Category: Israel and refugees

Intending to help Palestinians, U.S. pours money into terrorist front agency

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What a generous country we are. We’re sending $85 million to the Palestinian “refugees”  in the West Bank and Gaza, the State Department announces.

Through this contribution to the Emergency Appeal for the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian refugees, who comprise 70 percent of the population in Gaza and 30 percent in the West Bank, will receive urgently needed food, medicines, and other critical humanitarian assistance. The contribution to UNRWA’s General Fund will support the provision of basic and vocational education, primary health care, and relief and social services to more than 4.6 million registered Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

 And why do these “refugees,” many of whom live in regular villages and towns, need all this aid? Why don’t they act like normal people and create an economy and earn a living? Because their leaders insist they remain “refugees,” dependent on the UN and donor countries for their livelihoods. Actually, many of them, especially in the West Bank, do work and even commute to Israel. After forty-plus years of this nonsense, you’d think the Palestinians would realize who their real oppressors are, and it’s not Israel.  The press release goes on:

The United States reiterates its deep concern about the escalating violence in Gaza and commends UNRWA’s important work meeting the emergency needs of civilians in Gaza at this very difficult time. We hold Hamas fully responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence. We call on all concerned to protect innocent lives and to address the urgent humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, by facilitating necessary access into Gaza for UNRWA and other humanitarian organizations.

 Note the sentence I put in boldface. Now who would block access into Gaza for humanitarian aid? It’s not Israel, which is sending its own humanitarian aid. So it must be Hamas, whose motive is always propaganda and never concern for the people of Gaza. There’s hunger? Great — get CNN to film the pathetic people. Injured civilians? Don’t let them cross the border to get treated in Israel; that might make Israel look good in the eyes of the world.  These beleaguered civilians are the very people who elected Hamas in an outburst of  such stupidity that even they must be realizing it. Continuing…

The United States is UNRWA’s largest bilateral donor, and contributed $184.68 million to UNRWA towards its 2008 Appeals, including $99.87 million for UNRWA’s General Fund and $84.81 million for its emergency appeals for Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza. The United States plans to provide additional funding for UNRWA’s 2009 appeals in the future.

This is a good moment to review what UNRWA is and does — what our tax money is paying for. As we reported last May, quoting the Jerusalem Post,

In contrast to the main UN refugee agency, UNHCR, which assists and resettles refugees from around the world and has an international team of around 6,300 employees, more than 99 percent of UNRWA’s 25,000-strong staff members are locally recruited Palestinians – almost all of them Palestinian refugees or their descendants, and some of them members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups both the US and the EU classify as terror organizations.

UNRWA, which operated on a cash budget of $487 million in 2007 – excluding special appeals for additional funding – receives most of its money from the US, European Commission, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Four years ago, amid persistent reports that the group was turning a blind eye to Palestinian terrorism, then-UNRWA commissioner-general Peter Hansen publicly admitted for the first time that Hamas members were on the UNRWA payroll.

Unlike the main refugee agency, whose mission is to find homes for refugees, UNRWA’s mission seems to be to keep the Palestinian “refugees” in squalor so that Israel can be blamed for their condition. These are also the only refugees with hereditary status — if you’re a refugee your children and grandchilden and descendants in perpetuity are also refugees.  In another post  in May I quoted a report from the Gloria Center (Global Research in International Affairs) which proposed these solutions:

First, UNRWA should be dissolved.

Second, all services it provides should be transferred to other agencies within the UN, notably the UNHCR, which has a long and productive experience in this area.

Third, responsibility for normal social services should be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. Most UNRWA staff should be transferred to it. Donors should use the maximum amount of oversight to ensure this be done effectively.

People often wonder why violence and instability persists and why the Arab-Israeli conflict is so seemingly impossible to resolve. One important part of the answer is that UNRWA perpetuates the problem. All those seeking real progress toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians need to take a close look at this unacceptable situation. All those with responsibility for the management of these issues need to work for a change of course.

It is quite likely that without UNRWA there would have been no shelling of Israel by Hamas, and therefore no Israeli military action in Gaza right now.

American Muslims demonstrating and praying for Israel’s destruction

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Robert Spencer has several posts on Jihad Watch on activity by U.S. Muslims against Israel and the United States in reaction to Israel’s military action in Gaza. Here are some of them:

A video is being sent around on Muslim email lists in the United States. The prayer on it begins:

O Allah, take care of the sources of injustice and oppression,

Oh Allah, direct your forces against America, the centre of kufr and fasad

Oh Allah, direct your forces against America, the centre of kufr and fasad

Oh Allah, direct your forces against America, the centre of kufr and fasad.

Some of the later verses refer to Israel, though not by name. Robert Spencer explains the words:

Kufr is unbelief. Fasad is mischief or corruption, for which the Qur’an prescribes penalties: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter” (5:33).

At a rally in DC last night Muslims and leftists called for the destruction of Israel. The rally was sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, the Free Palestine Alliance, the National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awda, and the International Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

The sign in the top picture, “From sea to sea: One day Palestine will be free” means Israel will cease to exist. 

Muslims in American mosques praying for destruction of Israel. Robert reports:

I am getting reports from sources inside American mosques that the dua qunoot — a prayer for the destruction of Allah’s enemies — is being added to the regular prayers in American mosques.

“Death to all juice.”

That’s a sign at a New York rally. A knowledgeable observer comments:

It is his way of calling for genocide without getting busted for hate speech.

The same group that produced that has another one with a caricature of a Jew just like the ones seen in Nazi Germany — the huge nose, the evil look, the greedy posture. In case you ever hear that these people are not anti-Jewish, “just” anti-Israel, think of these signs.

I have no way of knowing how many Muslims in America support this kind of thinking, how many repudiate it, and how many go along with it in order to keep peace in their community. And I’m not saying that all Americans must be pro-Israel.  But this is not rational criticism; this is pure hatred. And as always, everywhere in the world, hatred of Israel goes hand-in-hand with hatred of the United States.

In case you don’t know, the whole issue of Palestinian “refugees” was created by the Arab countries, the United Nations, and the KGB. Here’s a post that explains the history. Also see here and here and here.

So, to bring all this back to today’s refugee policies, why are we bringing in groups of Muslims who will pray for the destruction of America? I believe that most Muslims, around the world and in this country, wish for the destruction of Israel. The Iraqis whom the refugee industry wants to bring here in the tens or hundreds of thousands — we already know the widepread anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment there. The current situation of Israel at war in Gaza just serves to bring into the light of day the virulent ideas and feelings that already exist.

Addendum: Most of the Muslims who wish for the destruction of Israel don’t know any better.  They are taught things about Israel that would curl your hair; any normal person would hate such a country, but they are all lies. When such a Muslim somehow manages to see the reality, if he is honest his whole world-view is changed.

Egyptian policy: shoot African refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Washington Post reports:

Egyptian security forces are killing an increasing number of Darfurian refugees and other African migrants attempting to cross from Egypt’s Sinai desert into Israel in pursuit of jobs and a better life, according to refugees, human rights groups and the Egyptian government.

Since the first recorded border killing in the summer of 2007, when Egyptian authorities announced a live-fire policy on the Sinai border, Egyptian security forces have shot dead at least 28 migrants as they left Egypt for Israel, the rights group Amnesty International said Thursday. Of those, the group said, 23 have been killed since January.

The shootings are illegal under international law because the refugees pose no threat, for the most part.

Refugee advocates blame Israel and the United States. Israel has been inundated with refugees from Africa, as we reported in February (Israel is overwhelmed with African refugees). It’s a tiny country, and has taken in thousands of refugees from Africa but can’t continue to accept the massive number that is trying to come in. So Israel asked Egypt to stop the flow into Israel. The article says that pressure, from Israel and the U.S. “led the Egyption government to adopt its live-fire policy — an assertion Israeli and U.S. officials deny.”  Well, neither Israel nor the U.S. permits its forces to fire on migrants coming in illegally, so it’s highly unlikely they would have encouraged Egypt to shoot refugees. But never mind, everything is the fault of Israel and the United States.

In 1948 Arab leaders created the Palestinian “refugee” problem

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since I’ve now done two posts today on who is originally responsible for the refugee “crisis” in Iraq, it seems fitting to give you new information about who created the Palestinian refugees.

The so-called Palestinian “refugee” problem was created by Arab leaders who told Palestinians to leave the newly created Israel in order to facilitate its quick destruction.    Anyone who wanted to stay was called a traitor, according to new evidence reported today at Palestinian Media Watch (from Jihad Watch).   Read it all here. 

It occurs to me that this narrative of blaming Israel for 60 years for supposedly doing evil to the Palestinians has worked so well to keep hatred going that they are now using the same strategy on us.  Blame the US for all the refugee problems in Iraq and fuel the fires of hatred for generations to come.   The disgusting part is that Americans, especially in the NGO community are helping fan those flames by hiding the role Saddam Hussein played in the Iraqi humanitarian chaos.   And, our dhimmi leadership in Washington seems ready and willing to take the blame and guilt.

Why can’t the Bush Administration just stand up and say “look we didn’t create the entire Iraq refugee situation, we won’t take all the blame, the new government of Iraq needs to step up,  and dammit it’s about time that wealthy Arab countries like Saudi Arabia helped their fellow Muslim refugees–the Palestinians and the Iraqis!”