HolyLandJustice.org

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, has tended to the needs of Palestinian refugees for nearly seven decades — if President Trump has his way, it will soon be out of business.

By Ishaan Tharoor | The Washington Post | Sep 4, 2018

Past US administrations were also slanted toward the Israelis, but what’s different today is that the usual mitigating factors in decision-making, such as American national security interests and the desire to at least appear evenhanded, no longer seem to be present. Instead we have domestic politics and ideology in their purest form dictating US policy on this issue.
— Khaled Elgindy, fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy

On Friday, the Trump administration said it would cease funding the UN agency, which was launched in 1949 to provide for more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel. Relying on volunteer donors — of which Washington has been the largest — UNRWA has had its mandate renewed repeatedly by the UN General Assembly as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dragged on. Over the decades, the population of Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories and now-semi-permanent camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon has ballooned to around 5 million, encompassing the descendants of the original exiles.

The White House, along with Israel’s right wing, argues that the rolls of recognized refugees should be limited to those alive in 1949 — a move at odds with other U.N. operations that also confer refugee status upon the descendants of the displaced. At a conference in Washington last week, Nikki Haley, Trump’s envoy to the United Nations, bemoaned the “endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance” and how “the Palestinians continue to bash America.” . . .

“There is only one thing that perpetuates the situation of refugees, including Palestinian refugees, and that is the extraordinary failure of the international community to bring about a just and fair and inclusive solution to the conflict,” Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said to The Washington Post’s Ruth Eglash.

Continue reading “Trump’s anti-Palestinian agenda will ultimately hurt Israel”

Slashing funds for the Palestinians is a radicalizing gift for terrorists — and a ticking time bomb for Israel’s security.

By Peter Lerner | Haaretz | Aug 26, 2018

The question is: will this doctrine bring peace, or will more, and potentially escalated, violence prevail? After all, in our region, poverty has been a breeding ground for radical recruitment, violence, and terrorism.

Over the weekend two indicators of the Trump Doctrine for the Middle East emerged. The first was an announcement from the US Department of State that $200 million earmarked for the aid for the Palestinians will be “redirected” from the West Bank and Gaza and be spent in accordance with U.S. national interests. USAID has been involved in developing Palestinian agriculture and infrastructure development — roads, and water supply and treatment.

The second, a leaked report that the Trump administration will announce at the beginning of September 2018 that it will cut its financial support for the operations of the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the West Bank. The beneficiaries of these operations include include 809,738 registered refugees, 19 refugee camps, 96 schools with 48,956 pupils, two vocational and technical training centers, 43 primary health centers, 15 community rehabilitation centers and 19 women’s program centers. . . .

Continue reading “Trump’s hardball Palestinian policy will blow up in Israel’s face”

It was time for her to see the other side.

By Rabbi Sharon Brous | Los Angeles Times | Aug 26, 2018

The rising generation of American Jews is increasingly alienated from Israel. They say they’re tired of the fantasy, a defensive story of half-truths. Yet many American Jewish community leaders, while wringing their hands over the lost generation, persist in the sanitized approach to teaching young people about Israel. They argue that it’s simply not possible to instill a love of Israel while exposing its faults. They are wrong.

I didn’t want to take my kid to the West Bank city of Hebron. A few years ago, a former Israeli paratrooper had guided me through the silent, “sterilized” streets of its old city, free of any Palestinian presence. I saw Hebrew graffiti triumphantly sprayed on sealed homes and shops, walked by the checkpoints that ensure complete separation of the Jewish and Muslim populations. Hebron is not an easy place to be — I wasn’t sure my 14-year-old was ready for it.

My family and I travel to Israel as often as we can. Our kids’ bedtime stories are tales of the struggles and triumphs of the Jewish people, our people. They have learned Hebrew as a living language. They love Israeli culture and food and they FaceTime their cousins in Tel Aviv nearly every day.

And we speak honestly and critically with them about what’s happening in Israel, just as we do about what’s happening in the United States. We talk about the miracles and the missteps, the dreams fulfilled and those unrealized. And now, at 9, 12 and 14, they’re old enough to begin to understand the complexities.

Continue reading “My daughter loves the miracle of Israel”

Norwegian peace activist is shot twice in one week in Palestine.

By Jonathan Ofir | Mondoweiss | Aug 25, 2018

“When in Palestine, you get shot, it fuxking [sic] hurts, but you get up again . . . everyone has been shot at some point. . . . And 9 people got shot today. Including an 8 year old. And a man to his head. They are ok too. Hope they are also with friends!”
— Kristin Foss, Norwegian peace activist after being shot for the second time in a week

“We don’t shoot women,” a Lieutenant in the Israeli army said yesterday, when asked why they shot a Norwegian activist in Kafr Qaddum Saturday last week, shortly before shooting her again. Israeli activist Matan Cohen posted this exchange and occurrence yesterday on his Facebook with photos from the scene.

This time Kristin was not shot in the abdomen, but in the foot, by a rubber-coated steel bullet. I was alerted to Kristin’s injury by her Facebook update from the clinic:

“Went back to Kufur Quaddum to show that solidarity, is stronger than fear! Very nervous though, so kept right at the back, up against the wall. Thought I was safe-ish. But they shot me again!! The protest has been on for 2 minutes. Israeli activists at the front talking to the soldiers earlier . . . so yeah . . . I just go shot twice in a week.”

Continue reading ““We don’t shoot women””