Jerusalem’s poor Arabs, making the agency yet more politicized. Further, in terms of competence, UNRWA has shown that it is unable to attract students to its schools.
One needn’t look to news stories and editorials about UNRWA’s supporting anti-Semitism, harboring and employing terrorists, redefining “refugees,” extending its mandate and hearing how Arabs are deregistering from UNRWA to realize how disastrous it is. The agency’s own numbers make clear that it is inept and past time to be shut down.
While the United States and the United Nations talk about engaging with the Palestinian Arabs to bring about a negotiated two state solution with Israel, the Palestinians want none of it.
Over half of Palestinians Arabs in both the West Bank and Gaza are opposed to a two state solution. The trend line according to Palestinian polls has only gotten worse over time.
Opposition to the “Two State Solution” hit an all-time high of 62.8% in the West Bank according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
In both the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian Arabs preference is for an “armed struggle,” surpassing those interested in a peace agreement.
West Bankers prefer violence to a peace agreement according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
Gazans prefer violence to a peace agreement by over a 2-to-1 margin, according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
In Gaza, the Palestinians prefer the status quo – which we have been told over-and-again is absolutely horrible – at almost the same rate as peace!
The United Nations’ adopted wards have no interest in negotiating with Israel or a two state solution, but politicians like to perform on the global stage, imagine that they are uniquely gifted to break the century-old logjam and win Noble prizes.
The United Nations, as an institution, was designed to be an impartial party which would bring peace and order to a chaotic world.
If only.
The opening lines of the UN Charter note the “equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,” and Article 2 specifically called out the “principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Equality seemed a cornerstone of the principles of the organization.
But the United Nations has continued to prefer a particular non-member OVER AND ABOVE an existing member. Specifically, the Palestinian Authority over the State of Israel.
The head of the United Nations, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, appointed a Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, by all accounts a good idea to keep the volatile region from spinning out of control and to serve as an impartial envoy to bring the PA and Israel together to forge an enduring peace.
But Guterres did not pick someone to act as a neutral party. He appointed Tor Wennesland, who has a history of working and supporting the Palestinians and other Muslim Arabs in the region. He served as:
Norway’s chairman of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee for Palestine
Norway’s Representative to the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2011
Norwegian Ambassador to Egypt and Libya from 2012 to 2015
Even worse and more telling, Guterres also asked Wennesland to act as his Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. This person was not selected to bring the warring parties together but to act on behalf of only one party – the PA – a non-member of the United Nations.
The appointment should have been roundly rejected by Israel as an affront to the peace process and by the entire membership body of the United Nations, as the leader of the organization promoted the agenda of a non-member state over those of a member.
The systemic anti-Israel bias in the United Nations is found in every corner, from the dozens of member states that refuse to recognize the Jewish State, to the Secretary General himself, who by now has become deeply stained in that toxic sea of anti-Semitism.
First One Through 