A hell of a lot of very reasonable countries have done this, questions should definitely be asked as to why we feel they’re wrong.
It’ll be paused soon I imagine, there’s no way European countries have taken the decision to pause aid lightly, reckon more stuff will come out
The problem with the UN is that they employ local people to do a lot of support work. It’s impossible to know where sympathies lie when you do this.
I have friends who worked for UNRWA, who thankfully finished up before the current wave of fighting broke out. Their day to day lives were absolutely nuts. Often needing to head into the UN’s bunkers to shelter from Israeli airstrikes, which were indiscriminate and would have killed them in their houses. These people were white Irish born and raised here, and I often wonder because of that, if they were stuck there now, would any of these countries dare to be casting the same aspersions on UNRWA? The US, UK, Germany etc. have deliberately instilled in the minds of western people the idea that the org is completely staffed by unvetted locals who must be jihadis because they’re Arab.
The truth is that they do so much incredible work, in most cases the only schools available to kids, the only source of healthcare or feminine hygiene is UNRWA. And it makes me sick to my stomach to imagine what would have happened to my friends if they hadn’t got out before the so-called “international community” started to demonise their work.
The Israeli’s have usually spun a slick publicity video of their “evidence and proof” during the last 4 months, weapon hauls in hospital’s, massive underground tunnel complexes, lists of hostages under Hamas control etc etc, which have turned out to be more false propaganda.
I’ll wait for the proof
With 30,000 workers and vast majority of them locals there will always be Hamas infiltrators and sympathizers and this seems like a complete overreaction orchestrated by Israel. If UNRWA leadership knew in advance who these people were and covered it up that’s a different story and management must pay a price. But you can’t cut off vital funding for services to 2 million people because of this.
That’s like saying if the guards had a few IRA moles and sympathizers during the troubles that we should have defunded the entire force
This war is so horrendous. When you read up about some of what Hamas did, it’s unbelievably sick. I personally know some Israelis whose family members were killed and some are still hostages. It’s so horrible. And in defending Palestinian people, we should not discount how barbaric the kidnappings by Hamas was and the impact that has had on Israelis.
However, on one side you have Hamas, a terrorist organisation. On the other side, you have the IDF and the Israeli government. The equivalent would be if the British government had bombed Ireland due to the actions of the IRA in the 70s and 80s, or the Irish government had bombed England due to the actions of the UDF. Completely inconceivable that a government would bomb civilians in a country, block aid and cause starvation, due to actions from a terrorist organisation.
Israel calls itself the only democracy in the middle east, and say they are the only middle eastern country to support equality, but its hard to reconcile how they view themselves and their actions in Palestine.
When it comes to the UNRWA, this is not the first time when employees of organisations like this have done terrible things during major crises. It’s a large organisation, and difficult to weed out every bad actor I’m sure. But they need to figure out how to vet people to a deeper level.
Days after Israel was accused of genocidal intent by the ICJ and ordered to stop murdering Palestinians and let aid in to Gaza, the leaders of the “International Community” who arm and support the genocide line up to defund an agency providing lifesaving aid to 2 million people, based on allegations concerning 12 people by the genocidal state that has been constantly lying and accusing everyone in Gaza of being Hamas terrorists.
Utterly depraved.
For anyone who thinks the UNRWA are some benign aid group, have a read of what they really get upto: https://unwatch.org/tag/unrwa/.
Israel, being the spoiled child as always, convinced others to suspend funding as revenge against ICG.
When this all started, I said that in a few years time when it was all over those who supported Israel would hum and haw and pretend they didn’t enthusiastically support the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Now, I’m convinced that in a few years they won’t even have had the introspection to do that, they’ll admit their involvement freely.
11 comments
A hell of a lot of very reasonable countries have done this, questions should definitely be asked as to why we feel they’re wrong.
It’ll be paused soon I imagine, there’s no way European countries have taken the decision to pause aid lightly, reckon more stuff will come out
The problem with the UN is that they employ local people to do a lot of support work. It’s impossible to know where sympathies lie when you do this.
I have friends who worked for UNRWA, who thankfully finished up before the current wave of fighting broke out. Their day to day lives were absolutely nuts. Often needing to head into the UN’s bunkers to shelter from Israeli airstrikes, which were indiscriminate and would have killed them in their houses. These people were white Irish born and raised here, and I often wonder because of that, if they were stuck there now, would any of these countries dare to be casting the same aspersions on UNRWA? The US, UK, Germany etc. have deliberately instilled in the minds of western people the idea that the org is completely staffed by unvetted locals who must be jihadis because they’re Arab.
The truth is that they do so much incredible work, in most cases the only schools available to kids, the only source of healthcare or feminine hygiene is UNRWA. And it makes me sick to my stomach to imagine what would have happened to my friends if they hadn’t got out before the so-called “international community” started to demonise their work.
The Israeli’s have usually spun a slick publicity video of their “evidence and proof” during the last 4 months, weapon hauls in hospital’s, massive underground tunnel complexes, lists of hostages under Hamas control etc etc, which have turned out to be more false propaganda.
I’ll wait for the proof
With 30,000 workers and vast majority of them locals there will always be Hamas infiltrators and sympathizers and this seems like a complete overreaction orchestrated by Israel. If UNRWA leadership knew in advance who these people were and covered it up that’s a different story and management must pay a price. But you can’t cut off vital funding for services to 2 million people because of this.
That’s like saying if the guards had a few IRA moles and sympathizers during the troubles that we should have defunded the entire force
This war is so horrendous. When you read up about some of what Hamas did, it’s unbelievably sick. I personally know some Israelis whose family members were killed and some are still hostages. It’s so horrible. And in defending Palestinian people, we should not discount how barbaric the kidnappings by Hamas was and the impact that has had on Israelis.
However, on one side you have Hamas, a terrorist organisation. On the other side, you have the IDF and the Israeli government. The equivalent would be if the British government had bombed Ireland due to the actions of the IRA in the 70s and 80s, or the Irish government had bombed England due to the actions of the UDF. Completely inconceivable that a government would bomb civilians in a country, block aid and cause starvation, due to actions from a terrorist organisation.
Israel calls itself the only democracy in the middle east, and say they are the only middle eastern country to support equality, but its hard to reconcile how they view themselves and their actions in Palestine.
When it comes to the UNRWA, this is not the first time when employees of organisations like this have done terrible things during major crises. It’s a large organisation, and difficult to weed out every bad actor I’m sure. But they need to figure out how to vet people to a deeper level.
Days after Israel was accused of genocidal intent by the ICJ and ordered to stop murdering Palestinians and let aid in to Gaza, the leaders of the “International Community” who arm and support the genocide line up to defund an agency providing lifesaving aid to 2 million people, based on allegations concerning 12 people by the genocidal state that has been constantly lying and accusing everyone in Gaza of being Hamas terrorists.
Utterly depraved.
For anyone who thinks the UNRWA are some benign aid group, have a read of what they really get upto: https://unwatch.org/tag/unrwa/.
Israel, being the spoiled child as always, convinced others to suspend funding as revenge against ICG.
When this all started, I said that in a few years time when it was all over those who supported Israel would hum and haw and pretend they didn’t enthusiastically support the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Now, I’m convinced that in a few years they won’t even have had the introspection to do that, they’ll admit their involvement freely.