The head of UNRWA pens an open letter to Palestinian refugees and UN staff, condemning the U.S. decision to defund the agency by stating “5.4 million men, women and children who cannot simply be wished away.”
The Trump administration’s decision to scrap all future aid payments to the main agency helping Palestinian refugees marks a new – and most likely disastrous – chapter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Donald Trump has fully, finally, abandoned America’s commitments to UNRWA. Marilyn Garson worked for UNRWA from 2013-2015, and writes that although UNRWA is no one’s ideal she advocates for the agency because it is vital, and because it is vastly preferable to the alternatives at hand. Garson writes, “UNRWA’s skills are not unique, but not one of them can be quickly replicated or scaled by others – particularly not in Gaza, Syria, or the West Bank. That is UNRWA’s real, underlying strength: it is there. That’s what has made it a straw man target for Donald Trump’s hatred.”
Your country for a country club! Israeli Housing Minister Yoav Galant inaugurated a swimming pool and country club in the Bedouin town of Rahat and made clear that the gift has a political price, accepting the Jewish nation state law and the higher value it gives to Jewish settlement of the land.
The UK Jewish establishment war on Jeremy Corbyn continues with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks likening him to British pol Enoch Powell, infamous for a bigoted speech. British Jewry is weakening its battle against real anti-Semitism, and weakening its connection to minority communities that face harsh discrimination.
Today Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat promised to kick out the UN agency responsible for refugee services, saying the move will support Israeli “sovereignty and unity of Jerusalem,” and called to “increase the Israelization” of East Jerusalem.
As the US declares it will stop assistance to UNRWA, the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem was fraught with worry. “Do you think the kids will go to school tomorrow?” a woman asked. “May God help us,” another could be heard saying.
After taking the Jerusalem issue off the table, Trump wants to do the same with Palestinian refugees by denying their right to return. The fiat is not only dangerous and reckless, James Zogby writes, it is cruel and insensitive, and violates international law and covenants.
Netanyahu’s speech on the strong surviving and weak crumbling echoes Hitler in 1923, but pointing out the resonance of Israel and Nazi Germany meets the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, Norman Finkelstein notes. And whose fault is that?