Shut down UNRWA! part 1

This is a call to action, and you won't find a lot of those in this blog. It's time to raise awareness around the world to the nature of this organization and its actions. It's time everybody knew the difference between what this body claims to do and what it actually does.

It has nothing to do with your political persuasion. Whether you're 'left' or 'right', pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, pro-Two-State-Solution or pro-One-State-Solution.

It's time for everyone to unite and call to shut down UNRWA!

Make no mistake, this call is not only because of the recent developments. It's not only because of the suspicion that the Hamas mortar that killed a 4-year-old boy on Friday, was fired from an UNRWA school. It's not only because of the fact that terror rockets were found on three different occasions in UNRWA schools in Gaza. It's not only because UNRWA returned the missiles to the "local authorities" - i.e. Hamas terrorists on at least one of the occasions. Make no mistake, these developments are horrific, and could certainly be enough to make such a call, or at least a call to launch a serious investigation into UNRWA and its conduct. But the reasons to shut down this corrupt facility go way deeper than that.

UNRWA - United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or as their logo states in short, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, and The UNHCR - The United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees, or as their logo states in short, The UN Refugee Agency, were created roughly at the same time and, you'd think, for the same reasons.

Notice any difference?

The difference, however, is not only in the logo and the tagline. Lets see what the agencies tell us about themselves in their own websites!

UNHCR mandate: "The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide."

UNRWA mandate: "We provide assistance and protection for some 5 million registered Palestine refugees to help them achieve their full potential in human development."

UNHCR statement of purpose: "Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country."

UNRWA statement of purpose: "The Agency’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance, including in times of armed conflict."

UNHCR defines refugees through the legislation of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention: "a refugee is a person who is outside his or her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail him — or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution." They also add that: "A person may no longer be a refugee when the basis for his or her refugee status ceases to exist. This may occur when, for example, refugees voluntary repatriate to their home countries once the situation there permits such return. It may also occur when refugees integrate or become naturalized in their host countries and stay permanently."

UNRWA has its own, unique definition, as it proudly states: "UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees. It has contributed to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees, defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are also eligible for registration."

UNHCR in figures: Around 8,600 employees, dealing with some 34 million refugees worldwide.

UNRWA in figures: More than 30,000 employees, only some 200 of them are not "Palestinian refugees" themselves, dealing with some 5 million "Palestine refugees".

UNHCR achievements: "In more than six decades, the agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives."

UNRWA achievements: "When the Agency began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services."

UNHCR (left) and UNRWA. More than a cosmetic difference.

Got it?

There are two kinds of refugees in the world: "Palestine refugees" and all other refugees. One agency is busy resettling refugees, another simply "takes care of them". One agency solves refugee problems, another perpetuates them. 

One group of refugees are the immediate individuals in need, another group passes their "refugee status" on to their children, grand children and grand-grand children. One group of refugees has to prove it was driven outside of their country of nationality or habitual residence, another has only to prove they resided in British Palestine for two years before the war (sorry, "indigenous Palestinian people" enthusiasts!). One group of refugees is dependant on objective criteria, another group is not dependant on anyhting at all. For example, it can have multi-millionaire "refugees", "refugees" who are already citizens of third countries, etc. One group seeks to get rid of its refugee status, another group seeks to join in by all means.

Unbelievable? Mind-blowing? Disturbing? Sickening? All of the above?

You're goddamn right!

After all it's not every day you get undeniable proof  of UN's double standards, hypocrisy, basic disregard of its own legislation and of any human decency whatsoever in its regard to the Israeli-Arab conflict directly from the horse's mouth!

So how did it ever come to this? How was UNRWA established? Why did "about 750,000 Palestine refugees" (a figure totally disproven) need a unique agency, with unique criteria all for themselves in a sea of tens of millions of refugees just like them?

When the attack of five Arab armies on the newly reborn state of Israel, with the stated purpose of "driving the Jews into the sea", surprisingly failed, some 609,071 Arab residents of British Palestine became refugees. Some were driven out by the winners, most escaped voluntarily, guided by the Arab promise of a quick triumph, after which they could return home, despite the Jewish leadership pleading them to stay and live side by side. Arab leadership insisted they leave, and after they've lost - surprise, surprise! - no place was found for them in the neighboring Arab countries. Instead of incorporating them in their countries they came up with the "Right of Return" for the Arab refugees of Palestine, which is in fact a Demand of Return, because no such "right" actually exists in international practice, no such precedent ever took place, no group of refugees nowhere in the world was ever eligible for such a "right".

Also, if we take into consideration some 800,000 Jewish refugees (around 200,000 more than the Arab ones) who were expelled from their (actual) ancestral homes in their Arab countries, following the Arab defeat in the War of Independence, who were incorporated in Israel as equal citizens, we get a simple population exchange. Yes, a sad practice. Yes, losing a home is always tragic. But, sadly, a common practice in the post WWII world, with more than 50 million people undergoing population exchange, as many new nation states were created. But, instead of acknowledging all this, the creation of UNRWA was pedalled. And voila! Whatever good and honest intention there might have been to the (initially temporary body) in the beginning, is long gone more than 60 years later.

Today there are roughly 8 times more people dependant on UNRWA than in 1950. 8 times more people still live in misery and want, unaccepted by their fellow Arab countries, unintegrated in their fellow Arab societies, living in conditions of true Apartheid (unlike the made-up, non-existent Israeli one). No one ever, in more then 60 years, lost his eligibility for UNRWA aid. The UNRWA register is filled with deceased individuals, "refugees" who in the meantime recieved citizenship elsewhere, grand children of refugees Why? To serve a weapon against the Jewish state, a means to vilify Israel at the cynical expense of their fellow Arabs. Since the original mandate (dealing with 1949 refugees) is no longer relevant in any way, UNRWA's mandate has developed and became more and more abstract to incorporate more and more fields, and employ more and more people. Now, this monster of corruption exists simply to keep existing and provide paychecks to its vast staff from the international community donations. 

When you try to sit down and look at the current events, and try to figure out why no solution seems to work, you have to go back to the beginning. And UNRWA was there at the biginning, part of the original sin, that perpetuates the conflict and the "Palestine refugee" status. UNRWA is nothing but an obstacle to peace. 

So, if you're pro-Palestinian, if you believe Palestinian refugees deserve the same human rights as everyone else on the planet, you must spread the word of the real nature of UNRWA. Talk about UNRWA, post about UNRWA, share information about UNRWA, use hashtag #ShutDownUNRWA on social media.

If you're ever serious about peace in the Middle East in our times, if you're ever serious about solving the Israeli-Arab conflict - UNRWA must go!

And just in case you're thinking, "sure, UNRWA perpetuates the problem, but it's also a legit, objective, non-aligned, humanitarian organization", then stay tuned for more coming up soon, as we'll explore some of UNRWA's recent activities and "achievements"!

Keep using those brains!

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History as farce

In 2002 Israel had to stop the, so called, "Second Intifada" - a bloody, terror war, waged against all Israelis by suicidal Arab terrorists. Israel launched operation Defensive Shield in the Arab towns and cities of Judea and Samaria. The operation along with the construction of the Security Barrier were eventually successful. Suicide bombings were practically entirely stopped. During the operation a tough battle took place in the, so called, "refugee camp" - really, a town just like any other, of Jenin. The Arabs made a huge international media uproar, claiming a "genocidal massacre" took place in the town, with the IDF "slaughtering" some 500 unarmed people. A propaganda "documentary" was even made by a prominent, successful Israeli Arab actor Mohammad Bakri, and naturally became a hit in film festivals.

The UN took the cries of the "oppressed, occupied Palestinians" very seriously and launched an investigation. The results? The claims of "massacre" turned out to be "slightly" exaggerated; 52 Arabs, not 500, were killed, most of them gunmen. Israel lost 23 soldiers in that battle, if anyone cares.

In 2008 Israel had to stop an increasing barrage of rockets, fired at Israeli civilian population from the Gaza strip. Israel launched operation Cast Lead to block the terrorist shelling on its villages, towns and cities. With the highest death toll since The Six Day War, the media uproar was higher than ever. Yet another UN Fact Finding mission was erected. Its conclusions, known as The Goldstone Report, were an absolute PR catastrophe for Israel, suggesting both parties might be guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.

Alas, to the dismay of the Antisemites all over the world, Judge Richard Goldstone publicly retracted his report two years later, especially those parts vilifying Israel.

And now it's 2014, and it's rockets from Gaza again, this time with terror tunnels, and it's operation Protective Edge. It's seems the operation is already practically over, but the death toll is alredy higher than that of Cast Lead. The Arabs with the omnipresent help of the bleeding hearts both from Israel and outside of it, are already drafting their statements, collecting their "evidence" and preparing the ground busily for their next day in court.

More than 1,800 Gazans were killed by the time I was typing these lines. Leading news outlets from all over the world claim that more than 80% of these victims are civilians, which immediately paints Israel as a bloodthirsty, trigger-happy monster in the eyes of the everyman. The world media is quick to take the word of official Gazan bodies on the matter, bodies with fancy, important-sounding names like "The Gaza Health Ministry" and "Gazan police". Both of these bodies are under the jurisdiction of... You got it! Hamas!

Your local media is cheerfuly citing Hamas as a credible sourse! Terror group Hamas, in case you were wondering, isn't exactly known for its truthfullness and honesty.

"The Independent" is independent from objectivity.

Now, lets play along for a second with the "official" data from Gaza, and assume it is actually accurate.

First of all, even with the ratios presented by Hamas, Israel would do better than the apparent norm of warfare.

Now, if indeed the goal of Israel was to "slaughter as many Gazans" as the Arab-leftist coalition tries to convince you, then the IDF, with its advanced weapons and powerful building-destroying missiles is not doing a very good job at all, is it? With the operation continuing for almost a month now, Israel's weapons in densely populated areas (and we've all heard the shameless "Gaza - the most densely populated city in the world lie"!), could achieve this amount in less than a day. In fact, the numbers presented by Gaza unwittingly prove Israel's restraint and care for civilian life. Don't get me wrong, every civilian casualty is a tragedy, and every Israeli would agree with me. But, here you have a country that's breaking world records in the extremes it takes to prevent the loss of civilian life, against an enemy that deliberately uses civilians as human shields, that considers every civilian death a victory to parade in front of the cameras.

If we take for granted Hamas data, then the unfortunate death of some 1,440 civilian casualties in an entire month of fighting is an astonishing, admirable, achievement of humanity on the part of the IDF.

Now, lets look at some more credible data. Until the fighting isn't completely over, we won't have fully accurate data, of course, but some agencies have already tried to name the dead. And I'm not talking about Israeli sources, don't jump! First, there's Al Jazeera, the well-known Arabic news outlet, and then there's The Palestinian Centre For Human Rights. Al Jazeera belongs to Qatar, that among other terrorist groups also funds Hamas, and the The Palestinian Centre For Human Rights... well, is just that. Not exactly "Zionist propaganda mouthpieces", are they? Now if you use the futuristic, unbelieavable, undoubtedly unavailable to any self-respecting, liberal journalist, tool of Excel, like the excellent team of CAMERA did, on the casualties names and ages presented by these bodies, you will notice a number of interesting patterns.

A graph of the male fatalities by age. The x axis is age, the y axis is the number of fatalities at the corresponding age. Graph produced by www.camera.org.

For example that fascinating jump in the number of male casualties, when they reach 17 that goes strong all the way to 39, when statistically this demographic numbers roughly 16% of the strip's population. Female casualties number less than 10% of all casualties, while they're roughly half of Gazan population. Teens under 17 and children represent about 20% of casualties. A tragedy, no doubt, but it is important to remember that in reality kids make up almost half of the population of Gaza.

Statistics on Palestinian society taken from the 'Palestinians at the end of 2013' report, 

produced by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. 

Now, while this analysis doesn't necessarily prove that the large chunk of young, able men of combat age are all terrorists, it certainly proves beyond a reasonable doubt Israel does NOT fire indescriminately and does NOT commit genocide. It also certainly raises way more than just a reasonable doubt on the "80% civilians" claim.

They say, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. If The Goldstone Report was a tragedy (and for Israel, it certainly was), then this impending future International Investigation into "Israel's crimes" by all means will be a farce, and first and foremost a farce for the UN, who once again allowed itself to be fooled by the "Palestinian Cause".

If useful idiots would ever use their brains, they wouldn't have been useful idiots.

Use your brains! Don't be a useful idiot!

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