And, get this, it is the same ‘humanitarian’ aid agency that sent the Flotilla to Gaza ***in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade.
If you are a regular reader of RRW, you know that we have been pointing a finger at Turkey for letting so many “refugees” simply pass through Turkey and into a beleaguered Bulgaria. Now, I guess because Obama’s buddy,Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, has political problems they are making some moves on questionable border activities.
ISTANBUL, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Turkish anti-terrorist police raided the offices of an aid agency on the border with Syria on Tuesday, in part of what local media said was an operation in six cities against individuals suspected of links to al Qaeda.
The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said police had raided its offices in the southern Turkish city of Kilis, which borders Syria, and detained one person.
The IHH came to prominence in May 2010 when Israeli marines stormed its Mavi Marmara ship to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists.
“IHH aid is delivered to Syrian babies, children and those who freeze in the cold … This is an operation to change perceptions (about IHH) and stop aid from being delivered inside Syria,” the group said in a statement.
Turkey has maintained an open-door policy throughout the Syrian conflict, providing a lifeline to rebel-held areas by allowing humanitarian aid in, giving refugees a route out and letting the rebel Free Syrian Army organise on its soil.
Nothing better than a little “humanitarian” aid (with pictures of doves) to cover all sorts of nefarious border activity!
***This gave me a great excuse to watch again Latma’s production of ‘We con the World!’ If you are not one of the 2.6 million viewers of this hilarious remake of ‘We are the world’ then please click here and enjoy!
Here is a very interesting article from The Jerusalem Post last summer that confirms what a bunch of suckers we are in the West. Rich Muslim countries give little to keep UNRWA going:
The total UNRWA budget for 2012 was $907,907,371. The permanent and hysterically supportive rhetoric for the “Palestinian cause” from the Muslim world might lead one to expect that UNWRA is mainly funded by Muslim countries.The truth, however, is that UNRWA is almost entirely funded by Western taxpayers. With a total of $644,701,999 in contributions, the US, EU, UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands and Japan pay 71 percent of the annual UNRWA budget.
And don’t forget that the funds from the second-largest donor, the EU, are of course already composed of EU taxation of member states.
So where do the Muslim states rank? First in, at No. 15, is Saudi Arabia. [And remember S.A. takes NO refugees—ed]
So now the Palestinian so-called “refugees” want even more of your money!
JALAZOUN, West Bank — At least 50 people were hurt on Sunday in a clash between Palestinian police and residents of a refugee camp protesting against a strike in a UN aid agency that has paralysed services, police and an ambulance service said.
The demonstration, in Jalazoun camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was the most violent in a series of protests over the past week stemming from a more than month-old strike for higher pay by local employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
UNRWA, which employs more than 5,000 Palestinians in 19 camps for some 730,000 West Bank refugees, has been forced to shut schools, clinics and suspend trash collection at the camps since the strike began.
“We have nothing to do with the strike and we want to make our voice heard,” said Mohammed Najar, a Jalazoun resident. “The situation in the camps cannot be tolerated: no schools, no clinics and trash is piled everywhere.”
We owe them! We owe them! 66 years later we owe them!
Many refugees fear UNRWA is slowly disengaging from its aid activities and believe the international community owes them support since it recognised Israel amid the war that led to its founding in 1948— during which they fled or were driven from their homes to Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding countries.
The UN agency has said it is trying to end the strike but does not have funds to meet the wage demands. It also says its employees get paid at least 20 per cent and in some cases 80 per cent more than public sector employees in equivalent fields.
Grrrr!
Learn more about Israel and refugees in our special category (142 previous posts) here.
Michael Curtis in American Thinker shows how the Palestinian “refugees” are treated completely different from all other refugees in The Right of Return to Manhattan and Other Places and how absurd it is. I don’t have time to write anything at length, but here are a few excerpts:
On why there were Palestinian refugees:
The problem started with Arab opposition to Jewish settlement in the area of Palestine even before the establishment of the State of Israel. As a result of the violent Arab Revolt of 1936-39, mainly led and orchestrated by the Arab High Command under Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, over ten per cent of the adult Palestinian population was killed, injured, or imprisoned. This Arab wave of terror directed against British personnel, Jews, and other Arabs opposed to the Mufti and his followers resulted in the first wave of refugees, perhaps as many as 40,000 Arabs who fled the area.
But the main refugee problem was caused by the militant Arab activity in the mid 1940s and then by the 1948-49 War that was initiated by the Arabs. The “catastrophe,” as the war is named by the Palestinians, was brought on by the invasion of Israel immediately after its establishment on May 14, 1948, by troops from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and other Arab countries. As a result of the fighting, and for reasons that are still disputed, Palestinians fled their home in large numbers.
On the origin of the Palestinian refugee organization:
Oppressed Palestinians in Gaza. For more, see http://www.idfblog.com/2013/08/12/what-happened-to-the-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza/
Before the end of the war, the United Nations General Assembly on November 19, 1948 passed Resolution 212 (III) to create the UN Relief for Palestinian Refugees (UNRPR). This body was replaced by decision of UNGA Resolution 302 (IV) on December 8, 1949, by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
About this UN concern for Palestinian refugees, two aspects are worth noting. One is the fact the UN ignored, and indeed still ignores, the reality that 700,000 Jews, probably a larger number than the actual number of Palestinian refugees, made exodus from the Arab lands in which their families had lived for centuries. The second is that this instance is the only time that the UN has set up an agency only for one group of people and that this unique agency has remained in existence for 64 years.
Putting this in context:
The initiation of a Palestinian refugee relief agency was a remarkable and inexplicable departure from established relief activity. On December 14, 1950 the UNGA set up the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHRC), originally with a three-year mandate. Its function remains to coordinate international action to protect refugees and to resolve refugee problems worldwide. Since then it has helped more than 50 million people restart their lives. Among the various refugee populations it has assisted are the 4 million from Afghanistan, the 12 million ethnic Germans after World War II, the 5.5 million from Sudan, and the 15 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs after the 1947 Indian-Pakistani war.
Then contrasting the staff and budgets for the two agencies:
With a budget in 2012 of $3.59 billion the UNHRC has a staff of 7,600 in more than 125 countries. Currently, it is concerned with 33 million people. About 14.7 million are internally displaced; 10.5 million are refugees; 3.1 million are returnees; 3.5 million are stateless; 800,000 are asylum seekers; and 1.3 million considered to be in danger. To these figures must be added the millions now fleeing countries like Syria, Iraq, Mali, South Sudan, and Libya.
These figures make an extraordinary contrast with the existence and activity of UNRWA involved with much smaller numbers but with a much larger staff at its disposal. It employees 29,000 people, mostly Palestinians, and has 2 headquarters, 5 field offices, and representatives abroad, including in Washington, DC. A member of the latter group was Chris McGrath, former aide to Senator Harry Reid.
He concludes that UNRWA keeps up a welfare state for Palestinians, something which does them a great disservice. The cause of the whole thing was an order to Arab states long ago not to take in any of the refugees so they could be used as an ongoing weapon against Israel.
African migrants protest at US embassy in Tel Aviv on Sunday. We want the “right” to walk free and stay in Israel.
Sure enough the UN High Commissioner for Refugees blasted Israel for its “warehousing” of Africans claiming to be asylum seekers (see our story yesterday). Israel has long maintained that most of the migrants are “economic migrants” and not legitimate refugees. Economic migrants are NOT refugees, but the world-over they have figured out how to use the refugee lingo.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has criticized Israel’s policy on African migrants, and in particular the new amendments to the country’s anti-infiltration law.
Following Sunday’s mass protest of tens of thousands of migrants and their supporters in Tel Aviv, the representative for UNHCR in Israel published a rare press release, calling on Israel to consider alternatives to its current “warehousing” of migrants.
The release was titled “Israel’s new laws and policies do not live up to the Spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention.”
UNHCR has previously criticized the amendments to the anti-infiltration law, and even brought its position before the High Court of Justice, but, until now, has refrained from making public statements. In the press release published Sunday, the agency said that in principle it supports establishing a residence facility for asylum seekers, but not in its current incarnation at Holot.
Meanwhile I searched around to see if the UNHCR was also blasting one of the newest members of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia, for deporting (not just warehousing but actually deporting!) thousands of Somalis on a regular basis. I see in 2010 the UN did call out S.A., but am not seeing anything since and obviously the Saudis didn’t listen to the UNHCR nearly 4 years ago.
Waiting! Waiting!
Photo is from this storyabout Africans protesting at US embassy in Tel Aviv. Wouldn’t those get-ups just make the average Israeli say, sure you will fit right in here! Maybe such protests would work its magic on the Saudis too!
Update: UNHCR blasts Israel’s treatment of would-be “refugees” (here). So where is the blast at Saudi Arabia?
Those paragons of Muslim charity in Saudi Arabia can deport Africans by the thousands with no public outcry, yet, Israel is called evil for not giving asylum to tens of thousands of Africans who would soon turn Tel Aviv into Marseille! The double standard is outrageous, and heck S.A. actually has the land to accommodate their fellow Muslims.
Over 20,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea, assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Sunday morning to demand recognition as refugees. Across Israel, asylum seekers went on a three-day strike, and more protests were planned.
In recent weeks, the government stepped up the arrest and imprisonment of African asylum seekers who entered the state without permits. Several months ago, Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down a law authorizing the state to lock up for three years any person who entered the country illegally, and in some cases, indefinitely. But last month the Knesset passed a new law, authorizing the state to hold asylum seekers in “closed” prisons for a year. A new “open” holding facility named “Holot” began operating in the desert, where asylum seekers can be held indefinitely until their eventual deportation.
The government has stepped up enforcement measures against Israeli businesses that employ asylum seekers in recent weeks and months and municipalities have been shutting down shops and restaurants owned by Africans, adding to a feeling of despair in the asylum seeker community.
The general strike is the latest step in the African protest campaign against the recent measures.
There is more, go to 972Mag for the story and especially the photos.
Aljazeera puts the number of protesters at 30,000, here, called the largest “migrant rally” in Israel’s history.
And, get this, it is the same ‘humanitarian’ aid agency that sent the Flotilla to Gaza ***in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade.
