guilt by association
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) plays a crucial role in Gaza - distributing food, water and medicine - and it is unclear who would fill the vacuum were it to collapse. Most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are displaced from their homes, many are sheltering in centers and schools run by the agency, and it helps allocate the aid that arrives in Gaza each day.
Israel has charged that at least 12 employees of UNRWA participated in the Oct. 7 attack and that as many 1,300 employees (or 10%) are members of Hamas.
The agency said it does not routinely conduct background checks of its workers.
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So about 0.1% of UNRWA's employees allegedly participated in the attack, and have already been fired. Another 10% of UNRWA's employees are allegedly members of Hamas.
Israel has determined to bring about the "destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad", and so now it appears UNRWA has become part of those "capabilities" that Israel wants to destroy.
14 countries have now frozen their donations to UNRWA pending further investigations and ... ?
Of course an organization is not part of Hamas merely because a fraction of its employees are connected to Hamas in some way. Further details have not yet been made public.
I've been hesitant to label Israel's revenge upon Gaza as "genocide", but if the main aid organization helping Gazans to survive the bombing and blockade is shut down, and if everybody who at any time in their lives associated with Hamas in some way is blacklisted (or worse) ... such a catastrophe for those two million Gazans.
Of course I don't condone or support the Hamas attack of October 7. I would support an immediate ceasefire, but I know that won't solve the underlying problem of two religious nationalisms both desiring the same territory. I don't know how you fix that problem. From the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 to the present day, too many people on both sides refuse to peacefully share the same territory. Israel resists allowing Palestinians living in occupied territory to vote in Israel's elections, because Israel Jews want the country to remain fundamentally Jewish, but Israel also doesn't allow a fully sovereign Palestinian state. It sucks. Millions of Palestinians are stateless, for generations now.
Well, I'm sending emergency $$$ to an aid agency that might dissolve next month, leaving Gazans without an official UN-sanctioned, donor-country-supported aid agency during a time of brutal war.
Israel has charged that at least 12 employees of UNRWA participated in the Oct. 7 attack and that as many 1,300 employees (or 10%) are members of Hamas.
The agency said it does not routinely conduct background checks of its workers.
-----
So about 0.1% of UNRWA's employees allegedly participated in the attack, and have already been fired. Another 10% of UNRWA's employees are allegedly members of Hamas.
Israel has determined to bring about the "destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad", and so now it appears UNRWA has become part of those "capabilities" that Israel wants to destroy.
14 countries have now frozen their donations to UNRWA pending further investigations and ... ?
Of course an organization is not part of Hamas merely because a fraction of its employees are connected to Hamas in some way. Further details have not yet been made public.
I've been hesitant to label Israel's revenge upon Gaza as "genocide", but if the main aid organization helping Gazans to survive the bombing and blockade is shut down, and if everybody who at any time in their lives associated with Hamas in some way is blacklisted (or worse) ... such a catastrophe for those two million Gazans.
Of course I don't condone or support the Hamas attack of October 7. I would support an immediate ceasefire, but I know that won't solve the underlying problem of two religious nationalisms both desiring the same territory. I don't know how you fix that problem. From the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 to the present day, too many people on both sides refuse to peacefully share the same territory. Israel resists allowing Palestinians living in occupied territory to vote in Israel's elections, because Israel Jews want the country to remain fundamentally Jewish, but Israel also doesn't allow a fully sovereign Palestinian state. It sucks. Millions of Palestinians are stateless, for generations now.
Well, I'm sending emergency $$$ to an aid agency that might dissolve next month, leaving Gazans without an official UN-sanctioned, donor-country-supported aid agency during a time of brutal war.