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Any Palestinians who yearn for peace and economic advancement for themselves and their families are suffering because of their leaders who traffic in violence, propaganda, absurd demands, and incitement of hatred

U.S. Special Envoy Schools UN Security Council on True Causes of Palestinians’ Plight



U.S. Special Envoy Schools UN Security Council on True Causes of Palestinians’ PlightJason Greenblatt, President Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations, schooled the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday regarding the obvious cause of Palestinian suffering in Gaza. He said that the Security Council needs “to admit that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are the primary barrier to the dreams of those residents of Gaza who want to live in peace, raise their families and find meaningful work.” Mr. Greenblatt condemned both terrorist organizations for continuing “to target Israeli hospitals and schools” and using Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields. He asked, “When will the Security Council say this out loud? When will we clearly reject this terrorism?”

Palestinian terrorists

The Palestinians’ friends and enablers backed the Palestinian victimhood narrative. For example, Kuwait’s representative declared, “We cannot speak of peace when the Israeli occupation spreads,” blaming Israeli settlements as the main obstacle to peace. South Africa’s representative blamed the grave situation in Gaza on what she charged was Israel’s illegal blockade. The facts support Mr. Greenblatt’s attribution of blame squarely on the Palestinian terrorists. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and four northern West Bank settlements. Around 8,500 Jewish settlers were uprooted. Israel Defense Forces installations and troops were removed. Israel’s disengagement cost nearly $3 billion. “Some 3,000 homes were razed altogether, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Haaretz reported. Israel left behind greenhouses and infrastructure including pipes and roads. “The disengagement decision holds hope for a better future; it transfers responsibility for the Strip to the Palestinians, who will be in charge of their destiny,” then Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said at the time. “Their true test will be to prevent terror.” Dr. Mohammed Samhouri, a Palestinian economist and academic who had served as a senior economic adviser to the Palestinian Authority, has written about what could have been if the Palestinians had followed a constructive path. Instead, especially after Hamas took over full control of Gaza in 2007, Gaza was turned into a launching pad for terrorist rocket attacks. Dr. Samhouri wrote that he “was a member of a hopeful group of technocrats who developed a clear roadmap for Gaza after Israel unilateral disengagement in 2005, and then watched as that plan collapsed.” After Hamas’s “violent takeover of the entire Gaza Strip,” he added, “it was all downhill from there for Gaza.”

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Israel did not initiate the violence wracking the Gaza region since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza

Israel did not initiate the violence wracking the Gaza region since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Israel only responded in self-defense to the escalating barrage of rockets and mortar fire, principally aimed by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists at Israeli civilian population centers. Israel also tightened security at border crossings and at sea to prevent the smuggling of arms into Gaza. The Palestinian terrorists brought devastation upon the residents of Gaza by their own aggressive acts, resulting in measures that Israel had to take to protect its own citizens. The latest round of violence involving Gaza earlier this month followed this same pattern. Lebanese journalist Nadim Koteich placed the blame where it belonged. "The peddling of the blood of the people of Gaza must stop. This battle was started by the Islamic Jihad, not by Israel," he said during an interview posted by MEMRI. "[Israel] was forced into this battle, in which it had no interest. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians should have turned the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza into an opportunity for a national Palestinian compromise. Instead, Hamas opted for a coup in 2007 and for a civil war…Hamas and The Islamic Jihad have thwarted all opportunities for peace, and they have ended up in a prison called Gaza." Mr. Greenblatt also used his remarks to the Security Council on Wednesday to criticize the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a failed “business model” and a mere “Band-Aid.” He said “what we do know is that it is time to move past Band-Aid solutions. This conflict is sad and tragic and complex, but we must stop pretending that UNRWA and United Nations resolutions will somehow resolve the conflict.”

UNRWA is a failed “business model”

Mr. Greenblatt’s remarks followed an impassioned plea by Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, to keep his sinking ship afloat with more donations. “In addition to strong political backing in 2019, we require $1.2 billion for all our operations,” he said. An upcoming UNRWA pledging conference in New York is currently scheduled for June 25, the same time when Bahrain will host an economic conference promoted by the Trump administration to discuss better ways to help the Palestinian people in a sustainable manner. After Mr. Greenblatt spoke, other members of the Security Council came to UNRWA’s defense. Mr. Krähenbühl also spoke a second time in defense of his agency. He laughably said that it was never the intention of anyone at UNRWA to see the Agency’s existence last this long. UNRWA has lasted this long because it perpetuates the so-called “right of return” that continues to treat Palestinians as “refugees” – even once they achieve a state of their own – until they can live in pre-1967 Israel. And UNRWA’s definition of Palestinian “refugee” is one that hands down this status from generation to generation ad infinitum. What began as 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 has now turned into at least 5 million, the vast majority of whom were born well after UNRWA was established originally as a temporary agency. There are an estimated 431 Palestinian births per day versus 49 deaths per day. There is a net increase of 1 person every 4 minutes. Even Palestinians living and considered citizens in Jordan are deemed “refugees” according to UNRWA. UNRWA is a failed “business model,” as Mr. Greenblatt said, because it “is inherently tied to an endlessly and exponentially expanding community of beneficiaries." UNRWA’s funding can never catch up with the ever-increasing demand for its services caused by UNRWA’s absurd definition of “refugees.”


UNRWA has become an instrument to perpetuate the Palestinian victimhood narrative

Moreover, with about half of UNRWA’s regular budget spent on education, UNRWA claims it must teach the curriculum that the Palestinian Authority creates because it is considered the “host” country. UNRWA claims to have developed supplementary “enrichment” materials teaching tolerance but has met with fierce resistance from the Palestinian officials in charge. In 2017, the Palestinian Authority Education Ministry issued a statement complaining that “[A]ny distortion of the Palestinian curriculum is a flagrant violation of the laws of the host country, and any change to any letter to appease any party is a betrayal of the Palestinian narrative and the right of the Palestinian people under occupation to preserve its identity and struggle.” UNRWA evidently caved to the Palestinian Authority’s demands. UNRWA Commissioner-General Krähenbühl promised that "UNRWA is completely committed to the Palestinian curricula, and that no change will be made in these curricula." The “Palestinian curricula” has included textbooks used by UNRWA within the last two years referring to Israel's membership in the UN organization itself as "The representative of the Occupation State at the UN." (Geography and Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, Grade 10, Part 2 (2017) p. 41) Another textbook referred to Israel as an “artificial entity that derives its identity and the legitimacy of its existence from tales, legends and fantasies and has tried in various ways and methods to create material evidence for those legends, or archaeological and architectural proofs that would attest to their reality, but in vain" ((Arabic Language – Academic Path, Grade 10, part 2 (2017) pp. 70-71). The Jewish holy site of the Western Wall in Jerusalem was referred to only as the Al-Buraq Wall in yet another textbook (Islamic Education, Grade 5, Part 1 (2017) p. 54). It stated that “the Muslims alone have absolute right to it." In other words, donor countries are expected to continue funding UNRWA’s schools that must use a curriculum replete with hateful indoctrination as dictated by Palestinian officials. On top of that, several UNRWA schools were discovered by UNRWA itself to have been used to harbor Hamas rockets. Any Palestinians who yearn for peace and economic advancement for themselves and their families are suffering because of their leaders who traffic in violence, propaganda, absurd demands, and incitement of hatred. UNRWA has become an instrument to perpetuate the Palestinian victimhood narrative.

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Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist -- Bio and Archives

Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.


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