Israel’s Anti-UNRWA Campaign Falls Flat
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 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.
From the outset, Israel asserted that 12 such individuals in UNRWA had participated in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, sharing the sparse details 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, for instance, wrote of Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs having “something explosive on their agenda”, even if 12 suspects from a Gaza complement of 13,000 would have barely caused a ripple in any other circumstance.
Fifteen donor governments, in a fit of stretched moral outrage, froze promised funding, insisting that investigations by the organisation be undertaken. The UN’s 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.
On February 5, the UN Secretary General António Guterres announced that an independent panel would assess “whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made.” 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.
The full report, titled “Independent review of mechanisms and procedures to ensure adherence by UNRWA to the humanitarian principle of neutrality,” 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’s allegations died in silence.
In its findings, UNRWA was found to have, in place, “a 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.”
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. It falls on the states in question “to alert UNRWA of any information that may deem a staff member unworthy of diplomatic immunity.” The report further notes that “the Israeli Government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.” Regarding the March 2024 list, Israel made public allegations “that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations. However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.”
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 “critical areas” 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 “host-country textbooks with problematic content” were being used in them. Other areas needing rectification are unlikely to be taken, given the need for Israeli cooperation.
As the report’s executive summary notes, “In 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.”
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’s 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.
In March, The Guardian quoted one Israeli diplomatic source (nameless, naturally) as claiming that a “double game” was being played by Hamas and the agency, “so much so that UNRWA is a Hamas strategic asset.” Another nameless diplomatic source was of the view that the aid agency was “so penetrated in Gaza, it cannot be repaired. This is the policy of the state of Israel. We want to see an end to UNRWA activity in Gaza. This is not a case of a few bad apples. It is systemic, consistent and cannot be ignored.” Out, it would seem, with the entire orchard.
Presumption can therefore take the position of hard fact, a point made crystal clear in another round of allegations (no evidence supplied about that either) that 2,135 UNRWA staff were supposedly members of Hamas, of whom 400 were alleged to be active fighters.
From the perspective of lusty warmongers, UNRWA remains an obstacle, a nuisance, a nightmare of reminder to those wishing to be done with the Palestinian issue once and for all. May it continue to thrive, and, more ever, may its funders finally wise up to the fact that in the viciousness of conflict, civilians should never have to pay the price for military actions undertaken by others. Unfortunately, three months after, and a human-confected famine ravaging Gaza even as the killings continue, various donor countries such as the United States, Germany and the UK are still minding their wallets.
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Max Gross
Return to home pageThank you Dr. Kampmark for your excellent summary.
“Nothing short of the destruction of the agency would satisfy the objectives of the Israeli state.”
In that short sentence you state the desired end-point of Israeli strategy.
For quite specific reasons Israel wants UNRWA completely out of the picture. See comments to this article:
The fact that Western Governments together decided to withdraw funding to UHRWA, was bad enough, but it was the speed of the decision that was really apparent. What was going on here, and why the coordinated response – Australia included ?
Almost within an hour of the International Court’s ruling that the inhabitants of Gaza were at immediate risk of genocide was the decision made by the Western Governments to accelerate the likelihood of famine by stopping UNRWA funding.
It was not simply the coordinated response that was astonishing, but the speed involved.
Just think, how long it normally takes governments to do any damn thing – and yet here, and on such an important issue there was this incredibly fast response. I call that unprecedented.
The decision to withdraw funding meant the critical ICJ ruling was mostly forgotten, and the coordinated decision meant that the Western powers would not be prevented from effectively aiding genocide – either by international law or international institutions.
Given the likely effect upon the citizens of Gaza, I can’t see any other explanation being possible or plausible.
The same unified state-of-mind holds true for the massacre of children and infants. Neither that nor evidence of mass graves in hospitals will apparently move Western Governments to stop the carnage; and they continue to aid and abet this abominable process.
Work that one out if you can.
You have been warned.
“Any threat, however minor, or inconsequential, to the Zionist supremacy, in Western countries will immediately be responded to with a totally outrageous and murderous remedy.
What we say will not be ignored.
Truth is what we say it is, and we will be obeyed.”
Julian P, The former British Diplomat, now trenchant critic of Israel among other things, Craig Murray, writing in ConsortiumNews made the same point: how was it that within an hour of an adverse finding by the United Nations against Israel, most of its western supporter countries, including to its shame Australia, had lapped up a totally bullshit story about UNWRA staff being Hamas members and part of the October 7 action.
The decision to withhold funding, based on the spurious claims was so fast, so widespread and would have had to have involved incredible diplomatic discussions, that Murray suspects it was a pre-planned campaign.
The release of the results of the UN’s investigative committee, that there was no truth at all to the Israeli claims, should have our own Foreign Minister and our Prime Minister not,only hanging their heads in shame but immediately ending all support for Israel. The subsequent deliberate and systematic attack on the small convoy of UNWRA vehicles which killed six people including the Australian woman, should surely have persuaded our government that Israel is a rogue terrorist state undeserving of any support, even from any Australian sympathisers there might still be.
If the agency is so thorughly corrupted, there would be plenty of evidence. Provide it.
@RomeoCharlie
“..Murray suspects it was a pre-planned campaign.” That’s very interesting, but a very, very unpleasant idea.
The simple fact of speed and coordination was to me suspicious enough – given the likely consequences, but the possibility of “pre-planning” is something else again. I have to admit that did not occur to me, but in hindsight, perhaps it should have.
If Murray is correct it means that Western Governments are, and have for some time been committed to the destruction of Gaza and the removal of its people. And if so, what else is in play here ?
I realise that Israel would be the immediate beneficiary of an empty Gaza, but who else, and why, and what would that mean for other Mid-East Arab communities ? Would some of them (like Saudi Arabia) not be too much bothered ?
I suspect the dead hand of US foreign policy at work here, but to what end ?
There has been very little enquiry into the October 7 attack and whilst there have been reports that HAMAS neither authorised or organised the attack and that it was undertaken by an undisciplined radical splinter group, reprisals have prevented a full enquiry.
HAMAS had very little to gain from this vicious October attack on Israeli civilians, in fact, as has been revealed, they had everything to lose.
The IDF have suggested that HAMAS wanted to provoke Israel into an attack on Gaza to glean international support for their cause – but that doesn’t make any sense does it ?
JulianP, it might be nothing more than the continuing blind, dogged kowtowing to the Zionist lobbies on behalf of Israel that the US, UK, Germany and our own governments have demonstrated for so long. I can’t help but feel the increasingly heavy-handed responses to the pro-Palestinian rallies, particularly on US University campuses and in Germany, not to mention the unsubtle efforts to constrain protests here are increasing the pro-Palestinian sentiment, witness the strangulated, grudging moves on the part of the government towards Palestinian recognition.
I read in the NY Times that Israeli officials are concerned that arrest warrants are being prepared by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the apprehension of both Israeli and Hamas officials engaged in the October 7 Attack on Israel and the disproportionate retaliation on Gaza.
“The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.”
That should be interesting !
Effectively, Zionism was concocted to grab a slab, of an old and existing continuum of territory called Palestine, where Palestinians had lived for ages, and those residents there were mostly islamic and Arabic, but there were Jews, Christians, others. Nobody much had “title” as Europeans would require, for tradition and family and tribe determined culture, usage, ways of living, with nomadic herding prominent. To aim to turn a slab of grabbed territory into a dream and reality of an Israel suggests that violence was essential, murder and theft, occupation. Jews, often despised, had a trick in favour of this, in that Christian superstitions of all types included biblical stories, because the old testament gave strength to all superstitions deriving from abrahamic tradition, so, Orthodox, Catholics, the endless Protestant eruptions of fantasy and imagination, all allow for the accepted existence of abrahamic tales. Wronged and sinned against for centuries by Christians, Zionists were able to harness peculiar powers in dealings with Christians, in which money, power, control, war, win/lose strategic assessments all played parts. Non-jews were so often zionist believers, for getting rid of Europe’s jews, that chronic annoyance, and getting money to fight and win appealed to such as A Balfour. Balfour, the French, others, collaborated to ignore, disgracefully, the rights of Palestinians. There should be a Palestine now, if logical developments and commitments undertaken had been completed. By May, 1948, the betrayal, humiliation, injustice, began for Palestinians. Murder and theft continue as the wrong has always been assumed to be right, a right to an Israel. Much evil is yet to occur, each day, agony. When and how can this be stopped?
There’s only one certainty in this…it is not going to end well for the criminal Netanyahu or his extremist Zionist handlers.Nor for Israel itself.
@RomeoCharlie.
Thank you, it was kind of you to respond.
You mention the possibility that the reaction of the several Western Governments was part of a continuum – simply more of the same “blind, dogged kowtowing”. If you are right, and there’s certainly evidence for that in the long-standing policies of the governments you mention, it means that, by and large, the Palestinians are regarded as expendable, and that is indeed a chilling thought because apart from the depraved cynicism involved, it means that the wider Arab world thinks the same. Why is that, and what’s more important than finding a solution to this bloody mess?
Something that has always concerned me, and that I should have mentioned earlier, was not just the continuing material assistance provided by those Governments, especially over the last six months – which was bad enough given the murder and destruction, it was rather the strange silence of the Arab world – and this, long before the events of October 7. Yemen is of course excepted here.
The major reason advanced for the US brokered “Abraham Accords” in 2020 was to “normalise” Arab-Israeli relations. Agreements were signed with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco. Diplomatic relations had been established with Jordan in 1994.
It seems the “long-term plan” of the US, at least in its early stages, was designed to bring peace and stability to the area and so maximise commercial opportunities, but more importantly to negate the growing influence of both Iran and China.
As part of this process the US had apparently long wanted Saudi Arabia to join the party and establish cordial relations with Israel – particularly as there had been long-established but unofficial relations between the two, mainly in the sharing of intelligence. (Wikipedia).
Even though Saudi Arabia subsequently backed off the idea, citing increasing tensions with Palestinians over aggravated Israeli settlement policies, criticism of Israeli policy generally was either very muted or non-existent – as was the case with other Arab nations. Again, why?
Oh, and I forgot to mention the role of Egypt in all of this. Back in March this year it was reported that Egypt was “negotiating” with the IMF and others for a ten billion dollar loan.
“This coincided with the start of construction work on an “isolated security zone” in the eastern Sinai Desert on the border with the Gaza Strip, which many expect will serve as a buffer zone for displaced Palestinians.” If this deal has gone ahead, all the more reason for Egyptian silence.
[ https://johnmenadue.com/egypt-sells-out-palestinians-for-10-billion-loan-package/ ]
Overall it looks like the “economic imperative” has won out and the Palestinians discarded as worthless.
If anyone knows different, perhaps they could advise.
“Israel’s Anti-UNRWA Campaign Falls Flat”. Yes, but support for Israel’s military onslaught from mainstream press, especially here in Canada, ensured that the Anti-UNRWA Campaign did much damage while in full force.
The MSM have lost much of its humanity and independence. Today’s legacy news-media know quite well what readership butters most, if not all, of their bread and accordingly go in that self-compromised editorial direction.
The most journalistically compromised news-media I’ve read is Canada’s National Post newspaper. It epitomizes an extreme example of an echo chamber promoting unconditional support for the state of Israel, including its very-long-practiced cruelty towards the Palestinian people. And I mean unconditional support.
More progressive outlets like Canada’s other national newspaper, The Globe and Mail — progressive in regards to essentially following “woke” ideology — can be more deceitful and/or apologist in their pro-Israel coverage and especially op/ed writing since the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel.
I feel that genuine journalists with integrity would tender their resignations and publicly proclaim they can no longer help propagate their employer’s corrupt media product, be it from the Right or Left.
@FSJ, re. your final sentence, one would hope that in an ideal world – a fiction, unfortunately – that any journalist of integrity would tender his resignation rather than remain employed in the type of media company that you reference. The fact of being between a rock and a hard place, viz., employment within a cruelly biased and antihumanitarian organisation or being out of a job is a quandary of significant proportions. Journalism used to be a fine profession for fine minds. It’s a shadow of its former self these days, sadly.
It’s one thing to talk about the (tribal) Arabs (of the Arabian peninsula and immediate surrounds, they’ve been tip-toeing around the imbroglios of the Levant for millennia, as have the Egyptians. Since the wealth of oil in those regions, financial and tech exchange with the ‘west’ became a convenient mutuality.
As for matters with the empires and states to the north, ie: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it’s an entirely different matter. They are of a vastly different nature (influenced hugely by Iran), rugged, almost impenetrable and home to vast resources. The ‘west’, despite all its bungling interference and conquests, has never been able to crack them.
Russia has and still desires to subjugate them (like Georgia, Chechnia and Ukraine), so they hate Russia, yet Iran opts to dance a middle ground there. Whilst China remains ever vigilant, but knows better than to go in the way the Americans (and the exhausted coalition of the willing) might.
It’s a stoked hotbed almost irresistible to Anglo-America, and in the region, I see Israel and Anglo-America as pawns in each others separate aspirations.
Israel’s hasbara never rests. Bare-faced Zionist lying is state policy.