Smear Campaign Against UN's Palestinian Refugee Agency Taken Apart

Mawtini, Edward Said National Conservatory of Music & Qattan CFC, November 6, 2015, Gaza, Palestine - children's choir

Mawtini - Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, Gaza branch #Let'sSingMyHomeTogether

 The choirs of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and the Qattan Center for Children performed “Mawtani” on November 6, 2015, as part of the “Let’s Sing “Mawtani” Together” event.

Israel's War on Palestinian men, women and children imprisoned in Gaza & the Illegally Occupied West Bank... latest figures Oct 7-Jan 28

Are we a nation that sincerely respects real democracy with the rule of fair and just laws honoring all basic human rights and international laws...

PALESTINE REMEMBERED

Dear President Biden (...etc.)

It is absolutely diabolical and unjust to withdraw funding from UNWRA based on Israel accusing several UNRWA employees of allegedly taking part in the ghastly October 7th attacks on Israel.  

Nothing can justify intentionally starving and tormenting an entire targeted population... or terrorism of any type, including state sponsored terrorism.  

Please do not help Israel starve yet another generation of trapped & traumatized refugees based on a rumor started by a nation at war with all of Palestine and Palestinians, a nation that clearly wants both Palestinians and UNWRA gone... a nation that wants the land, but not the native non-Jewish population of that land.

Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 founding of Zionist Israel continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on. 

Jewish refugees from all over Europe have benefited from international law including but not limited to the inalienable natural and legal right to return to original homes and lands since the devastation of WWII.   However, tragically for all, Israel spent its history demonizing and refusing to respect the Palestinian refugees' inalienable natural and legal right to return to original homes and lands.

No one should be discriminated against due to their supposed race or religion.  Nor should leadership of any type be leading their followers into injustice, hate, violence, and war against "others." 

The world is watching: Are we a nation that sincerely respects real democracy with the rule of fair and just laws honoring all basic human rights and international laws, or are we a nation of wage slaves for Israel's war on "others"

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

UNWRA's Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini: "I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.  Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families" https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/serious-allegations-against-unrwa-staff-gaza-strip

CSM: Settler extremists widen campaign against Palestinians

Serious allegations against UNRWA staff in the Gaza Strip

 HISTORIC UNRWA FILM AND PHOTO ARCHIVE

Dance Me To The End Of Life

Whats better than preventing a genocide on a remembrance day 🕯️ #CeasefireForGazaNOW #Palestine

BBC News: A painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, that was believed lost for 100 years, has been found in Vienna.

Please DARE SPEAK OUT to advocate a just and lasting peace for all people, not just your chosen favorites.

The Basarat Home in Palestine USURPED by Zionists... but never ever forgotten by its rightful owners and heirs. 

Revealed: review of internal state department documents shows special mechanisms have been used to shield Israel from US human rights laws

THE NATION: A rank-and-file campaign inside the National Education Association is demanding the president stop “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.”

South Africa 🇿🇦 said “never again” and lived up to it.

Remembering Tom Hurndall 1981-2004 Killed by an Israeli Snipper as he carried Palestinian Children to safety

Nesrine Malik in The Guardian: It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

Kitaba by Tala Abunuwar: We are not free till all of us are free! Thank you South Africa 🙏

With love from Palestine to South Africa

Mosab Abu Toha: "She is reading from a book..."

'Stunned, angry, and infuriated': Journalists address US silence on colleagues killed in Gaza

Ben & Jerry’s has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, making it one of the first multinational companies to do so since Israel began bombing civilians in Gaza over 100 days ago.

I have hope

Responses to genocide are often determined by where the crime is committed, and what the victims look like...  How can so many in the West so easily ignore genocide?

Susan Muaddi Darraj: There are 12 different ways to say "friend" in Arabic, and I believe South Africa embodies all of them. 

Violence is the feel good answer in movies & on TV- not in real life.

Revealed: Congress backers of Gaza war received most from pro-Israel donors

The human cost and the environmental cost of war in the Middle East is horrifying, and yet America's mainstream newspapers, TV news, and politicians itch to have more & more war, investing in Israeli violence at every turn. 

Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

 PALESTINE REMEMBERED

CSM: Settler extremists widen campaign against Palestinians

 Monitor reporters witnessed a shooting attack by West Bank settlers on Palestinian shepherds as an Israeli army jeep stood by. Officials and diplomats say the attacks further a campaign they’ve warned of for years: to push Palestinians off their lands.

Mohammed Al Araareh, a Bedouin shepherd who just weeks before had been pushed off his land by settler attacks, points to the valley where armed settlers clashed with another shepherd, in Rammun, West Bank, Jan. 20, 2024

• By Taylor Luck Special correspondent
• Fatima AbdulKarim Special contributor

Rammun, West Bank

First the Bedouin shepherd family spotted the truck, then the five armed men dressed in white. Then the gunfire started.

Israeli settlers, drawn to another shepherd’s flock grazing in the valley 200 yards below, fired what appeared to be M16 rifles in the air and toward the shepherd.

Only weeks before, the Al Araareh family was driven off their land and lost half their possessions. On Saturday, perched up the hill from the skirmish, it looked to them like they would have to pick up and move again – fast.... READ MORE https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2024/20240126/Settler-extremists-widen-campaign-against-Palestinians?cmpid=shared-twitter

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Serious allegations against UNRWA staff in the Gaza Strip

26 January 2024

From Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General

---

AMMAN,

“The Israeli Authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October.

“To protect the Agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.  Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

“UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families.

“These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the Agency has been providing since the war began. Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region and elsewhere around the world”.

UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency’s area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.

UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. 

Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on.

UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.  https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/serious-allegations-against-unrwa-staff-gaza-strip

Dance Me To The End Of Life

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Whats better than preventing a genocide on a remembrance day 🕯️ #CeasefireForGazaNOW #Palestine

 

The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution.

BBC News: A painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, that was believed lost for 100 years, has been found in Vienna.

Portrait of Fraulein Lieser once belonged to a Jewish family in Austria and was last seen in public in 1925. 

The portrait will now be put up for auction on 24 April on behalf of the owners, and the legal successors of the Lieser family.

This is based on the Washington Principles, an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to the descendants of the people they were taken from.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68102376

 

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Please DARE SPEAK OUT to advocate a just and lasting peace for all people, not just your chosen favorites.

An indigenous Palestinian woman in traditional dress overlooking Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Photo circa 1929

 Dear President Biden (...etc)

American racism is shaping inhuman policies when it comes to our foreign policies- specifically our politicians' & religious leaders' callous negligence regarding the very real plight & suffering of the native non-Jewish people of the Holy Land.

Yes I know AIPAC generously rewards American politicians who empower the political entity called Israel, while sabotaging and undermining those who don't... and elections are coming up.

Yes I know our mainstream media elects to feature Zionist perspectives & propaganda at every opportunity, and that there are harassment campaigns aimed at silencing American support for the men, women, & children of historic Palestine. But please stand up & speak out for truth and justice any way, and in every way you can.

I believe in beauty & goodness, fair & just laws, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I also believe in righting historic wrongs.  This morning I was delighted to see an absolutely gorgeous Gustav Klimt portrait of Fraulein Lieser that once belonged to a wealthy Jewish family in Austria. That painting was believed to have been lost in the Nazi Holocaust. Thankfully the portrait was recently discovered, and its sale will benefit the current owners as well as the Lieser heirs "because of Washington Principles, an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to the descendants of the people they were taken from". https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68102376

Did you know that Israel has stolen and/or destroyed countless Palestinian books, art, homes, and even entire communities since 1948.

Israeli violence and impunity is escalating, thanks in a large part to American money and support. 

Please DARE SPEAK OUT to advocate a just and lasting peace for all people, not just your chosen favorites.  Until Israel is willing to allow a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state our government should consider the Israel/Palestine conflict a civil rights movement within one Apartheid state called Israel.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Religion should be a personal choice, not a state funded project.

The Basarat Home in Palestine USURPED by Zionists... but never ever forgotten by its rightful owners and heirs. 

Revealed: review of internal state department documents shows special mechanisms have been used to shield Israel from US human rights laws

THE NATION: A rank-and-file campaign inside the National Education Association is demanding the president stop “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.”

South Africa 🇿🇦 said “never again” and lived up to it.

Remembering Tom Hurndall 1981-2004 Killed by an Israeli Snipper as he carried Palestinian Children to safety

Nesrine Malik in The Guardian: It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

Kitaba by Tala Abunuwar: We are not free till all of us are free! Thank you South Africa 🙏

With love from Palestine to South Africa

Mosab Abu Toha: "She is reading from a book..."

'Stunned, angry, and infuriated': Journalists address US silence on colleagues killed in Gaza

Ben & Jerry’s has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, making it one of the first multinational companies to do so since Israel began bombing civilians in Gaza over 100 days ago.

I have hope

Responses to genocide are often determined by where the crime is committed, and what the victims look like...  How can so many in the West so easily ignore genocide?

Susan Muaddi Darraj: There are 12 different ways to say "friend" in Arabic, and I believe South Africa embodies all of them. 

Violence is the feel good answer in movies & on TV- not in real life.

Revealed: Congress backers of Gaza war received most from pro-Israel donors

The human cost and the environmental cost of war in the Middle East is horrifying, and yet America's mainstream newspapers, TV news, and politicians itch to have more & more war, investing in Israeli violence at every turn. 

Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

Revealed: review of internal state department documents shows special mechanisms have been used to shield Israel from US human rights laws

 ‘Different rules’: special policies keep US supplying weapons to Israel despite alleged abuses

Top US officials quietly reviewed more than a dozen incidents of alleged gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces since 2020, but have gone to great lengths to preserve continued access to US weapons for the units responsible for the alleged violations, contributing – former US officials say – to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza.

An estimated 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, a death toll that has spurred condemnation of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the US president, Joe Biden, who has been criticized for failing to rein in Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza.

An investigation by the Guardian, which was based on a review of internal state department documents and interviews with people familiar with sensitive internal deliberations, reveals how special mechanisms have been used over the last few years to shield Israel from US human rights laws, even as other allies’ military units who receive US support – including, sources say, Ukraine – have privately been sanctioned and faced consequences for committing human rights violations... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/us-supply-weapons-israel-alleged-abuses-human-rights 

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A mural of slain of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin, adorns a wall in Gaza City on 15 May 2022. Photograph: Adel Hana/AP

THE NATION: A rank-and-file campaign inside the National Education Association is demanding the president stop “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.”

...Teachers Want the Largest Union in the Country to Rescind its Biden Endorsement Over Gaza

  January 22, 2024 

When Israel escalated its military operations against Gaza in October, Rahaf Othman was so distraught, she said, she “couldn’t think straight.” The 45-year-old Palestinian American, who teaches social studies at Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Ill., recalled that she “started getting nightmares from my own experiences when I was in Palestine. I was functional at work, but barely functional. My brain was mush. I was getting traumatized every time I turned on my phone.”

“For the first month, people were asking me what we should do, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.” While in this state, she said she discovered that she could lean on some of her colleagues. “Educators rallied together and created this group, Educators for Palestine. I am grateful they brought me along for the ride.”

Othman is a member of the Illinois Education Association (IEA) Local 218, which covers an area to the south of Chicago, part of the 3 million–strong National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the United States. She is now part of a member effort to press the NEA to put real muscle behind supporting a cease-fire, one prong in a small-but-growing campaign within the US labor movement.

But the rank-and-file campaign goes beyond demanding an end to Israel’s military operations, which have killed at least 22,000 Palestinians, 12,000 of them children. Othman and other members want the NEA to revoke its endorsement of Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential race until the president secures a “permanent cease-fire,” stops “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel,” and commits “to a fair due process for asylum-seekers and refugees.”... READ MORE https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nea-union-biden-endorsement-gaza/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]