UN’S UNRWA — what’s happening? Ongoing distress from UN

Israelis protest against the U.N. Relief and Works Agency outside one of its offices in Jerusalem, March 20, 2024. Photo courtesy of Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

 

UN’S UNRWA  — what’s happening? Ongoing  distress from UN

By DOUGLAS ALTABEF

JNS

 

It is not the norm in Israel today to have a broad-based, across-the-aisle consensual vote in the Knesset that results in the passage of legislation. Yet that is exactly what happened, as 92 out of 120 Knesset members voted to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from any activities within sovereign Israel. This is an important exercise in self-respect and moral clarity, as UNRWA has shown itself time and again to be an active actor and abettor of terrorism.

Why is this law an important statement and a necessary act?

UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 pogrom and have actively supported Hamas by housing hostages and weapons in the residences of its employees, as well as giving Hamas aid and comfort.

UNRWA has availed itself of the immunity granted to the United Nations and its affiliates, and has used that immunity in a fifth-column fashion to actively oppose Israel.

The law bans UNRWA from any presence or activities in sovereign Israel, so their significant presence in eastern Jerusalem will be shut down.

In addition, the law strips UNRWA of immunity, not only in sovereign Israel but in Gaza as well. This means that Israel can arrest and prosecute UNRWA employees who act on behalf of or in conjunction with Hamas.

It is not an overstatement to say that this legislation represents a distinct disavowal of the Oct. 6, 2023 “conceptzia” and proof that political consensus can be reached in asserting Israel’s rights, interests and values.

A likely testimony to the significance of the legislation is that it has generated hysterical handwringing among many in the West. This would be expected, of course, with the United Nations itself, which has threatened to evict Israel from the international body because of its effrontery.

Many Western leaders are heavily invested in keeping a lid on an unsustainable status quo and, in the name of cheaper oil, would prefer to see Israel perennially at risk. They, too, have warned of dire consequences for this action.

International pressure was quite intense in the days leading up to the Knesset vote, leading many to conclude that somehow the proposed legislation would be delayed or diluted or just pulled.

Surely, the internal assessment here had to recognize that Israel would get no benefit from caving into international pressure. The United Nations would take a few days to find something else to condemn.

So, an Israel that can eviscerate Hamas, decapitate Hezbollah and pull the curtain back from a seemingly invulnerable Iran can stand up, yet again, and exile UNRWA. While this seems self-evident, getting to the point of actual legislation required a Herculean effort.

While several Knesset members were stalwart, focused and determined to make banning UNRWA a reality, the legislation might not have happened without the intense, persistent and focused efforts of the grassroots Zionist NGO Im Tirtzu.

For the past year, Im Tirtzu activists have protested loudly outside UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem. They have continuously detailed UNRWA’s treacherous activities in Gaza on behalf of Hamas in Israeli media. They also have been asking Knesset members and other government officials how Israel could give aid and comfort within its borders to an active enemy.

When the Nobel Peace Prize Committee recently accepted the nomination of UNRWA for the Nobel Peace Prize award, Im Tirtzu immediately launched a petition drive denouncing the very idea that this award could possibly be presented to UNRWA and that doing so would stand as an ineradicable stain on the integrity of the peace prize.

Upwards of 50,000 signatures were secured within 72 hours, representing a strong and broad-based revulsion for the hypocrisy of UNRWA.

Im Tirtzu has made banning UNRWA its signature “fighting for the home-front” initiative. Reflecting, as Im Tirtzu very often does, the sensibilities and perspectives of “Middle Israel,” meaning that the great majority of Israeli society is in sync with this initiative, which had a powerful impact on Knesset leaders.

This legislation has to be seen as yet another innovative, out-of-the-box Israeli victory in the ongoing war thrust upon us. Banning UNRWA is an act of keeping faith with our soldiers, with the hostages and their families, and with all those who have sacrificed to uproot and destroy those who sought to destroy us.

 

Israeli UN envoy: UNRWA ‘payroll resembles a most-wanted list’

By MIKE WAGENHEIM

JNS

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday, Oct. 29, hit back against criticism of Jerusalem’s outlawing of the scandal-plagued United Nations Relieve and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Speaking at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Ambassador Danny Danon said, “In the last year, we have exposed UNRWA in Gaza as a terrorist front camouflaged as a humanitarian agency,” adding, “Its payroll resembles a most-wanted list, rather than an aid organization.”

The meeting was the Security Council’s quarterly open debate on the Israeli-Palestinian file, with some 50 countries participating. Many took Israel to task for the Knesset’s recent passage of a pair of laws that effectively end UNRWA’s presence in Israel, and strip its employees of their diplomatic privileges.

UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian-only aid and social services agency, has long been accused of ties to Gazan terror organizations. UNRWA staff were found to have participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom on Israel.

In recent weeks, UNRWA acknowledged that Fathi al-Sharif, the Hamas commander in Lebanon, killed in an Israeli airstrike, was a UNRWA school principal and chief of the UNRWA teachers’ union.

Mohammad Abu Itiwi, a UNRWA driver in Gaza and a Hamas commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike recently in a U.N. vehicle, was shown to have led a slaughter of civilians on Oct. 7, 2023 at a bomb shelter in southern Israel. Despite this, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres still referred to Abu Itiwi as a “colleague” upon his death, a sentiment Danon has denounced.

“Abu Itiwi led his men in murdering almost all of the young people hiding in the shelter and kidnapping the survivors,” Danon told the council. “A U.N. paycheck was waiting for him in his letter box when he went back to Gaza.”

Danon also chastised the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission along the Israeli-Lebanese border, for “neglecting its reporting obligations” for two decades, following the presentation of Israeli evidence, including that collected in the current conflict, of massive Hezbollah military presence within UNIFIL’s operating area.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Washington’s U.N. ambassador, was among those expressing concern at the Knesset’s UNRWA legislation.

“There is no denying the fact: Some UNRWA personnel were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks,” said Thomas-Greenfield.

While acknowledging steps toward reform UNRWA has taken while criticizing the slow pace of their implementation, Thomas-Greenfield called on Guterres to “create a mechanism to review and address allegations that UNRWA personnel have ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups.”

At the same time, Thomas-Greenfield asserted, “there is no alternative to UNRWA when it comes to delivering food and other life-saving aid in Gaza.” Israel has insisted other U.N. agencies can step in and manage UNRWA’s responsibilities.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. envoy, told the council that Israel’s new UNRWA laws constitute “a new level in this war against the U.N. and an integral part of an all-out assault on the Palestinian people.”

Guterres announced he would take his concerns to the U.N. General Assembly. A knowledgeable U.N. source indicated the body is likely to take Israel to the International Court of Justice over the issue.  While ICJ rulings are generally of an advisory nature and largely ignored by Israel, ICJ decisions are binding when it comes to matters of disagreement between the United Nations and a member state over provisions of the U.N. Charter.

 

Albanese congressional briefing canceled, but UN adviser gets U.S. visa for speaking tour

By MIKE WAGENHEIM

JNS

Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestinian rights whose anti-Semitic statements have been widely criticized, is stateside on a tour of college campuses presenting her latest report that accuses the Jewish state of genocide.

“As U.N. special rapporteur Albanese visits New York, I want to reiterate the U.S. belief she is unfit for her role,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated on Tuesday, Oct. 29. “The United Nations should not tolerate anti-Semitism from a U.N.-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”

Albanese is scheduled to present her report to the United Nations and her speaking tour itinerary includes Georgetown University, Princeton University, Barnard College, City University of New York and the New School.

JNS sought comment multiple times from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, which hosted Albanese on Tuesday. Barnard directed JNS to a statement it issued defending the school’s invitation to Albanese and stating that its “educational mission depends on the exploration of challenging ideas” and hosting Albanese “does not constitute institutional endorsement.”

“Given her long track record of blatant anti-Semitic rhetoric and open hatred for Israel, U.N. special rapporteur Francesca Albanese must be deemed a persona non grata in all halls of power,” the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement stated. The Anti-Defamation League added, “How can someone who engages in anti-Semitism be trusted to promote human rights?”

“The latest report by Francesca Albanese is a gross perversion of history, weaponizing Holocaust comparisons to demonize Israel while ignoring the terror of Hamas. This inflammatory rhetoric must be confronted,” the World Jewish Congress stated. “United Nations, it’s time to stop platforming anti-Semitism.”

Albanese recently wrote on that she is “deeply disappointed that various Western governments and diplomats appear to have been misled by spurious, recycled allegations against me, just as I prepare to present my latest report to the U.N. General Assembly next week.”

“I am profoundly committed to human rights for all people—how could I ever be an anti-Semite? Critique of Israel’s actions and policies does not render one anti-Semitic, especially as Israel continues to commit atrocities without respite,” she wrote. “If these governments are truly committed to international law, they ought to focus not on false claims made about me, but on ending the illegal and catastrophic situation in occupied Palestine.”

“Nobody is misled, Francesca Albanese,” said Anthony Housefather, a member of the Canadian Parliament and the country’s special advisor on Jewish community relations and anti-Semitism. “You continue to use anti-Semitic tropes and do so repeatedly. These statements make you completely unfit for the office you hold, and Canada, the United States and France were absolutely correct in calling you out on what you have said.”

Blaming Jewish Media

The anti-Israel activist Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, stated recently that reports in Jewish news media are to blame for calling attention to Albanese’s scheduled briefing of congressional staff.

Recently, Jewish Insider reported that Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) had issued the invitation. That led “higher ups” calling Carson, which made the latter “get scared” and cancel the briefing, Benjamin claimed.

Albanese has a growing record of anti-Semitic rhetoric, including comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, posting on social media about Israeli “blood lust” and stating that a “Jewish lobby” controls the United States. The French and German governments condemned her past comments, including denying that Jew-hatred played a role in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack in southern Israel.

Other senior U.S. diplomats beyond Thomas-Greenfield—including Michele Taylor, Washington’s ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council, and Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s anti-Semitism envoy—have denounced Albanese’s anti-Semitism repeatedly.

After Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Albanese stated that the terrorist and Oct. 7 attack mastermind died “in a way that is quite inhumane.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, issued a report ahead of Albanese’s trip referring to her as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Her rhetoric is getting more and more wild,” Neuer told JNS, noting that Albanese repeated the debunked assertion that Israel bombed a Gazan hospital in the early days of the war, killing hundreds. Evidence quickly and definitively revealed far less damage and many fewer casualties than Hamas had reported initially, and it proved that errant rocket fire from Gaza—and not an Israeli attack—was to blame.

“She’s spreading every wild lie. Of course, releasing the genocide libel is exactly that. It’s a blood libel. It’s a danger,” Neuer said. “She is fueling attacks on Jews all around the world, who invoke her reports to attack Jews.”

No U.S. Visa Wavering

Neuer told JNS that the United States should have never granted Albanese a visa to visit. “She should be removed from the country,” he said.

“It’s absurd the United States would have its ambassador to the United Nations saying that she’s fomenting anti-Semitism, their ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, their special envoy combating anti-Semitism, the State Department in their own statements condemning her repeatedly for anti-Semitism, for racism, and then to open doors to her,” Neuer told JNS.

Many countries have denied visas to applicants on the grounds of anti-Semitism. Australia rejected an application recently from anti-Semitic American podcaster Candace Owens.

JNS asked Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, during the department’s Tuesday, Oct 29, briefing whether Foggy Bottom takes anti-Semitic comments into account when it weighs visa applicants.

“We have an obligation as the host country for the United Nations,” Miller told JNS. “We take that obligation very seriously, and one of those obligations is to grant visas to any number of individuals with views with which we do not agree.”

“The Russian foreign minister travels to New York to participate in United Nations meetings,” Miller said. “That is our obligation as the host of the United Nations, and it’s one that we take seriously.”

Albanese is under investigation by a U.N. committee of her peers—who had rejected the pending accusations against her before helming the investigation—that she misused U.N. funds during a November 2023 trip to Australia and New Zealand. During the trip, she spoke at a fund-raiser for a Hamas-aligned pro-Palestinian lobby group and pushed for a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel, among other violations of U.N. policy.

Questions about who funded the trip remain unanswered after a Hamas-aligned lobbying group initially announced its “sponsorship” of Albanese’s trip.

After months of inquiries, the United Nations told JNS that it paid for the trip, although it has yet to provide any documentation to back that claim.

In a letter sent on Monday Oct. 28, to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that a pair of Knesset laws to banish UNRWA from Israel “could” prevent the Palestinian-only aid agency from operating in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem.

In the letter, obtained by JNS, Guterres appeals to Netanyahu and his government “to prevent such devastating consequences and to allow UNRWA to continue carrying out its activities,” citing international law.

Guterres took particular exception to a clause in one of the newly passed laws prohibiting any activity by UNRWA “within the sovereign territory of the State of Israel,” which would include all parts of Jerusalem.

He wrote that the U.N. deems eastern Jerusalem “to be part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and that Israel is not entitled to sovereignty over, or to exercise sovereign powers, in any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory on account of its occupation.”

U.N. officials have previously stated that UNRWA’s work would be impossible to carry out with the passage of the laws, which also require the severance of communication between Israel and UNRWA—something Guterres writes would in effect serve as a violation of Israel’s supposed responsibility to provide for “the needs of the population” in territory the U.N. deems occupied.

Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught on Israel, with Netanyahu refusing to take Guterres’ calls. The discord came about as a result of a statement in late October 2023 by Guterres, claiming there was no justification for the Hamas attacks before asserting the massacres didn’t happen “in a vacuum,” then running through a laundry list of declared Palestinian grievances.

The statement, which Guterres refused to retract, caused a downward spiral in U.N.-Israel relations, leading up to Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declaring earlier this month that Guterres is persona non grata in Israel.

Israel withdrew all its citizens from the Gaza Strip in 2005, two years before Hamas’s violent takeover of the Palestinian Authority in the enclave. Subsequent terrorist activity led to Israeli restrictions in and around the Strip.

The United Nations also considers eastern Jerusalem, which Israel liberated from Jordan in the defensive 1967 Six-Day War, occupied. Guterres endorsed a U.N. General Assembly resolution passed earlier this year that calls for the removal of Jews from Jerusalem’s historic Old City and other Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

Guterres’s letter to Netanyahu also included a suggestion that the U.N. could initiate a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, which resolves differences between the U.N. and member states. “I will continue to update the General Assembly on the matter so the Assembly can consider appropriate action,” Guterres wrote.

The letter makes no mention of UNRWA’s documented ties to Palestinian terror organizations, including Hamas, which sparked the legislation Guterres denounced.