On June 20, 2023, a terrorist attack occurred at a gas station in the city of El, located in the Binyamin region, resulting in the loss of our lives and leaving four others wounded. According to CNN reports, this attack is the deadliest incident involving Israelis since January (Gotkine). The four wounded individuals were later taken to hospitals after various resuscitation attempts.
As stated by the IDF, two terrorists approached the gas station where they shot a security guard and then further shot 5 more people at a restaurant (“4 Murdered in Terrorist Shooting Attack in Eli”). One of the civilians who was shot happened to be armed and neutralized one of the terrorists, while the other one was killed by both the IDF and Israel Security Agency troops after they located the vehicle he was travelling in (“4 Murdered in Terrorist Shooting
Attack in Eli”).
The communities affected by the terrorist attack officially released the names of the four Israelies who lost their lives: Elisha Antman, 18 and Ofer Fierman, 63 who were both from Eli; Harel Masoud, 21, of Yad Binyamin; and Nachman Shmuel Mordoff, at age 17, from Ahiya.
Elisha Anteman, age 18, from the settlement of Eli in the central West Bank was buried late Tuesday night at the cemetery in his hometown.
His funeral was attended by hundreds of mourners who came to pay their respects to a young life that was tragically taken during the terrorist attack (Bachner). Anteman was said to have been a diligent student in the 12th grade at Bnei Akiva Eli Yeshiva and was described as a good
child of the Land of Israel by Binyamin Regional Council head Yisrael Gantz. Recognizing the profound deviation demonstrated by Elishas’s family, he acknowledges them as a significant source of inspiration and strength to find growth despite the agonizing pain.
Victim Ofer Fierman, a 63-year-old resident of Eli, was shot and killed at the gas station while he was innocently filling his car. The victim left behind a strong sense of compassion and
responsibility towards his homeland (Rahav-Meir). He was deeply known for his habit of
cleaning trash to demonstrate the love he had towards the Land of Israel. He not only believed that preserving the cleanliness of land was a duty owed by each and every inhabitant of the land, but as a way to show respect and honor the country he cherished.
Harel Masoud, a 21-year-old resident of Yad Binyamin and victim of a shooting attack near the settlement of Eli in the
central West Bank was one of the four individuals who lost his life on June 20, 2023. Masoud’s funeral was held that same night in Yesodot, Israel, where his family and friends were able to gather
and pay their final respects to him (Shezaf). In his mother’s tribute to him, she revealed that Masoud had recently been released
from the army and had just begun to
embrace the incredible opportunities that awaited him in the land he loved. Masoud’s
“charismatic and energetic” personality left a lasting impression on his peers and was described by his high school principal, Rabbi Hezekiah Darmon, as a highly dedicated and fearless individual who was always ready to take on challenges and
commit to his personal goals (Shezaf). Ultimately, Massoud’s death created an irreplaceable void and he will forever be cherished by his family, friends and community.
Nachman Shmuel Mordoff, a 17-year-old young man from Ahiya was
regrettably among the victims who lost their lives in the devastating terrorist attack. His funeral was held on Wednesday morning in the town of Shiloh, where residents of the
community, friends and family
gathered to mourn the loss of a remarkable man (Rahav-Meir).
Nachman’s mother described him as a precious child full of energy and joy. He was known for his love toward the Land of Israel and its people, possessing a genuine desire to do good while prioritizing the needs of others before himself (“Nachman Shmuel Mordoff, Teen Terror Victim”). According to Nachman’s family, he was a beloved young man who was always radiating positive
energy and never failed to provide support or
encouragement to those in need (“Nachman Shmuel Mordoff, Teen Terror Victim”). He embraced the values
of integrity, holiness and respect towards his parents and was able to form deep connections driven by his pure intentions and infectious smile. Ultimately, Nachman’s death left a profound impact and the values he embodied will undoubtedly serve as a lasting inspiration for others to uphold truth, kindness and passion.
Works Cited
Bachner, Michael, et al. “‘how Do I Go on?’ Funerals Held for 4 Israelis Killed in West Bank Terror Attack.” The Times of Israel, 21 June 2023,
USA:s ambassadör Tom Nides kommentar om det kallblodiga mordet på fyra judar i Israel nyligen har fått kritik för sin brist på tydlighet och beslutsamma åtgärder. Samtidigt som ambassadör Nides uttryckte kondoleanser till de sörjande familjerna avstod han från att uttryckligen identifiera förövarna eller märka händelsen som en terroristattack.
Ambassadör Nides ordval har fått många att höja på ögonbrynen, med hans betoning på mordens meningslöshet snarare än att entydigt fördöma själva dådet. Detta fokus på mordens effektivitet snarare än morden har mötts med skepsis, vilket leder till frågor om den amerikanska regeringens inställning i frågan.
Dessa kommentarer från ambassadör Nides kommer i kölvattnet av USA:s utrikesminister Blinkens senaste uttalande vid Aipac-konferensen, där han pekade ut israelisk bosättningsexpansion som det största hindret för en “horisont av hopp”. Denna uppenbara obalans när det gäller att ta itu med oron hos båda sidor i konflikten har utlöst ytterligare granskning av USA:s utrikespolitik.
Medan USA kräver åtgärder från Israel, såsom att stoppa bosättningsexpansionen, misslyckas man med att utöva liknande påtryckningar på den palestinska myndigheten (PA).
PA:s kontroversiella lag, som belönar alla som mördar en jude med en livstidslön, har inte fördömts av amerikanska tjänstemän utan bara uttryckt sitt ogillande.
Dessutom har USA inte krävt att läroböcker och lärare inom PA:s utbildningssystem som glorifierar våldshandlingar mot judar ska tas bort. Denna hantering av uppvigling har varit en kärnfråga, eftersom USA fortsätter att stödja PA samtidigt som man misslyckas med att kräva väsentliga förändringar.
USA:s brist på kommentarer om de palestinska säkerhetsstyrkornas (PSF) ansvar för över 8 000 väpnade attacker på israeliska vägar har också väckt oro. PSF, utbildad av USA och Kanada för att bekämpa terrorism, har varit inblandad i våldshandlingar, vilket ger starka tvivel på detta träningsprogram.
Överraskande tillkännagav USA sin avsikt att förnya finansieringen till FN:s hjälporganisation UNRWA trots organisationens misslyckande med att ta itu med uppvigling i sina skolor. Avtalet mellan USA och UNRWA föreskrev att avlägsnandet av uppvigling var en förutsättning för amerikansk finansiering.
Samtidigt som finansieringen förnyas, genomförde UNRWA sommarläger med vapenträning för cirka 100 000 elever, vissa så unga som nio år gamla. Dessa läger hölls för att hedra individer som fångats och dödats när de försökte mörda judar. Detta visar igen icke-effektiviteten i UNRWA:s ansträngningar för att främja fred och försoning.
Kritik mot den amerikanska regeringens uttalanden och åtgärder angående den israelisk-palestinska konflikten har påtalats på grund av de senaste avslöjandena av dokumentation av UNRWA:s sommarläger med vapenträning. Denna utveckling understryker oron över USA:s åtagande att bekämpa terrorism och främja en balanserad strategi i regionen.
Omvärlden bör ta denna oro på stort allvar. Så även Sverige.
David Bedein är en MSW-samhällsorganisatör och en undersökande journalist. År 1987 etablerade Bedein ”Israel Resource News Agency” i Beit Agron, Jerusalem, för att följa utländska journalister i deras bevakning av Israel, för att balansera den media som etablerats av PLO och deras allierade. Bedein har rapporterat för nyhetskanaler som CNN Radio, MakorRishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC och
After numerous accusations of antisemitism, some pro-Palestinian campus advocates became vocal in stressing that their critique was merely anti-Zionist. However, according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), the widely-accepted definition of antisemitism, there are clearly antisemitic elements in their activities. In addition to the usual charges of apartheid and colonialism, advocates took to describing those who disagreed with them as “Zionists.”
In March, George Washington University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (GW SJP) launched the annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) to “combat the university’s ongoing discrimination and suppression of the Palestinian community.” The IAW began with a teach-in, “Confronting Zionism,” that partnered with the Palestinian Youth Movement’s local chapter to help students “resist Zionism on campus.” SJP also set up an apartheid wall, calling for “land back.” Laila, an organizer from GW SJP, said the university “is an incredibly Zionist campus in multiple facets… GW is a very Zionist campus.” The administration is “particularly open about their support for Zionism.” GW also prevented SJP from receiving funds as a student organization. GW SJP believes such actions “make the university complicit in the larger system of Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
Other protest activities have the same flavor. On Dec 4, 2022, Counterculture Magazine at the University of Richmond (UR) published an article titled “Palestinian Activism on College Campuses.” It detailed how in late 2022, a protest at GWU, led by GW SJP and GW Jewish Voice for Peace, took place outside an event of GW for Israel and GW Hillel groups. The pro-Palestinian students protested a talk by Doron Tenne.” an IDF officer during the First Intifada. The protesters charged that “thousands of Palestinian people were killed during a series of mass protests against the Israeli occupation.”
In other incidents, for example, in late 2022, the University of Maryland’s (UMD) SJP issued a statement regarding a speaker event for Israel Studies on campus. The speaker was Ambassador Michael Herzog, a former general in the IDF. The UMD SJP stated that the IDF “subjugate and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their ancestral homelands.”
In the academic year 2021-2022, students at the UR established their own chapter of SJP. Razan Khalil, one of the leaders of the effort, vigorously rejected any accusations of antisemitism, ”UR’s chapter has been critiqued constantly for antisemitism while in its mission statement, it simply calls for more awareness about the injustices that Palestinian people face in their homeland. Seeing as opposition to Palestinian activism is present on many campuses, it is clear that there is a distinct pattern of discrimination against Palestinian people as a whole in the administration of many higher education institutions. What is quite interesting is that while Palestinian activist organizations call out the actions of other organizations that may promote the ongoing systemic oppression of Palestinian people worldwide, they oftentimes experience more repercussions than the organizations promoting the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in their choices of events and speakers themselves.”
The pro-Palestinian activists argued that GWU SJP’s protest “elicited a response from the President insinuating that the rhetoric of the protest was discriminatory and therefore needed to be condemned, yet no higher administrative official spoke up about the fact that organizations at the University were hosting speakers that directly contributed to the deaths of innocent Palestinian people. When actions like these add up on a college campus, they promote a subtle message about how little many higher education institutions care about the human rights of Palestinian people, and what lengths they will go to in order to ensure that Palestinian activism is met with vitriol.”
Moreover, for pro-Palestinian activists on campus, the “conflation of antiZionism and anti-semitism… is most certainly present on college campuses. With that conflation comes the restriction of activists’ rights to speak up about the atrocities committed by the state of Israel. It simply does not make sense to acknowledge freedom of speech and then explicitly deny it to a group of people on the false claim of religious discrimination.”
Pro-Palestinian activists claim that they are accused of antisemitism falsely. They pointed out the case of Nerdeen Kiswani, a Law student at CUNY who was described as the “Antisemite of the Year” by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). They noted “what happened to student Nerdeen Kiswani, who was labeled as antisemite of the year by stopantisemitism.org. Her college eventually had to step in and issue a statement advocating for the protection of the right to free speech.”
However, the ADL published in February a report that described Kiswani as an anti-Israel activist and co-founder and leader of Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine (WOL), a radical New York-based anti-Israel organization that routinely expresses support for violence against Israel. Kiswani’s antisemitism is clearly expressed via her expressions of extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric, including her calls for all ‘Zionists’ to be vilified and expelled from community spaces, as well as her support for indiscriminate violence against Israel aimed at the country’s dissolution.” Kiswani and her organization “explicitly call for the complete eradication of Israel, including for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map,’ and have called for Israeli Jews to leave the country” WOL and Kiswani expressed support for acts of terror perpetrated by terror groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). On several occasions, Kiswani and WOL have “promulgated classic antisemitic tropes, including those related to ‘Zionist’ control over media and politics.”
In February 2023: when five Hamas members were killed in an Israeli military operation in Jericho, WOL shared an image declaring them “freedom fighters,” stating that the organization was “in rage and mourning.” In November 2014: Following a PFLP shooting in a Jerusalem synagogue, Kiswani shared PFLP’s statement justifying the act of terror as a “natural response” to Israeli actions. in 2022: Kiswani shared a meme reading: “Little Miss telling everyone Israel is[sic] will be wiped off the map inshallah [God willing].” In 2022: Responding to a news story about free vacations to Israelis who live near the Gaza Strip, Kiswani commented that those Israelis should “leave and never come back.” In November 2022, in an appearance on the Iranian news channel Press TV, Kiswani said, “Resistance is the only way.”
On numerous occasions, Kiswani and WOL have shared materials venerating PFLP and Leila Khaled, one of the hijackers of two civilian airliners, TWA Flight 840 in 1969 (from Rome to Tel Aviv) and El Al Flight 219 in 1970 (from Amsterdam to New York City). In September 2016, WOL shared an image of Leila Khaled carrying a rifle alongside a quote justifying violence. In 2017 WOL posted a Facebook post, “From occupied Palestine to Hollywood, israel’s dogs of war find lucrative positions upholding imperialism, sexual violence and misogyny.” In July 2015, Kiswani advertised an event on Facebook: “Please be here tomorrow if you can! It’s the same story of zionists using their political clout to get away from being held accountable for hate based crimes while ironically accusing others of what they have done.” Kiswani personally led chants of “Zionism out of CUNY.” Kiswani has expressed happiness that some places have become “toxic and unwelcome” for “Zionists.” She called Zionists “complete scum.” In March 2017, she wrote, “Im so happy feminism and feminist movements have created a toxic and unwelcome environment for Zionists.” In June 2022, WOL tweeted, “Zionism has no place in CUNY. Attempts to silence us only make us stronger! #ZionismOutOfCUNY.” WOL suggested chants, “Say it loud say it clear, we don’t want zionists here.” In July 2014, Kiswani wrote, “Any person who supports Israel in any way shape or form Any person who apologizes on behalf of Israel Any person who identifies as a Zionist in any way shape or form Is complete scum… Israel as a state needs to be dismantled. It needs to go.”
The above incidents represent the conflation of pro-Palestinian activists and antisemitic sentiments on campus per the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism. They negate the Jews’ right to self-determination and aspire to annihilate the Jewish state.
George Washington University Students Battle Zionist Bullying on Campus
PRIYA ARAVINDHAN NORTH AMERICA POSTED ON JUNE 2, 2023
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2023, pp. 30-31
Special Report
By Priya Aravindhan
IN THE LAST WEEK of March, George Washington University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (GW SJP) launched Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) to combat the university’s ongoing discrimination and suppression of the Palestinian community.
The week began on March 27 with a teach-in, “Confronting Zionism.” GW SJP partnered with the Palestinian Youth Movement’s local chapter to help students identify and resist Zionism on campus. In the following days, students held various events, such as a dabke workshop and “A Night in Palestine” cultural celebration.
Throughout the week, SJP set up and maintained an apartheid wall with resistance art and calls for “land back.” IAW culminated in a rally on the school’s Kogan Plaza on March 31, in which various students formed a united front against the university’s ongoing oppression of Palestinian and anti-Zionist students and faculty.
This year’s IAW came at a time when Palestinian identity is becoming increasingly targeted by GW’s administration. A month prior to IAW, GW professor Dr. Lara Sheehi was wrongfully accused of discriminating against Jewish students by StandWithUs, a right-wing pro-Israel activist group. The university cleared Sheehi of all charges. In a statement, the Office of the University President said those bringing the charges “advocated for an expansive view of the definition of anti-Semitism, which, if accepted in the university environment, could infringe on free speech principles and academic freedom.”
Despite this favorable ruling, many feel GW remains a hostile place for Palestinians. Laila, an organizer from GW SJP, said the university “is an incredibly Zionist campus in multiple facets” and that the administration is “particularly open about their support for Zionism.” (The student, like others quoted in this article, wished to remain anonymous due to fears of being slandered by pro-Israel groups, such as Canary Mission, that regularly target those advocating for Palestine on campus.)
Indeed, in 2021 the university removed counseling services for Palestinian students experiencing trauma as a result of Israeli violence due to complaints from a pro-Israel group. The school was later reprimanded by the District of Columbia’s Office for Human Rights for discriminating against Palestinian students. The academic institution has also prevented SJP from receiving funds as a student organization.
GW SJP believes such actions make the university complicit in the larger system of Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism. “GW’s administration continually puts obstacles in front of the work we’ve been doing,” Laila said.
Last year, SJP held a postering event to protest GW Hillel for inviting Doron Tenne, a former senior intelligence officer in the Israeli military, to speak on campus. In response to a poster pasted on GW Hillel’s bench, the university administration claimed vandalism and threatened SJP with censure and its president with disciplinary probation. The charges, however, were false, as neither the president nor the organization was responsible for the poster pasting, as the university ultimately conceded.
Supporters of Palestine are disinclined to applaud the administration for dismissing accusations in this and other cases. “Our success doesn’t really have to do with the administration,” Laila said. “It is very much a response to the organizing of our community members and the solidarity of our partners.” They pointed to other GW organizations, regional SJP groups and national political groups as being particularly vocal in defending GW SJP from spurious attacks.
“GW is a very Zionist campus,” George, another SJP organizer said, “but there is a lot of silent support for Palestine.” People are often cautious to publicly mobilize for the Palestinian cause “due to certain risks that come with things like your career being threatened or being doxxed online,” he added.
One important event from IAW was the panel “The Palestine Exception,” which discussed the academic suppression of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices. Dr. Sheehi, Palestine Legal attorney Dylan Saba and Palestinian GW professor William Youmans spoke on the work they have been doing around Palestine for decades. “It was amazing to see our place within the larger movement for Palestine by seeing how the student movement has evolved,” George stated.
IAW not only served as a time to build a stronger united front against oppression, but also as a safe space for people to speak out against Israeli apartheid and show unapologetic support for Palestine. “We want to show people that there is a place on campus to demonstrate support for Palestinian liberation,” one student said. “We’re here and we’re not going to back down no matter what.”
“Our goal was to engage with people who have never really engaged with Palestine and to consolidate the Palestinian community on campus and create a week for them to celebrate our culture and our resistance,” one organizer expressed. “IAW is a time when we can be extra visible on campus.” With the apartheid wall and numerous cultural and academic events, GW’s SJP successfully asserted their presence on campus and their ongoing resistance to the systems that work against them and all Palestinians.
Priya Aravindhan is a rising senior studying anthropology and international affairs, with an interest in the Middle East and South Asia, at The George Washington University. She interned for the Washington Report this spring.
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Issue Two of Counterculture Magazine, the University of Richmond’s first publication to focus exclusively on social justice issues.
On October 11, 2022 at George Washington University, a protest led by GW Students for Justice in Palestine and GW Jewish Voice for Peace organizations occurred outside of an ev ent being hosted by the GW for Israel and GW Hillel groups.
The event was called “A Conversation with Doron Tenne.” Doron Tenne held various positions within the Israeli Defense Force during a period known as the First Intifada, when over 2,000 Palestinian people were when thousands of Palestinian people were killed during a series of mass protests against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza).
In response to the protest, both GW for Israel and GW Hillel issued statements. GW Hillel’s statement read that the protests “[limited] the ability of our Jewish students to freely learn,” calling the behavior of the protesters “aggressive action.” GW Jewish Voice for Peace responded in their statement that the specific wording of GW Hillel’s statement “[asserted] that the protest targeted Jewish students and the Jewish community on campus at large” when in reality, it “perpetuates the conflation of antiZionism and anti-semitism.” The President of George Washington University also released a letter to all students following the protest, but did not specifically address the event itself or the fact that a former IDF official was being hosted.
George Washington University is only one of many universities where Palestinian activism groups have protested hosting speakers that were directly involved in the oppression of Palestinian people. On October 27, 2022, the University of Maryland’s Students for Justice in Palestine issued a statement regarding a speaker event being hosted by the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies on campus. The speaker was Ambassador Michael Herzog, a former general in the Israeli Defense Forces. UMD Students for Justice in Palestine stated that the purpose of the Israeli Defense Forces was to “subjugate and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their ancestral homelands,” which was their purpose for opposing the event.
As Palestinian activism continues to gain traction on college campuses, concerns about the safety of the students openly participating in the cause rise. On George Washington’s campus, members of GW Hillel leadership argued in their statement that the protest regarding the Doron Tenne event crossed a line threatening the safety of Jewish students. This argument is a symptom of a larger debate occurring on many college campuses: are openly anti-Zionist events and protests inherently antisemitic? Many members of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters respond that they are not; in fact, these members point out that mistaking anti-Zionism for antisemitism is the teal problem, as while some definitions of Zionism state that it is the belief in the development and protection of the Jewish state in Israel, antisemitism is the systemic oppression of Jewish individuals.
On some college campuses, such as the campus of the University of New York, students engaging in Palestinian activism have to think about their actions strategically to protect their academic and professional standing. Some students worry about being listed on the website of the Canary Mission, which lists pro-Palestine students and calls them out for supposedly being anti-semitic. Others worry about campaigns being set up to besmirch their name and prevent them from navigating their campus or job safely.
This was exactly what happened to student Nerdeen Kiswani, who was labeled as antisemite of the year by stopantisemitism.org. Her college eventually had to step in and issue a statement advocating for the protection of the right to free speech.
For some pro-Palestine activists, the threats go so far as to alert the FBI, leading to interrogations that are prompted by their names being on the blacklists of some pro-Israel organizations such as the Canary Mission. All evidence points to an undebatable truth: students advocating for the freedom of Palestine are not necessarily safe on their campuses. They often engage in activist efforts at the expense of their own security.
Students at the University of Richmond established their own chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine in the 2021-2022 academic year. Razan Khalil was at the forefront of this effort, and they mentioned several roadblocks that they experienced while trying to get the club approved. Many of these roadblocks reflected those that the Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at George Washington University and the University of Maryland faced. During the year, Razan had to meet with a committee three times and was “‘interrogated’ on whether Students for Justice in Palestine was exclusive toward Jewish students, whether [it] was antisemitic, and whether [it] would directly target Israeli students.”
Reportedly, one of the members of the committee said that they couldn’t believe the University was allowing such an “antisemitic organization” on campus after one of several meetings with Khalil.
One of the recent events hosted by UR’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter was a virtual discussion with Dr. Angela Davis, world-renowned scholar and author of Freedom is a Constant Struggle. In an effort to curate a list of questions that students had for Dr. Davis, a form was released online for submissions prior to the event. In this form, Khalil noted that some questions that were submitted seemed to target Students for Justice in Palestine, which was a complete antithesis of the purpose of the event itself. This was only one of many instances of questioning that Students for Justice in Palestine has experienced on campus since its founding, as noted before. Just as on other campuses, UR’s chapter has been critiqued constantly for antisemitism while in its mission statement, it simply calls for more awareness about the injustices that Palestinian people face in their homeland.
Seeing as opposition to Palestinian activism is present on many campuses, it is clear that there is a distinct pattern of discrimination against Palestinian people as a whole in the administration of many higher education institutions.
What is quite interesting is that while Palestinian activist organizations call out the actions of other organizations that may promote the ongoing systemic oppression of Palestinian people worldwide, they oftentimes experience more repercussions than the organizations promoting the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in their choices of events and speakers themselves.
As seen at George Washington University, Students for Justice in Palestine’s protest elicited a response from the President insinuating that the rhetoric of the protest was discriminatory and therefore needed to be condemned, yet no higher administrative official spoke up about the fact that organizations at the University were hosting speakers that directly contributed to the deaths of innocent Palestinian people. When actions like these add up on a college campus, they promote a subtle message about how little many higher education institutions care about the human rights of Palestinian people, and what lengths they will go to in order to ensure that Palestinian activism is met with vitriol.
Another point is to be made about the freedom of speech argument that some organizations will utilize to target pro-Palestine students.
Many of these organizations insist that while students are entitled to freedom of speech, openly criticizing the Israeli government and military for the death of so many Palestinian people is directly correlated with the targeting of all Jewish students on campus. This line of thinking suggests that the conflation of antiZionism and anti-semitism that GW Jewish Voice for Peace addressed in their statement is most certainly present on college campuses.
With that conflation comes the restriction of activists’ rights to speak up about the atrocities committed by the state of Israel. It simply does not make sense to acknowledge freedom of speech and then explicitly deny it to a group of people on the false claim of religious discrimination.
That being said, members of UR’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter still express hope about the future of their cause. Khalil noted that “with every chapter they have seen, the resistance is met with the support of many,” meaning that an organized collective of students and community members is always ready to defend the organization when accusations of antisemitism begin. However, it is important to note that there are still concerns about the safety of pro-Palestine activists on college campuses such as UR’s, given that GW’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter is now facing disciplinary charges because of their protest against the Doron Tenne event.
George Washington University charged the organization with misconduct, and a Palestine Legal attorney representing Students for Justice in Palestine rightfully responded to the charge with a poignant statement: “SJP followed all the rules around postering and directed their members and allies to do the same. But GW is selectively targeting this group for punishment, when there is zero evidence of any wrongdoing. This looks like racist, anti-Palestinian profiling and the law does not support it.”
When legality enters the conversation, it becomes obvious that the rights of pro-Palestine activists on college campus are actively being challenged at every level. It just goes to show that Palestinian activism on UR’s campus is likely to continue facing criticism and opposition at every turn, meaning that awareness about the cause must be circulated constantly in order to protect those openly engaging with it.
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Editor’s Note: This article has undergone revision for clarity. (December 2022)
• Nerdeen Kiswani is an anti-Israel activist and co-founder and leader of Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine (WOL), a radical New York-based anti-Israel organization that routinely expresses support for violence against Israel.
• Kiswani’s antisemitism is clearly expressed via her expressions of extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric, including her calls for all “Zionists” to be vilified and expelled from community spaces, as well as her support for indiscriminate violence against Israel aimed at the country’s dissolution.
• Kiswani and WOL (founded in 2015) organize rallies in New York City that have drawn thousands of attendees, including events outside the Israeli consulate and pro-Israel organizations such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
• Kiswani and her organization explicitly call for the complete eradication of Israel, including for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and have called for Israeli Jews to leave the country (both from the West Bank and in Israel proper).
• WOL and Kiswani frequently express support for acts of terror perpetrated by U.S.-designated terror groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
• Kiswani habitually asserts that all Zionists, including American Jews who support Israel, are inherently bigoted and should be ostracized.
• On several occasions, Kiswani and WOL have promulgated classic antisemitic tropes, including those related to “Zionist” control over media and politics.
• Kiswani has been platformed by leftist outlets, including Haymarket Books.
• Kiswani became widely known after she delivered a May 2022 commencement speech for CUNY Law in which she excoriated “Zionists” and condemned “normalizing” trips to Israel.
Promotion of violence, terrorism and removal of Israelis from Israel
Kiswani and WOL express full, unabashed support for all forms of “resistance” against Israel, regardless of the brutality of the violence. On social media, she and WOL make their veneration of violence against Israelis clear:
• February 2023: After U.S. State Department-designated terror organization Hamas claimed as members all five Palestinians killed in an Israeli military operation in Jericho, WOL shared an image declaring them “freedom fighters” and that WOL was “in rage and mourning.”
• November 2014: Following a PFLP shooting and meat cleaver attack that killed four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, Kiswani shared PFLP’s statement justifying the act of terror as a “natural response” to Israeli actions.
• 2022: Kiswani shared a meme on her Instagram account reading: “Little Miss telling everyone Israel is[sic] will be wiped off the map inshallah [God willing].”
• 2022: Responding to a news story about an airline offering free vacations to Israelis who live near the Gaza Strip, Kiswani commented that those Israelis should “leave and never come back.”
• November 2022: In an appearance on the Iranian government-backed news channel Press TV, Kiswani said, “Resistance is the only way” and that no political process remains that will result in Palestinian liberation.
• On numerous occasions, Kiswani and WOL have shared materials venerating PFLP and one of its leaders, Leila Khaled, known for her role in the hijacking of two civilian airliners, TWA Flight 840 in 1969 (bound for Tel Aviv from Rome) and El Al flight 219 in 1970 (traveling from Amsterdam to New York City). In September 2016, WOL shared an image of Leila Khaled carrying a rifle alongside a quote justifying violence.
• March 2022: For International Women’s Day, WOL posted a collage containing images of at least three women who have engaged in terrorism against Israel, including Leila Khaled and Rasmea Odeh.
Historic/Classic Antisemitic Tropes
On at least four occasions, Kiswani and WOL have used social media to share classic antisemitic tropes related to alleged Israeli and “Zionist” control or nefarious influence over Hollywood, sexual violence against women, politics, media and more.
• 2017: WOL Facebook post: “From occupied Palestine to Hollywood, israel’s[sic] dogs of war find lucrative positions upholding imperialism, sexual violence and misogyny.”
• 2016 WOL Facebook post: “When the vast majority of politicians in the US are bought off by the zionist [sic] lobby, talk is cheap.”
• July 2015: On Facebook, Kiswani advertised an event: “Please be here tomorrow if you can! It’s the same story of zionists[sic] using their political clout to get away from being held accountable for hate based crimes while ironically accusing others of what they have done…”
• 2013: Kiswani shared a quote on Facebook that included: “Despite the almost total control of the major media conglomerates by Global Zionism, the advocates of pro-Palestine are winning the war on social medias[sic].”
Calling for Shunning of “Zionists”
Kiswani personally led chants of “Zionism out of CUNY” as she protested outside the university during her time as a student activist. “Zionism out of CUNY” can be viewed as an antisemitic call against the Jewish community at large, as the vast majority of American Jews identify as Zionist or consider a connection to Israel to be integral to their social, cultural or religious identities. Kiswani has also expressed joy that some spaces have become “toxic and unwelcome” for “Zionists.” In other commentary, she has called Zionists “complete scum.”
• March 2017: “Im[sic] so happy feminism and feminist movements have created a toxic and unwelcome environment for Zionists”
• June 2022: WOL tweet: “Zionism has no place in CUNY. Attempts to silence us only make us stronger! #ZionismOutOfCUNY”
• The WOL website lists among its suggested chants for anti-Israel rallies: “Say it loud say it clear, we don’t want zionists here”
• July 2014: “Any person who supports Israel in any way shape or form Any person who apologizes on behalf of Israel Any person who identifies as a Zionist in any way shape or form Is complete scum[sic]… Israel as a state needs to be dismantled. It needs to go.”
“Ambassador Tom Nides
@USAmbIsrael
I condemn in the strongest terms the senseless murder of four innocent
Israelis today – my heart is with their grieving family members.”
While Ambassador Nides managed to figure out that the four “innocent” people
murdered were “Israelis” he is clueless as to who carried out these
murders – Martians?
He does, however, make clear why he condemns the “murders”: They were
“senseless”. So the problem apparently is the efficacy of the murders
rather than the murders themselves.
Ambassador Nides also declines to label the murders a terrorist attack.
________________________________________
IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis
Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on
Arab-Israeli relations
Each year on 20 June, the world commemorates World Refugee Day reflecting on the ongoing suffering and hardships endured by refugees worldwide while seeking viable solutions to alleviate their plight. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation of Palestine continues to persist, subjecting our Palestinian people to vicious acts of violence, displacement, killing, oppression, and ethnic cleansing, further exacerbating the suffering of more than nine million Palestinian refugees scattered across the globe.
In the face of the Palestinian refugees’ increasing suffering, the international community remains silent and fails to put an end to the occupation forces’ violations against them.
On this anniversary, the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas states the following:
First: Hamas hails the Palestinian refugees and expresses its appreciation for the refugees’ active role in the Palestinian people’s quest for freedom and return.
Second: Hamas upholds the refugees’ inalienable right to return to their land from which they have been forcibly expelled and rejects all proposed solutions aimed at denying the refugees their sacred right.
Third: Hamas emphasises that the Palestinian people will continue to resist the fascist Israeli occupation until liberation and return.
Fourth: Hamas reiterates the obligation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to deliver its essential services to all Palestinian refugees until their return. We firmly reject any endeavours to transfer or delegate these services to external entities.
Fifth: Palestinian refugees are an integral part of the Palestinian people who have been safeguarding their rights, principles, and sacred sites.
Sixth: We call on Palestinian refugees at home and abroad to promote unity and cooperation in the face of the Israeli occupation’s schemes and aggressive projects.
Seventh: We urge the host countries and rights and humanitarian organisations to show solidarity with the Palestinian refugees who reject resettlement plans and aspire to return to their homeland.
A couple of years ago, I accompanied former Israeli Communication Minister Ayoob Kara and a group of foreign journalists on a trip to the war-torn Karabakh region, seven months after the conclusion of the Second Karabakh War, which ended in November 2020. Former Israeli Communications Minister Ayoob Kara described then what we witnessed there to be worse than anything he experienced in Lebanon in the 1980’s. As a veteran of Israel’s First Lebanon War, he knows what he is talking about.
Mile after mile, we drove zig-zag, as the roads were completely destroyed and surrounded by landmines. According to the Jerusalem Post, Armenia planted over 1.5 million landmines throughout Karabakh. Furthermore, in 2021, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev stressed that only 25 percent of the landmine maps that Armenia has handed over to Azerbaijan are usable. Since the Second Karabakh War ended, 302 Azerbaijani civilians have fallen victim to mine explosions, 57 of whom died and 245 of whom were severely injured. As the British newspaper Express noted, “the Armenians used Russian made mines, but they made many copies of their own.”
Due to the massive volume of landmines planted in the war-torn Karabakh region, we passed by cars that did not survive the journey. Our own bus also broke down and we were stranded for hours in an area full of landmines. There, we witnessed a landscape full of uprooted trees, burnt agricultural fields, destroyed cultural heritage sites, desecrated holy places, ruined villages, towns and even cities, and rivers without fish, as pollution had killed all of them. In fact, some of the fires were still raging on as we drove by.
Back then, in the war-torn Karabakh region, there was no airport, no cafes, no restaurants, no grocery stores and no hotel except for a run-down one in Shusha, where the former Israeli Communication Minister and I were forced to camp out in without electricity. This is because the entire area was ethnically cleansed of Azerbaijanis in violation of four UN Security Council resolutions, thus forcing one million people to become internally displaced persons as 20 percent of their country’s territory was stolen from them.
While the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission speaks of “safe-guarding the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” it is pivotal to remember that Nagorno is a Russian word that was added to the name of the region by Soviet colonialists and Karabakh is a Turkish word, which means “black garden.” This means that the original native people of Karabakh are Azerbaijani Turks, whose rights to this land have been recognized by UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884, which were unanimously adopted in 1993.
This means that the United States also recognizes Azerbaijan’s undisputable right to the war-torn Karabakh region under international law. In fact, Armenia illegally occupied this region of Azerbaijan for thirty years in defiance of the international community and engaged in illegal settler colonialism, where Armenian settlers literally lived among the ruins of what used to be Azerbaijani cities and towns.
Inspired by the Spanish Inquisition who placed pigs inside of historic synagogues, the Armenians decided to treat mosques in the war-torn Karabakh region in a similar manner. None of this should be considered surprising. After all, the Nazi war criminal Garegin Nzhdeh is considered a national hero in Armenia. As one Armenian man who worked for a nationalist organization proclaimed in Republic Square in Yerevan, “The swastika is the symbol of the Indo-European Aryan people. Gypsies were killed as a parasite nation. And Hitler killed Jews because they engaged in incitement. They have bloody money. No difference, Jews are very harmful. If rats live in your house, will it be good? Do you know that in 1915 the Armenian genocide was organized by Jews?”
Unfortunately, such prejudice against the other which compares Jews to rats and Gypsies to parasites remains widespread within Armenia. Thus, in the name of Nzhdehism, a fascist ideology that is taught in the Armenian school system and which runs the Armenian state today, all of the mosques in the region were either demolished, used as observation towers, defiled with pigs or transformed into Iranian mosques, with the indigenous Azerbaijani heritage getting completely obliterated. More than sixty mosques in the Karabakh region were entirely destroyed.
Unlike the Greeks, who after a massive fire in 1917 destroyed the historic sixteenth and seventeenth century Ottoman-era synagogues, decided to root the Jews out of Salonika by rebuilding the city as a Hellenized cosmopolitan center, the Armenians did not even bother to do that and built homes in Shusha among the headquarters of a destroyed Azerbaijani newspaper, a destroyed Azerbaijani government office, a destroyed Azerbaijani bank, and a palace belonging to Azerbaijani poet Khurshidbanu Natavan, while the native inhabitants were compelled to live in internally displaced persons camps far away from their historic homeland.
The Armenian settler colonialists literally lived among the ruins of the nation that they ethnically cleansed from the area. They did not even bother to rebuild Shusha in their image because they knew in their hearts that this was the cultural capital city of Azerbaijan, the homeland of countless Azerbaijani poets, musicians and patrons of the arts dating back centuries, and never really belonged to them, so they did not bother to plant proper roots there.
In 2022, I returned to Karabakh together with former Israeli Communication Minister Ayoob Kara. By then, the roads were much better, the five-star Karabakh Hotel and the Fizouli Airport were built, the food situation in Karabakh dramatically improved, and the greenery was beginning to be restored to the area. However, this was thanks to the heroic efforts performed by the Azerbaijani government to rebuild their homeland from nothing and had nothing to do with the Armenians.
If anything, the Armenians did everything in their power to sabotage reconstruction efforts, as over 2,700 anti-personnel mines produced in Armenia in 2021 were discovered in Azerbaijani territory. In fact, not only did Armenia refrain from handing over all of the landmine maps and continue to plant landmines, but they also attacked Azerbaijani soldiers, cooperated with Russia to illegally extract Azerbaijani resources in violation of international law, and committed other acts of sabotage, which complicated reconstruction efforts.
As a result, it will take at least thirty years to rebuild Karabakh, if not longer. In fact, the remnants of Armenia’s ethnic cleansing campaign remain to be seen in Karabakh to date. Together with Minister Kara, I went to the Ivarant Cemetery, which contained the graves of prominent members of the Karabakh Khanate, dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. The graves were gone and the beautiful Turkic architecture of the royal tombs lay in ruins, completely run down from the Armenians utilizing these historic tombs as pig pens. They treated this site like this even though it was labeled as a world heritage site. According to a local guide, “The Armenians were taking stuff away from here and selling them to the Iranians.”
During his trip to Karabakh, Kara learned that for two hundred dollars, everything inside the homes of Aghdam, whether refrigerators, washing machines, family heirlooms or raw construction materials were torn from the homes and were sold to the Iranians, who were able to profit from the destruction of an entire city and the ethnic cleansing of the Karabakh region in the 1990’s. After they took everything, they burnt everything down, thus leaving many of the homes without roofs, as the roofs were made of wood. The Imarat Cemetery was not the only historic place that they desecrated. They also destroyed the historic Bread Museum, complete with a loaf of bread dating from the Second World War.
The consequences of this conflict are still experienced by the Azerbaijani people to date. Within the past month, I attended a UN conference in Aghdam, where I saw how Azerbaijani landmine victims were struggling to play soccer with amputated legs and arms. In the past, I also visited the Mazasir Refugee Camp, where I saw how Azerbaijani internally displaced persons (IDP’s) continue to live in horrific conditions due to the fact that Armenia destroyed their homes. Talib Mammadov, an IDP from the Aghdam region that I interviewed, stated: “In our family, there was a mother, father and three brothers. During the First Karabakh War, all four men in my family got injured. I also got injured in the war in the abdomen. After that, my life changed. Everything changed. My life became exceedingly difficult. I lost my homeland. Furthermore, I was incredibly sad that Aghdam became a ghost town without people. The tragic fate of Aghdam killed my mother.”
He told me: “Imagine what it is like to open your eyes and one day see that you did not have anything, and that you have to move to another region for God knows how long. The taste of food, the taste of water, everything is different. That is why my mother passed away in 1998, for it was exceedingly difficult for her.” However, the Armenians did not just ethnically cleanse Karabakh and the seven Azerbaijani districts of Azerbaijanis. They also massacred 613 innocent Azerbaijani men, women and children in one day in Khojaly for the crime of being Azerbaijani. Over 20 US states have passed resolutions condemning this genocide.
Yasemon Hasenova, a Khojaly Genocide survivor, related: “When I was 12 years old, I experienced the terrible days of the Khojaly genocide. I lost my father, the Azerbaijani national hero Huseynov Tofig, my mother, grandparents, uncle, aunts, and my aunt’s two kids. This genocide took away my childhood. I experienced a great tragedy. I could not reconcile with the loss of my relatives. What do you think it means to lose both parents, relatives and loved ones in one night? For 29 years, I do not know what parental love is.”
Raoul Conteras wrote in Murdered in the Mountains: War Crime in Khojaly and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict about the horrendous sexual torture endured by the survivors of the Khojaly Genocide, a narrative which is often neglected in the West. The testimony given by Durdana was particularly shocking: “She was bound to a chair and slapped and hit time after time. One of the soldiers lit cigarettes for his comrades and they took turns burning her legs with lighted cigarettes. They beat her with a metal stick, which was probably a pipe. When his arm tired, another soldier took the pipe and continued to beat her.” A soldier mashed his boot into her face and then she was gang raped in front of the other prisoners, until she passed out.
Azerbaijani women who endured such sexual torture are forced to live with such memories and they are never again the same. In Judaism, rape is considered to be equivalent to murder for precisely this reason as it literally slaughters the soul of the person.
Considering this history, one must emphasize that Azerbaijan did not blockade any corridor when they set up camp along the Lachin Corridor. They merely restored their territorial integrity in accordance with four UN Security Council resolutions in order to ensure that there will be a complete halt to the Armenians smuggling weapons, landmines and other items that sabotage the peace and to ensure that there is a rapid end to Armenians engaging in ecological terrorism, after the Azerbaijani environmental activists sought to protest until monitors are permitted to evaluate the ecological damage caused by Armenia’s and Russia’s illegal exploitation of Azerbaijan’s natural resources in violation of international law. The purpose of the protests was to raise awareness about Armenia’s environmental terrorism, Armenia’s violations of international law and the plight of the environment in the areas under the control of Russian Peace Keepers.
Azerbaijani journalist Orkhan Amashov noted, “We got evidence that Azerbaijan’s gold, copper and other natural resources are being exploited by the forces inside the Russian Peace Keeping Contingent. It is very clear that this is impunity and that something must be done about it.” Unfortunately, this commission is completely silent about that, even though the goal of the protests was not to cause a humanitarian crisis for local Armenian residents in the area. In fact, between December 12, 2022 and January 5, 2023, a total of 370 vehicles passed in both directions along the Lachin Corridor. Three hundred thirty of these vehicles belonged to the Russian Peace Keepers, 31 were ambulances from the International Red Cross and another three belonged to local Armenian residents. During this period, Russian Peace Keepers provided the local Armenian population with transports of food that included rice, canned meat, pasta, flour, potatoes, onion, chicken, vegetables, cabbage, sugar, coffee and other types of food.
It is a travesty of justice that a human rights commission named after Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, would be supporting the aggressor in this conflict. As Professor Brenda Schaffer tweeted, “I met and briefed Congressman Tom Lantos many times. I doubt he would have supported a hearing on his name which shows blatant disregard for the territorial integrity of an ardent U.S. ally and ally of Israel.” It is a historic fact that Armenia is a proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, “Iranian munitions – the same ones now undergoing field testing in Ukraine – were actively used by the Armenian military during the previous round of fighting, and Iranian UAVs were used by Armenia in April 2023. Iranian emissaries are reported to have been seen in Karabakh, a separatist enclave populated by Armenians on Azerbaijani territory.”
Iran also opposes Azerbaijan regaining the Zangezur Corridor as stipulated in the Trilateral Agreement that ended the hostilities, as this would inhibit Iran’s ability to use Armenia to bypass Western sanctions. As a result, Iran is doing everything today to discourage Armenia from making peace with Azerbaijan, which has led to the mistaken impression in Yerevan that they can continue to refuse to sign a peace treaty and stay viable with the backing of Putin and the mullahs. The Armenians had good teachers when it came to learning obstinacy.
According to the political scientist Michael Gunter, “the ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) terrorists who seized the Turkish Consulate in Paris in September 1981 told the police they were trained in Palestinian camps. Evidence exists that extremist Palestinian factions collaborated with ASALA in its bloody attack on the Ankara Airport in August 1982. After its forces overran the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) strongholds in Lebanon during the summer of 1982, Israel reported that captured PLO documents confirmed the ASALA-PLO connection.” Unfortunately, when the US Congress hosts events like this, they help encourage Armenian obstinacy regarding signing a peace treaty and assist Iran in using Armenia to bypass Western-imposed sanctions.
Azerbaijan has noted many times that they are willing to peacefully coexist beside Armenians. The Azerbaijanis are more than willing to grant ethnic Armenians living in Karabakh equal rights as Azerbaijani citizens. Even though Armenia has caused Azerbaijan so much suffering, they are still waving an olive branch because they dream of a brighter future for both peoples. While the Armenians have systematically destroyed mosques in the war-torn Karabakh region, an Armenian church is still standing unmolested in the middle of Baku. Furthermore, as the Azerbaijanis rebuild Karabakh, they not only plan on rebuilding the mosques in the region but also the churches. This is because Azerbaijan pursues a multi-culturalism policy, where the followers of every faith and religion receive an equal amount of respect and support. In fact, it is normal in Azerbaijan for everyone to celebrate Easter, Novruz and Passover in unison, with the members of each faith greeting each other on their respective holidays.
While many Jews in America are afraid to wear a Star of David necklace due to anti-Semitism, the two synagogues in Oghuz remain unlocked year-round with zero security, as anti-Semitism is alien to the Azerbaijani culture and way of life. Thus, instead of this commission worrying about the plight of Armenian settler colonialists, they should focus on trying to encourage Armenia to sign a peace treaty with its neighbors, and to stop being a proxy of Iran and a stooge for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who to date uses his presence in the region in order to sabotage American and European interests in the area.
The famous Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel once stated, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” As an American citizen who was born down the street from the White House, I am utterly dismayed that the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission is desecrating the memory of a Holocaust survivor who served in the US Congress by using their name to host a panel on federal government property in honor of a proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who is allied with the Palestinian national movement against the Jewish people and seeks to harm one of Israel’s closest allies in the Islamic world.
Rachel Avraham is the CEO of the Dona Gracia Center for Diplomacy and an Israel-based journalist, who has published in the Hill, the Washington Times, I24, the Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom, the Daily Wire, JNS and many other publications.
She has an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a BA in government and politics with minors in Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Maryland at College Park. She also has a certificate in Peace Studies and Regional Security from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Avraham was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Rockville, Maryland, but has been living in Israel since 2009. She is the author of “Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media,” which was published by the prestigious Gefen Publishing House. She also wrote “Ayoob Kara: The Man Behind the Abraham Accords,” which is in the process of getting published.
The Palestinians are indeed the most privileged and cosseted of all the hundreds of millions of refugees created in the world since 1945. For every other refugee community in the world, the only people who count as “refugees” are those who actually leave, flee, or are expelled from their country of origin. The children of these refugees, born abroad, are not themselves refugees. Henry Kissinger can be described as a “German Jewish refugee.” His son David, born in New York, is not. Vladimir Nabokov was a “Russian refugee.” His son Dmitri, born in Berlin, was not. That has always been the universal rule: the children of refugees are not themselves considered to be refugees if they are born outside the parents; country of origin. But a special rule has always applied to the Palestinians, and only the Palestinians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, was set up in 1949 to tend to all the needs of Palestinian “refugees.” But UNRWA decided to treat the children of refugees, born outside “Palestine,” as refugees themselves. And so would the grandchildren, and indeed all succeeding generations. No one seems to know quite how UNRWA managed to convince the donor nations, and the world, that such special dispensation should be applied uniquely to Palestinian refugees.
One could argue that a great many of those who were described as “refugees” by UNRWA in 1949 were not true refugees. That is, they were not fleeing persecution or killing. In fact, most of them left willingly, encouraged by Arab leaders who told them to leave “Palestine” so that the Arab armies could get in, and once the Jews had been destroyed, those Arabs of Palestine – the “Palestinians” as a separate people would only be invented in the late 1960s – could safely return to reclaim not only their own homes, but also whatever property the Jews, having fled or been killed, left behind.
More on UNRWA’s ever-expanding definition of the “Palestinian refugee” can be found here: “UNRWA gives free services to 775,000 who aren’t refugees even by its own definition!,” Elder of Ziyon, June 14, 2023.
We’ve discussed many times how the UNRWA definition of “refugee” is completely at odds with the official UN definition of refugee, drastically inflating the number of real refugees they raise funds for. They include descendants of refugees that UNHCR would never consider refugees, they include two million Jordanian citizens, they include well over two million Palestinians who are citizens of the Palestinian Authority.
The UN’s accepted definition of refugees is taken from the 1951 Convention on Refugees, and reads as follows:
Any person who…owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.
Note that nothing is said to suggest that the progeny of such a person are also refugees. Elder of Ziyon continues:
We’ve seen how their “registered refugee” metric includes hundreds of thousands of people who no longer live in their areas of operation but whom UNRWA still counts as receiving services.
We’ve seen how hundreds of thousands of today’s UNRWA “registered refugees” were not even refugees under their own definition when it started, but UNRWA registered them anyway and today hundreds of thousands of UNRWA’s “Palestine refugees” didn’t even descend from real refugees in 1948.
Here Is UNRWA’s original definition of a refugee:
DEFINITION OF A REFUGEE
For working purposes, the Agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood. A large measure of flexibility in the interpretation of the above definition is accorded to chief district officers to meet the many border-line cases which inevitably arise. In some circumstances, a family may have lost part or all of its land from which its living was secured, but it may still have a house to live in. Others may have lived on one side of the boundary but worked in what is now Israel most of the year. Others, such as Bedouins, normally moved from one area of the country to another, and some escaped with part or all of their goods but cannot return to the area where they formerly resided the greater part of the time. These examples give an idea of the varying conditions that must be met in administering the relief programme.
Using its own definition of a refugee, should UNRWA cover those who are not “needy” — just as it has been doing? And can those who left “Palestine” between, say, November 1947 and May 1948, before the war started, be considered to be people who “as a result of the war in Palestine,” have lost their homes and means of livelihood? And are those who could have remained, but chose not to, so as to make things easier for the invading Arab armies, be considered to be ‘refugees” according to UNRWA’s own definition? In each case, ignoring its own definition, UNRWA has treated these people as “refugees.”
A Palestinian “refugee” could be living far from any UNRWA camp, say in New York or Stockholm, as a well-paid American or Swedish citizen, yet he or she would continue to be on UNRWA’s rolls, still counted as receiving services from UNRWA that in fact were not being supplied. In this way do UNRWA’s rolls never decrease, as very few people are ever taken off the rolls, no matter where they live or how prosperous they are, and that includes even those who have died but remain on UNRWA’s rolls, so that UNRWA can ask donors for more money.
According to UNRWA, they provide services to over 770,000 people who aren’t refugees even according to its own bizarre and counterfactual definition.
Doing some digging, I found the definition of “non-refugee” spouses and children.
The UNRWA definition of “other eligible population” includes: (i) “Non-Refugee Wives” – women who are (or were) married to registered Palestine refugees, and as such are eligible to register to receive UNRWA services; (ii) “Non-Refugee Husbands” and “Non-Refugee Descendants” (including legally adopted children) – husbands and descendants of women who are Registered Refugees and are (or were) married to a non-refugee. They are also eligible to register to receive UNRWA services. Once they are registered with UNRWA, persons in this category are referred to as Married to Non-Refugee (MNR) Family Members.
So being married to a “refugee” makes one eligible to access free UNRWA health and housing. Which would have made Palestinian “refugees” very attractive marriage partners! According to this, some 450,000 non-refugees have married UNRWA aid recipients – an astonishing number.
Moreover, even if the spouses get divorced, he or she can keep getting those benefits forever – and so can their descendants! Not a bad deal!
Think about that. Not only are the children, and grandchildren, and ever more distant descendants of refugees, treated by UNRWA as refugees themselves, but upon marriage, the non-refugee spouses of refugees suddenly become transformed into refugees themselves. Still better, even if they get a divorce, they remain “refugees” in UNRWA’s view forever, and for the rest of their lives, they will be receiving housing, medical care, family allowances, and much other largesse from UNRWA. A non-refugee woman could be married to a refugee male for a year, a month, a week, get a divorce, and from then on be the recipient of UNRWA’s lifetime support. Nice work if you can get it.
Think of how many non-refugees get married to refugees, no matter how short the marriage may last.
UNRWA’s Commissioner-General (then Director) stated in his annual report to the General Assembly in 1961: “The Agency’s definition of a refugee eligible for assistance is narrowly drawn and stipulates the loss of both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 hostilities. Substantial numbers of Palestine Arabs do not qualify for Agency relief on the technical grounds that they did not lose both home and means of livelihood, i.e. they may have lost their source of income and may be wholly destitute, but did not lose their home. This category has become known as ‘economic refugees’ and includes frontier villagers in Jordan, some destitute inhabitants of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and certain Bedouin expelled after 1948. The General Assembly has more than once confirmed that, despite the undoubted need of these unfortunate people, the Agency’s mandate does not extend to them.
That was 1961. Since then, “The present Agency position is that, while registered for the purposes of receiving UNRWA services, these persons are not counted as part of the official registered Palestine refugee population. Except for descendants through the male line, UNRWA does not accept new applications from persons wishing to be registered in these categories.
So if a person was considered a “frontier villager” or “Jerusalem poor” in 1950, even though they weren’t refugees and the UN consistently said they are not to receive UNRWA services during the 1950s, today their descendants can continue to receive UNRWA benefits as a poverty stricken Palestinian – even if they live in a mansion in Ramallah.
The UN (not UNRWA) in 1950 did not consider that the Jerusalem or Gazan poor were “refugees” to whom UNRWA needed to provide relief. And throughout the 1950s, UNRWA did not consider them as such. But since then, UNRWA has managed to provide the Palestinian poor, even if living in Gaza and the West Bank, where they never were refugees, as beneficiaries of UNRWA’s largesse. And even when some of those who started out poor become rich – “living in a mansion in Ramallah,” as Elder of Ziyon puts it – they remain recipients of UNRWA benefits. UNRWA has no means test to determine eligibility; the millionaire grandson of a refugee, who like his father was born and grew up in London, can still be on UNRWA’s rolls as eligible to receive benefits. If this sounds crazy, it’s because it is crazy.
UNRWA was set up in 1949 to provide for the care and feeding of just one group of refugees – those who left “Palestine” during the 1948 war. All other refugees, who since 1948 have numbered in the hundreds of millions (and today there are more than one hundred million), are provided with just one UN body to look after their welfare — the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees). No one can explain, much less justify, why “Palestinian refugees” alone should be so favored as to have a massive agency devoted only to them.
Only “Palestinian refugees” have been allowed to pass on, as if it were an inheritable trait, the status of “refugee.” For all other refugees – there have been hundreds of millions of refugees since 1948 — that status is not passed on to their progeny, but stops with them. Those of their children, who were born in countries other than the one their parents fled, are not themselves refugees.
Palestinian refugees can not only pass on their status to descendants, but also to non-refugee spouses. 450,000 non-refugee spouses have through marriage been placed on UNRWA rolls, which entitles them to lifetime benefits. Even if they divorce, these ex-wives and ex-husbands retain their lifetime eligibility for UNRWA benefits.
The children adopted by a Palestinian refugee are also eligible for lifetime benefits from UNRWA.
UNRWA’s rolls now include many of the Gazan and West Bank poor, even if neither they nor any of their ancestors were refugees.
Many of the refugees who have died since 1949 nonetheless remain on the UNRWA rolls, thus the number of refugees UNRWA claims to care for never decreases, nor does the amount of money UNRWA asks of donors.
With each new birth of a descendant of a refugee, no matter how distant, UNRWA rolls increase, and so do demands on donors for increased aid.
Even the Arab states have stopped contributing to UNRWA. The Agency, recently wracked with money and sex scandals at the very top, needs to be put out of its – and our — misery. Let the donor aid continue to dry up, the bloated staff of 30,000 forced to make severe cuts. Above all, at long last, donors must insist — with the Americans in the lead — that Palestinian “refugees” must be treated like all other refugee groups. That means that only those who left “Palestine” because they were driven out during the 1948 war (many left because they were convinced they would soon return) should be eligible for UNRWA benefits. That will shrink the UNRWA rolls from the inflated claim of 5.7 million to less than 30,000, with the numbers of genuine refugees diminishing each day.
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Elisha Anteman, age 18, from the settlement of Eli in the central West Bank was buried late Tuesday night at the cemetery in his hometown.
