{"id":10857,"date":"2024-04-28T11:01:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T11:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=10857"},"modified":"2024-04-28T11:04:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T11:04:26","slug":"israels-anti-unrwa-campaign-falls-flat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/israels-anti-unrwa-campaign-falls-flat\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s Anti-UNRWA Campaign Falls Flat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr Binoy Kampmark
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Israeli authorities, in their campaign of remorseless killing, doctoring and adjusting the numbers of the Palestinian populace for whatever future awaits, have been found wanting on accusations that Hamas terrorists packed, stacked and filled UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not that this, in of itself, negates the need to feed, clothe and provide medical assistance to Palestinians being pummelled into oblivion.  Or avoid committing war crimes against them.  Or avoid starving, humiliating, and degrading them through administrative fiat and bureaucratic oppression.  By any estimation, bad apples do not destroy the entire crop, and still need harvesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the outset, Israel asserted that 12 such individuals in UNRWA had participated in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, sharing the sparse details<\/a> on January 29 with media outlets.  The grateful recipients of the alleged scandal proceeded to gorge on the thin morsel comprising a few pages.  The Financial Times<\/em>, for instance, wrote<\/a> of Israel\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs having \u201csomething explosive on their agenda\u201d, even if 12 suspects from a Gaza complement of 13,000 would have barely caused a ripple in any other circumstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen donor governments, in a fit of stretched moral outrage, froze promised funding, insisting that investigations by the organisation be undertaken.\u00a0 The UN\u2019s Office of International Oversight Services immediately commenced an investigation while US$444 million was withheld from an aid agency that has assisted dispossessed Palestinians for three-quarters of a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 5, the UN Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres announced that an independent panel would assess \u201cwhether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made.\u201d  The panel, chaired by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, and also comprising the work of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, released its findings on April 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full report<\/a>, titled \u201cIndependent review of mechanisms and procedures to ensure adherence by UNRWA to the humanitarian principle of neutrality\u201d, was marked by a total absence of cooperation from Israeli authorities.  Two requests from the Colonna-led inquiry in March and April requesting names and details to support Israel\u2019s allegations died in silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its findings, UNRWA was found to have, in place, \u201ca significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles, with the emphasis on the principle of neutrality, and that it possesses a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Palestinians<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palestinians in Gaza see UNRWA funding cuts as \u2018death sentence\u2019 \u2013 Cartoon [Sabaaneh\/Middle East Monitor]
<\/em>
It also noted that staff lists, comprising names and functions, are shared on an annual basis with Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel and the US for East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.\u00a0 It falls on the states in question \u201cto alert UNRWA of any information that may deem a staff member unworthy of diplomatic immunity.\u201d\u00a0 The report further notes that \u201cthe Israeli Government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.\u201d \u00a0Regarding the March 2024 list, Israel made public allegations \u201cthat a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.\u00a0 However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report does not ignore the challenges facing the agency in the Gaza Strip, one made more complex since Hamas took over the reins of the territory in 2007.  It found, generally, that the agency had been admirable in maintaining its neutrality in such trying circumstances, though identified eight \u201ccritical areas\u201d for improvement, among them addressing the neutrality of education, the political position of staff unions, staff and behaviour, and management and internal oversight mechanisms. UNRWA schools, for instance, were not found to be breeding grounds of antisemitism, though some \u201chost-country textbooks with problematic content\u201d were being used in them.  Other areas needing rectification are unlikely to be taken, given the need for Israeli cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the report\u2019s executive summary notes, \u201cIn the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite refusing to furnish any solid evidence, Israel was already preparing the ground for refusal and refutation ahead of the release.  Any findings would be ignored with a fanatic\u2019s adamance.  While the country jumps at every opportunity to conduct investigations into its own military misconduct at the drop of hat, with the inevitable exonerations, no external review would convince them.  Nothing short of the destruction of the agency would satisfy the objectives of the Israeli state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Binoy Kampmark The Israeli authorities, in their campaign of remorseless killing, doctoring and adjusting the numbers of the Palestinian populace for whatever future awaits, have been found wanting on accusations that Hamas terrorists packed, stacked and filled UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). Not that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,307,185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-172","category-main-news","category-palestinian-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10860,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857\/revisions\/10860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}