UNRWA’s terrorists

Tragically, the visuals the Israeli government has been using—dead and maimed bodies—are too easy for the PLO and Hamas to counter.

It was not hard to predict that the Arabs would now line up their mangled bodies from our air raids in response to mangled Jewish bodies.

What the Arabs cannot counter: Clear presentations of lethal indoctrination to murder Jews by the U.N.’s Palestinian Arab refugee agency UNRWA, as we at the Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research have documented for 36 years.

Our footage and studies of UNRWA schools show that UNRWA arms and brainwashes Arab children as young as nine years old with a curriculum of premeditated genocidal murder.

Tragically, numerous agencies that promote Israel’s cause have not shared this lethal incitement with journalists who cover the war.

I have spoken with dozens of reporters. Not one journalist has even glanced at the new UNRWA textbooks that glorify the murder of Jews.

Not one reporter has seen our movies that depict Arab children trained to murder Jews in cold blood.

I and my colleagues who work to document lethal incitement to massacre Jews predicted the current war.

On Sept. 27, I brought four Arabic-fluent journalists with whom we have worked for 25 years to brief Israel intelligence on how UNRWA indoctrinates a new generation to murder Jews in a cold and systematic manner, devoid of emotion.

That is precisely what occurred on Oct. 7, when 3,000 highly trained and well-disciplined Palestinian Arab UNRWA terrorists traversed the porous Gaza fence and went on a killing spree, attacking anyone in their path—men, women, children and babies. Many of the UNRWA terrorists knew their victims by name.

This fact is worth reiterating: Testimonies showed that as the UNRWA attackers killed children, often in front of their parents, many of the killers knew each victim by name.

Our new movie will depict how UNRWA mesmerizes youngsters in Bethlehem and Jerusalem to engage in the kind of killing spree that the world witnessed on Oct. 7.

The world needs to know that UNRWA teaches murder.

UNRWA’s close interaction with terrorist organisation Hamas

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0629/09
by Paul van Buitenen (Verts/ALE)
to the Commission

During the recent military operation ‘Cast Lead’ by Israel in Gaza, the Hamas terrorist organisation used UNRWA compounds such as schools to attack Israeli forces and civilian targets and to store weapons and ammunition. UNRWA has over 25 000 Palestinian Arabs on its payroll. In the Gaza strip, which is controlled by Hamas, UNRWA is running 200 schools. In 2004, (now former) UNRWA director Peter Hansen was quoted in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in which he mentioned that it was quite possible that members of the terrorist organisation Hamas were on the UNRWA payroll.

  • As the EU is UNRWA’s main sponsor, what has the Commission done to ensure that none of the employees of UNRWA are affiliated with a terrorist organisation? Has there been an official investigation to check the claims of Mr Hansen? If so what are its findings?
  • Can the Commission exclude the possibility that members of a terrorist organisation are currently being employed by UNRWA?

Has the Commission taken note of the article ‘UNRWA Schools in Gaza infiltrated by Palestinian terrorists’ written by Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs researcher Jonathan Halevi, as appeared on 22 January 2009 in the Hebrew version of http://www.ynetnews.com, in which the following is stated?

  • Suhil el-Hindi won the UNRWA workers committee elections held on 14 June 2006. Suhel el-Hindi is the head of the teachers sector at UNRWA schools and openly identifies himself as a Hamas representative. He controls the curriculum in UNRWA schools, the employment of teachers in those schools, and the summer camps.
  • Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayyam who was responsible for Hamas terror attacks and was killed during the recent military operation ‘Cast Lead’ apparently was a UNRWA teacher for 23 years.

Can the Commission clarify whether these statements are correct? If this is the case, UNRWA as a Hamas-dependent organisation depends heavily on EU support. What consequences does this have for the EU’s financial support of UNRWA?

OJ C 189, 13/07/2010

UNRWA after the war

View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building during a strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 26, 2018. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** אונר"א
עזה
בניין
שביתה

The war in Gaza will change many basic things, not only in the Middle East but all over the world as well, hopefully for the better and a policy change within UNRWA is a central component for the thorough changes that are crucial as a result of this war and its aftermath. 

 

Without these essential changes the situation will only get worsen.

 

Nothing is new except for the fact that UNRWA in Gaza exploded in a way that the entire world witnessed a pogrom that had been rehearsed for decades in the UNRWA schools that our news and research agency has covered since 1987.

 

The systematic UNRWA call for violence had been witnessed and ignored by the IDF for a generation.  

 

The Palestinian refugee situation has gone through a drastic change following the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and its effects on Lebanon. The vacillations that have taken place over Syria and Lebanon are now occurring in Gaza and provide a requisite to reevaluate UNRWA and its role in this new situation. 

 

As a result of the war, the UNRWA refugee camps in Syria have disintegrated. Hamas,  with the backing of Qatar, recruited followers in these camps to fight alongside the Sunnis who were fighting against President Assad’s camp, including recruitment to Jabhat A-Nuswra – a variant of Al Queda who operates under the umbrella of the branch Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar.. Khaled Mashal,a leader of Hamas,  is responsible for this recruitment and his people were later placed as officers for the terror group Jabhat A-Nuswra.

 

Assad did not forget this and obliterated what remained of the  UNRWA  refugee camps in Syria. 

 

Instead of 1948 refugees, a new refugee situation has been created as a result of the civil war in Syria. While they integrated into the huge flow of Syrian refugees, the Palestinian refugees were not eligible to receive aid from UNHCR, the UN’s agency for aid of refugees because they were considered UNRWA’s responsibility. 

 

Aid from UNHCR would mean that “the Right of Return”

 

The Palestinian refugees from the Syrian camps needed to organize themselves into ad hoc relief committees.  Syrian refugees who e not Palestinian can and do receive aid from UNHCR, and  the Palestinian refugees in Syria have simply been abandoned.

 

Meanwhile, the IDF has entered the largest UNRWA camp in Gaza-  Jabalia –  where we are witness to the destruction of that UNRWA  facility while a new Arab refugee situation in the south of Gaza is now festering. The chain of events that we saw in Syria are the new reality on the ground in Gaza. 

 

Against the wishes of Hamas UNRWA staff moved to the south of Gaza together with the new flow of refugees and they are providing aid for the new refugees. This could be a new beginning of a focus on reforms in the Palestinian education curriculum which was UNRWA’s Achilles heel. 

 

That UNRWA curriculum was directly  responsible for the barbarous pogroms that took place in Southern Israel and the aftermath of disaster in Gaza.

 

For decades the UNRWA curriculum has groomed generations of Palestinian Arabs of all ages to murder Jews, delegitimize the State of Israel and strengthened the demand for the “Right of Return by force of arms. .

 

The gruesome horrific scenes from the atrocities which were perpetrated on Simchat Torah – October 7- were committed by the UNRWA  Gaza camps against  civilian men, women, children and babies, witnessed by whole world, were  the direct product of UNRWA’s indoctrination of genocide in their schools  run by Hamas , 

 

Since 2009, The Nahum Center dispatched TV crews to film the violent Hamas summer camps, where children as  young as nine were trained to integrate live weapons and an ideology which indoctrinate the murder of Jews as a “value” 

 

The obvious conclusion must be either that UNRWA goes through a comprehensive policy change to overhaul its schools or hands over the responsibility of the Palestinian refugees who are no longer 1948 refugees but 2023 refugees to UNHCR.

 

The entire  UNRWA  school system must now break from the sanctification of the  Right of Return while providing aid for the new refugees to rehabilitate in the places where they are now residing.

 

If  UNRWA will not take it upon itself this mission, the new  warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia coul should join forces in the rehabilitation of Gaza, while transferring the responsibility over Gaza from Qatar to Saudi Arabia. 

 

Hamas is not alone in promoting the armed rebellion of  the  UNRWA refugee camps . The PA is a huge advocate of violent incitement against Israel in the refugee camps of Judea and Samaria.

 

With this understanding it is imperative that Gaza’s rehabilitation must include also a comprehensive fundamental change the UNRWA school curriculum that indoctrinates total war  against Israel.It is this This curriculum is to blame for the suffering now facing by Jews and Arabs  

 

At this point in time, more than 60 major nations and 33 international relief agencies pour $1,6 billion into UNRWA, with 58% allocated to UNRWA “education”-  with no constraints. 


At a time when UNRWA schools in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza have been operating as virtual arsenals-0with UNRWA donors looking the other way, the open checkbook for UNRWA must end 

 

NGOS who fund UNRWA: 

https://israelbehindthenews.com/2022/10/04/top-ngo-donors-to-unrwa/

 

 

Major nations who fund UNRWA: https://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help/government-partners/funding-trends

 

Haaretz

Haaretz | Opinion

Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza

…instead of seeing this as positive and critical to put checks and balances on Netanyahu’s government, which indeed includes supporters of terror, genocide and full apartheid,

Which members of the government supports “terror, genocide and full apartheid?”

 

30.10.23

Israel News | Haaretz Today

At War, Are Israelis Really Unified?

The leader of the city’s garin torani (a state-funded group of Jewish religious nationalists who are meant to indoctrinate their urban neighbors), called for all Arabs at the college to be expelled.

The garin torani “educates” not “indoctrinates”. The Arabs were expelled after eggs were thrown at Jewish worshippers,

 

To date, six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers since the war began.

I know of only one purported case, not six. In another article from the previous day – “Five Palestinians Killed by Israeli Army Fire in West Bank, Palestinian Health Ministry Says” – also claims there are six but only mentions one.

2.11.23

Haaretz | Israel News

Israeli Defense Minister: Transfer Funds to Palestinian Authority Immediately

There is no article discussing this headline. I did searches for “transfer funds” “defense minister” and Palestinian Authority”

 

Haaretz Magazine

Israeli Peace Activists Who Lost Loved Ones in the Hamas Massacre Stand Their Ground

“The Palestinian people suffer a lot from the Hamas regime, but what can you do?”

Why make peace with Hamas if they cause the Palestinian people to suffer?

State Department Denies UNRWA in Gaza not controlled by Hamas, Newsrael Report November 1, 2023

November 1, 2023 Newsrael’s White House and State Department News Correspondent gets called on for questions by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller and Miller denies that the U.N. agency UNRWA in Gaza is controlled by Hamas, but Hamas does in fact control everything in Gaza and UNRWA history experts U.S. Senator James Risch and Israel Behind the News Reporter David Bedein emphatically disagree with State Department spokesman Miller on this matter. UNRWA Senator James Risch February 15, 2023 https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/…

Why Biden’s new Ambassador to Israel is ‘DEEPLY DISTURBING’

The Senate has confirmed Jack Lew as the United States’ new ambassador to Israel and it reveals a lot about what Biden’s true intentions may be. Glenn runs through the basic qualifications an ambassador to Israel should have — a deep understanding of the Jewish culture, foreign policy, and Iran. So, does Jack Lew — Obama’s former Treasury Secretary who played a key role in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal — check the boxes? Well, Glenn says he has a feeling that Lew won’t be too popular in Israel, especially as Iranian-backed terrorists continue to attack.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So yesterday, the Senate voted to confirm President Biden’s pick for ambassador to Israel. I don’t think he’s going to be real popular over there.

Now, this has been a month’s long vacancy. How is that possible?

Well, President Biden really picked somebody really, really good.

The qualifications. What do you think the qualifications to the ambassador to Israel. What should he have?

I mean, maybe, he should be Jewish.

Okay. The new ambassador.

Checks that box. He’s an Orthodox Jew. Observes the Sabbath. So far so good. Our ambassador to Israel should also have experience to foreign policy. Kind of important, saying the region is a tinderbox right now. Might be a little bit of an understatement.

Well, the nominee, he did serve as Obama’s deputy secretary of state, for management and resources.

That is referred to as the chief operating officer of the State Department. So, you know, give it all the aid that we’ll probably throw at the region. Could be a valuable skill set.

No. No. Now, of course, much of that aid is going to Gaza. But we know this new ambassador that was passed yesterday, by the Senate, knows how to handle finance. I mean, real finance. Real money too.

His name is Jack Lew. He’s the new ambassador.

Lieu was also the director of the office of management and budget, under both Clinton and Obama.

And then he served as Obama’s Treasury secretary from 2013 to 2017. So that’s great. Right?

As we learned from Ukraine, keeping track of our foreign aid, is going to be very important. And if he’s the ambassador, it will be great.

Oh, wait. What?

We just throw it out like Oprah?

And hope it blows up Russia or something?

Oh.

What? There’s definitely no money laundering going on?

Right. Okay.

What do you mean?

Having the guy who ran the US Treasury. The opera or operas is going to make things worse?

No. It can’t be. It can’t be. The third thing I think we should learn about the ambassador of Israel. He has a very solid understanding of Iran.

And Jack Lew has a very solid understanding on Iran.

Because Hamas isn’t funding itself. Hamas, Hezbollah, and now the Houthi rebels in Yemen, they’re all getting their money and orders from Iran.

So we don’t want to send more. What?

He’s going to send. Okay.

Wait a minute.

Apparently, Jack Lew is one of the main players in Iran’s nuclear deal.

He is also the main guy Obama used to sell the deal to the Jewish community.

Now, he probably quickly realized the deal backfired. Well, in 2017, he said, I think Israel is safer today, than it was before the deal, when Iran was genuinely approaching having a nuclear weapon.

So remember the pallet of cash, that we put on the airport there for Iran?

Yeah. That’s Jack Lew.

That’s him.

So good pick for ambassador. For Israel. Right?

Every Senate Republican, except for two, voted no!

The two that voted for him, Rand Paul, and warmonger extraordinaire Lindsey Graham.

Now, is there a chance that Jack Lew will use his financial and negotiation skills to bring peace back to the region?

Yeah.

Or maybe he’s the perfect guy to continue what Biden has been doing all along. Appeasing Iran. Making the perfect opportunity for government money laundering.

But, I mean, honestly, if we could print our own money in the basement, I mean, wouldn’t you?

STU: So Rand Paul — Rand has been on the record kind of to approve most nominees. Right? That’s kind of been his stance over the years.

He pretty much believes — he believes in pretty much rubber stamps. He believes unless there’s something deeply unconstitutional about him.

I vote yes.

I am there to affirm. This is the way it used to be done, pretty much.

You would send somebody. And the Senate would not hold it for very long.

They would say, yes, Mr. President. That’s who you want. That’s who you get.

Unless there’s something deeply disturbing.

And I think there’s something deeply disturbing. You know, about Jack Lew.

STU: Right. It’s interesting tool. On the money part of this.

The Republican Party stopped caring about spending. I don’t know what year it was.

But pretty recently. At least stopped saying they — they cared about spending.

They really just — I guess they habitized it. Only when they’re in the opposition, do they say anything about it, basically at this point.

And it does not seem to be to be a central part of the platform anymore. It’s good. You want to make sure that you watch where this money goes. I think there’s no reason to avoid doing something like that.

I think the interesting part about this, is that this is such a bad situation.

I am someone who does care about spending. Like, we bring on budget experts all the time.

We still talk about how the debt is out of control.

Like, it’s an issue I still care about.

But when it comes to issues like both Ukraine and Israel, it is lower on my priority list. It’s not the top thing, I’m thinking about when I’m thinking about it.

Like Ukraine is a great example of this. I’m upset about all the money we’re spending in Ukraine.

It’s not my top concern, however, when it comes to Ukraine.

My top concern is this moronic group of people, getting us into World War III.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Like. I don’t want them to spend the money. But if they spent the money on lollipops, I would also be very upset about it. But I don’t think it would cause World War III.

GLENN: Yeah, right. I get that. I am concerned about — that’s why I like the deal that the House has just put together for Israel.

If Biggs gets the amendment. Where you have to have eyes on it. That should be a given. That should just be a given.

So you have to have eyes on it.

And the money comes from something you didn’t spend that you said you wanted before.

Well, now you want this.

Okay. We will take that.

That is the way everybody in the real world works.

STU: Yeah. And it’s a way to actually address both things. There’s no reason, why we can’t take it from some delapidated. Either not spending it. Or wasting it.

GLENN: Yeah. I don’t think. And this is a real thing. We spent, I don’t know how many millions on — I guess mapping the vaginas of lesbians in the Congo.

I mean, what — what?

STU: Mapping them.

GLENN: Well, I don’t know exactly what we did with them.

But we were studying them for some reason.

And I don’t know why.

STU: I don’t want to know why.

GLENN: I don’t want to know why.

Just stop. Stop.

There’s enough cookies in the cookie jar. That are so bad, that we should take them out of the jar.

STU: And, you know, look, I’ve never been to the Congo.

I had a time share there. But I never made it out there.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: But my belief is it’s probably not the greatest place to live on a daily basis.

And if so, leave these people alone.

Stop studying their vaginas. Just let them live their lives. You don’t need to go in there with all your equipment. Just them alone. Let them breathe. You know what I’m saying? Let them hang out there. That — that should be lower on your concern list.

The roots of Hamas’ terror attack can be found in Gaza’s schools

At the core of the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is a question: When Israel withdrew from the coastal Palestinian enclave in 2005, why did the romantic vision of it as a place that would function as a fit home for its citizens turn into the hellish reality of a failed state run by a terrorist organization? The easy and popular theories — a military blockade by Israel, a civil war between Palestinian political factions — miss a fundamental point. The roots of this generation of Hamas terrorism resides in ideas fomented in Gaza’s education system for decades.

While serving in Congress between 2001 and 2017, I studied what goes on in Palestinian schools. I reviewed their textbooks, met with educators and diplomats, and introduced legislation and amendments compelling the Department of State to monitor antisemitism in foreign classrooms. I saw firsthand that a generation of Palestinian children were being taught at an early age to reject living peacefully with Israel. They read about it in their schoolbooks and heard about it from their teachers. They were raised on a steady curriculum of violent rejectionism. My colleagues and I in Congress were unable to change that reality.

Now, as the world reels from the devastation of Hamas’ terrorism, understanding how Palestinian children are taught is essential to any discussion of the future in the region.

A startling 47% of the population in Gaza is under 18. A European human rights group recently reported that 91% of these children “suffer from some form of conflict-related trauma,” having grown up in impoverished, unsafe conditions and lived through multiple devastating rounds of warfare with Israel. This is a recipe for radicalization, supercharged by the fact that Hamas has sought to directly cultivate antisemitic attitudes in its education system.

The children of Gaza have three education options: Those classified as refugees attend schools run by the United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency. Most others attend schools run by Hamas, the de-facto governors of Gaza. And there are a handful of private schools.

A 2013 New York Times article said that Gaza schools run by Hamas and the U.N. both use the Palestinian Authority curriculum that is also taught throughout the West Bank, but that “Hamas has added programs, like a military training elective” and other teachings to “infuse the next generation with its militant ideology.”

This curriculum “includes references to the Jewish Torah and Talmud as ‘fabricated,’” the Times reported, and a description of Zionism as a racist movement whose goals include driving Arabs out of the entire area between the Nile in Africa and the Euphrates in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.”

This is a curriculum designed to indoctrinate and radicalize its students in support of Hamas’ terrorist aims.

Even the comparatively moderate Palestinian Authority textbooks are problematic. In 2020, the European Union’s Parliament adopted three resolutions condemning the authority “for continuing to teach hate and violence in its school textbooks,” following a study confirming incitement in the curriculum. To teach physics, a textbook showed students “a picture of Palestinians hitting Israeli soldiers with slingshots,” the study found, while another “promotes a conspiracy theory that Israel removed the original stones of ancient sites in Jerusalem and replaced them with ones bearing Zionist drawings and shapes.”

UNRWA schools in Gaza, too, are replete with antisemitism. A 2018 article in The Times of Israel cited examples including the lionization of Dalal al-Mughrabi, who led a 1978 attack on a bus in Tel Aviv that killed more than 30  people, as a “heroine and martyr of Palestine,” and the description of the victims of an attack in Psagot, a settlement in the occupied West Bank, as “a barbecue party.”

When I hear Israeli survivors of the massacre describe the sheer hate and absence of humanity in the eyes of their attackers, I’m unsurprised. Those eyes were forced open to a false, hate-filled view of Jews for years.

Now, the children of Gaza — who have grown up in poverty, lost family members due to the ongoing violence, and been taught to hate the Jewish people — will be tasked with rising from the ashes of a brutal war triggered by Hamas’ indiscriminate murder of innocent Israeli civilians. Hamas has failed all of Gaza, yet those who have suffered most are the children.

Israel, the United States and other regional partners must work to build a better future for these children. That means an education system that abolishes hate from its curriculum. That means a government that teaches children how to build, not blow up. That means free and fair elections.

That means an end to Hamas’ reign of terror, and schools that do not teach students to hate their neighbors.

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International and Israeli Sociologists in Solidarity with Hamas

A new petition titled “Sociologists in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People” was posted recently, with some two thousand signatures from students and staff. It includes many Arabs and some Jews, including David Feldman, Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College, and two Israelis, Eliran Arazi from the Hebrew University and Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, and Dr. Eliran Bar-El, Lecturer in Sociology, University of York.

The petition states, “Sociology as a discipline is rooted in a recognition of relationships of power and inequality. As sociologists and human beings, we unreservedly condemn the latest violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli regime. Over the past seven days, the government of Israel has undertaken, in its own words, a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza—the second most densely populated place on the planet, home to 2.1 million residents, of which 1.7 million are refugees.”

Since Israel “claims” its actions are justifiable responses to the Hamas violence against Israeli civilians, “it has targeted the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza, while exhibiting little regard for the loss of human life. Using racist and dehumanizing language.” It then quotes Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who remarked, “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” Because in just ten days, “Israel has dropped over 6,000 bombs on Gaza, hit the Rafah crossing on the border to Egypt several times, targeted hospitals and ambulances, members of the press, universities, United Nations’ schools and relief offices, and used white phosphorus, a highly flammable munition that the United Nations has banned for use in dense civilian areas. Israeli forces have also cut off water, food, electricity, and medical supplies, which has pushed hospitals to a breaking point. This is an act of collective punishment.”

This, “in contravention of international law threatens the lives of over two million people, half of whom are children, with unimaginable violence and displacement.”

As of writing, ״over 4,385 Palestinians have been murdered, including a staggering 1,756 children, and over 13,561 injured. Israel’s military campaign has also displaced nearly half of Gaza’s population. It has unconscionably demanded that 1.1 million residents relocate from Northern to Southern Gaza in 24 hours, while simultaneously bombing caravans of those attempting to evacuate, and continuing to bomb the Southern part of Gaza. Calls for “evacuation” parallel the military offenses of 1948 and 1967, when Palestinians were forced to leave their homes and never allowed to return. The majority of people in Gaza are long-term refugees, and now again face genocide and ethnic cleansing. At the same time, Israeli settlers across the West Bank, recently armed by the Israeli government with 10,000 assault rifles, have targeted Palestinian civilians, with over 50 already murdered and two villages depopulated in the last week. We are witnessing internationally supported genocide. This latest siege comes as a continuation and escalation of the daily violence Palestinians faced for decades from Israeli colonization; an apartheid regime whose occupation is in clear violation of international law, but persists with the support of powerful governments globally. “

The petitioners are upset that the Western world sides with Israel and protest the “increased harassment of pro-Palestinian voices around the globe. We join people around the world who are raising their voices in protest of this assault on human life.”

They conclude that “As educators, it is our duty to stand by the principles of critical inquiry and learning, to hold the university as a space for conversation that foregrounds historical truths, and that contextualizes this past week’s violence in the context of 75 years of settler colonial occupation and European empire. We are also deeply troubled by the lack of concern and care for Palestinian and Muslim students at many of our universities, as well as efforts to clamp down on student organizing and free speech. We cannot sit back and witness the continuation of this genocidal war. We demand that our governments push for an immediate ceasefire. This stance follows in the tradition of the civil rights movement, anti-war and anti-apartheid protests of decades past. Aligning ourselves with these freedom struggles, we call on all of our colleagues to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and against settler colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.”

The petition is a classic example of the anti-Israeli activists in the academy. First, it decontextualizes the Israeli action from any empirical reality. Nowhere does the petition mention the brutal, ISIS-style attack of Hamas on the civilian population in the border communities. One would not know from the text that the terrorists burned people, raped women, beheaded babies, and kidnapped more than two hundred people to serve as hostages.

Second, Hamas is also hurting the civilian population in Gaza. The organization is in complete control of the enclave and, over the years, siphoned billions of dollars of international aid to build a virtual military fortress replete with missiles, rockets, drones, and miles of tunnel. Most egregiously, many, if not most, of the installations are built in or under public buildings, mosques, schools, and hospitals. This turns the civilians into human shields, a practice strictly prohibited in International Humanitarian Law (IHL). On the other hand, Israel has always tried to comport with IHL, even warning civilians to leave the premises before a strike.

As for the Israeli signatories, Eliran Arazi is a “PhD researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Advanced School in the Social Sciences (EHESS-Paris). He is currently also a research fellow at the Musée du quai Branly. Already in 2012, he signed a BDS petition.

Dr. Eliran Bar-El is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. In 2016, he also signed a BDS petition.

Clearly, by signing the sociologists petition, Arazi and Bar-El are signaling to Arab peers they are on their side, like many anti-Israel Israeli academics who are recruited to Western Universities.

 

References

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wIKLuNYWre8jdV-tqqVJjz_GyM9_WasWjVuV9HSwazs/edit

Sociologists in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People

Sociology as a discipline is rooted in a recognition of relationships of power and inequality. As sociologists and human beings, we unreservedly condemn the latest violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli regime.

Over the past seven days, the government of Israel has undertaken, in its own words, a “complete siege” of Gaza—the second most densely populated place on the planet, home to 2.1 million residents, of which 1.7 million are refugees. While claiming its actions are a justifiable response to recent Hamas violence against Israeli civilians, it has targeted the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza, while exhibiting little regard for the loss of human life. Using racist  and dehumanizing language, Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, remarked, “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

In just ten days, Israel has dropped over 6,000 bombs on Gaza, hit the Rafah crossing on the border to Egypt several times, targeted hospitals and ambulancesmembers of the pressuniversitiesUnited Nations’ schools and relief offices, and used white phosphorus, a highly flammable munition that the United Nations has banned for use in dense civilian areas. Israeli forces have also cut off water, food, electricity, and medical supplies, which has pushed hospitals to a breaking point. This is an act of collective punishment, in contravention of international law, which threatens the lives of over two million people, half of whom are children, with unimaginable violence and displacement. As of writing, over 4,385 Palestinians have been murdered, including a staggering 1,756 children, and over 13,561 injured.

Israel’s military campaign has also displaced nearly half of Gaza’s population. It has unconscionably demanded that 1.1 million residents relocate from Northern to Southern Gaza in 24 hours, while simultaneously bombing caravans of those attempting to evacuate, and continuing to bomb the Southern part of Gaza. Calls for “evacuation” parallel the military offenses of 1948 and 1967, when Palestinians were forced to leave their homes and never allowed to return. The majority of people in Gaza are long-term refugees, and now again face genocide and ethnic cleansing. At the same time, Israeli settlers across the West Bank, recently armed by the Israeli government with 10,000 assault rifles, have targeted Palestinian civilians, with over 50 already murdered and two villages depopulated in the last week.

We are witnessing internationally supported genocide. This latest siege comes as a continuation and escalation of the daily violence Palestinians faced for decades from Israeli colonization; an apartheid regime whose occupation is in clear violation of international law, but persists with the support of powerful governments globally. In 2023 alone, the United States has sent $3.8 billion to prop up the Israeli military and consistently legitimized Israel’s human rights violations on a global stage. The European Union too has brazenly supported Israel’s aggression, while failing to reflect on the historical irony to “never again” commit genocide.

Furthermore, the dehumanizing language used by heads of state, military leaders, and journalists throughout the West, has begun to increase anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim sentiment and violence. This has already led to horrible consequences, like the stabbing murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year old Palestinian American child, a hate crime against a Sikh teen, and increased harassment of pro-Palestinian voices around the globe.

We join people around the world who are raising their voices in protest of this assault on human life. As educators, it is our duty to stand by the principles of critical inquiry and learning, to hold the university as a space for conversation that foregrounds historical truths, and that contextualizes this past week’s violence in the context of 75 years of settler colonial occupation and European empire. We are also deeply troubled by the lack of concern and care for Palestinian and Muslim students at many of our universities, as well as efforts to clamp down on student organizing and free speech.

We cannot sit back and witness the continuation of this genocidal war. We demand that our governments push for an immediate ceasefire. This stance follows in the tradition of the civil rights movement, anti-war and anti-apartheid protests of decades past. Aligning ourselves with these freedom struggles, we call on all of our colleagues to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and against settler colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.

Click here to become a signatory.

Signatories

  1. Mary Romero, Professor of Justice Studies and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University

  2. Aldon Morris, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Black Studies Northwestern University

  3. Ruth Milkman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, CUNY

  4. Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology, Raymond Pace & Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania

  5. Julian Go, Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago

  6. Jessica Halliday Hardie, Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

  7. José Itzigsohn, Professor of Sociology, Brown University

  8. Michael Burawoy, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, University of California Berkeley

  9. Craig Calhoun, University Professor, Arizona State University

  10. Eric Margolis, Arizona State University

  11. Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor, University of Michigan

  12. Moon-Kie Jung, Professor, University of Massachusetts

  13. David Cook-Martín, Professor, CU Boulder

  14. Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

  15. Jessie Daniels, Professor of Sociology, CUNY

  16. Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Professor of Sociology and Individualized Studies, New York University

  17. Arathi Sriprakash, Professor of Sociology and Education, University of Oxford

  18. Howard Winant, Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus

  19. Anna Guevarra, Professor and Founding Director,  Global Asian Studies, University of Illinois Chicago

  20. Melissa Weiner, Professor, College of the Holy Cross

  21. Tianna Paschel, Associate Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley

  22. Mara Loveman, Professor, UC Berkeley

  23. Cedric de Leon, Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies, UMass Amherst

  24. William I Robinson, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California at Santa Barbara

  25. Joe Feagin, Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University

  26. Tanya Golash-Boza, Professor of Sociology at UC Merced

  27. Deborah Gould, Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Cruz

  28. Ranita Ray, Associate Professor, University of New Mexico

  29. Brandon Andrew Robinson, Chair and Associate Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies, UCR

  30. Ruth McAreavey, Professor of Sociology, Newcastle University

  31. Rebecca Elliott, Associate Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics

  32. Heba Gowayed, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Boston University

  33. Eman Abdelhadi, Assistant Professor of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago

  34. James M. Thomas, Associate Professor, University of Mississippi

  35. Heather Randell, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota

  36. Shay-Akil McLean

  37. Vaclav Masek, USC PhD Student

  38. Evangeline Warren, PhD Candidate, The Ohio State University

  39. Yannick Coenders, Postdoctoral Fellow/Assistant Professor of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis

  40. A Johnson

  41. Julien Larregue, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Université Laval

  42. Chen Liang, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Texas at Austin

  43. Jack Thornton, PhD candidate, University of Pennsylvania

  44. Victoria Reyes, Associate Professor, University of California, Riverside

  45. Muhammad Ridha, PhD Candidate, Northwestern University

  46. Gabriel Hetland, Associate Professor, SUNY Albany

  47. Ricarda Hammer, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley

  48. Daniel R. Morrison, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Alabama in Huntsville

  49. Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University

  50. Cihan Tugal, Sociology, UC Berkeley

  51. Nabila Islam, Doctoral Candidate, Brown University

  52. Andrea Constant, PhD Student, The Ohio State University

  53. Saida Grundy, Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston University

  54. Patricia McIsaac. Elementary Teacher

  55. Irene Pang, Assistant Professor, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University

  56. Veda Hyunjin Kim, Assistant Professor of Sociology-Anthropology, Ohio Wesleyan University

  57. Shantel Gabrieal Buggs, Assistant Professor, Florida State University

  58. Zachary Levenson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Florida International University

  59. Benjamin Bradlow, Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Princeton University

  60. Raquel Douglas, Ph.D. student, Brown University

  61. Amaka Okechukwu, Assistant Professor, George Mason University

  62. Jamie O’Quinn, Assistant Professor of Sociology, California State University San Bernardino

  63. Shannon Malone Gonzalez, Assistant Professor, University North Carolina-Chapel Hill

  64. Semassa Boko, Graduate Candidate, University of California Irvine

  65. Danielle E. Midgyett, PhD Student, University of Delaware

  66. Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley

  67. Katie Kaufman Rogers, Assistant Professor, Regis University

  68. Salma Mostafa, graduate Sociology student at Northwestern University

  69. Pilar Gonalons Pons, Associate Professor University of Pennsylvania

  70. Paloma E Villegas, Associate Professor, California State University, San Bernardino

  71. Yichen Shen, graduate student, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University

  72. Cati Connell, Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University

  73. Karin Yndestad, PhD Candidate, Northwestern University

  74. christina ong, PhD Candidate, University of Pittsburgh

  75. Vivian Shaw, Mellon Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

  76. Santiago J. Molina, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University

  77. Archana Ramanujam, PhD student, Brown University

  78. Carolina Hernandez, M.A., University of Pittsburgh

  79. Spyros Sofos, Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University

  80. Nicole Jenkins, Assistant Professor Howard University

  81. Madeleine Govia, MSDS

  82. Carilee Osborne, PhD Student, Brown University

  83. Xianni Zhang, PhD Student, University of Michigan

  84. Brett Kellett, PhD Student, University of Michigan

  85. Yeneca Lee, PhD student, University of Pittsburgh

  86. Cat Dang Ton, PhD Student, Department of Sociology

  87. Jean Beaman, Associate Professor, University of California-Santa Barbara

  88. Lanora Johnson, PhD Candidate, University of Michigan

  89. Eyako Heh, Sociology PhD Student, Northwestern University

  90. Erika Kim, PhD Student, University of Michigan

  91. Xavier Durham, UC Berkeley

  92. Georgiann Davis, Associate Professor, University of New Mexico

  93. Katie Jensen, Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Studies, UW-Madison

  94. Sonia Planson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University

  95. Kalyani Jayasankar, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Southern California

  96. Laura Garbes, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota

  97. Kelsey Weymouth-Little, PhD Student, UC Irvine

  98. Dr Babalwa Magoqwana- Nelson Mandela University

  99. Mo Torres, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

True colours

It is at times like these when one can discover who is genuine and who is “missing in action”.

This is not the first time that Jews in the Diaspora and Israel have faced a situation where, in the face of unbridled hate, they have encountered “fair-weather friends.”  In 1933 when the Nazis were voted into power, German Jews experienced this first-hand. I remember my late mother telling me that all of a sudden, girlfriends with whom she had socialized at school dropped her and wanted nothing to do with her because overnight, she had become a “dirty Jew.” My late father likewise recounted how from one day to the next, Jewish university students were shunned and victimized, followed shortly thereafter with expulsions from all institutions of higher education.

Expulsion of Jewish university students and faculty may not yet have occurred in democratic countries but victimization and intimidation certainly is now a common event. Student and faculty groups are demonized, followed by verbal and physical abuse.

Those perpetrating these acts of hate are now showing their true coloursIt is becoming glaringly obvious which way the wind is blowing as university heads, administrators and boards either reveal their putrid poison or meekly remain silent and issue weak-kneed responses.  In the USA, in particular, this sickness has infected ultra-left and breast-beating groups that identify as “Jewish.” The phenomenon of those coming out of the woodwork and claiming some sort of Jewish identification while they participate in vile demonstrations against Israel and Zionism is nothing new.

Some of the worst enemies of the Jewish People in past history were individuals whose identification with anything Jewish was nebulous or nil. After they converted or decided that attacking other Jews was a guaranteed way of acquiring immunity from persecution themselves, they morphed into some of our most rabid and lethal enemies.

Today’s media love nothing better than discovering such disaffected Jews. Thus, someone standing with a placard that states that they “stand with Gaza” or a collection of anti-Zionist Jews dressed in Haredi garb and draped with Hamas and Fatah scarves immediately becomes media heroes. Never mind that these individuals are no more than a minuscule percentage of the Jewish People. They serve the purpose of propagating distorted news and proving that not all Jews are warmongering fascists.

It is in times like the present that we need to be clear-eyed as to who exactly are our genuine friends and who are faking it.

That means publicly denouncing hate groups and their followers and exposing them for the frauds that they really are. It serves no purpose to issue bland statements in the vain hope that nobody will be upset. Expecting a toning down of hateful rhetoric while it rages unchecked and unchallenged is an exercise in futility. The individuals and organizations spreading such slanders need to be confronted with exposure and condemnation. The same goes for those who cannot find the intestinal fortitude or honesty to denounce the cowardly silence of groups that purported to be our allies.

Interfaith groups have proliferated in recent times. Initially encompassing Jewish and Christian participants, they have, in many countries, now encompassed Islamic groups. When I was a member of the NZ Council for Christians and Jews the main focus of my attention was concentrated on learning about our common similarities and appreciating where we differed theologically. The most impressive aspect of the Council’s work was the respectful dialogue that ensued and the genuine friendships that developed. I always made a point of emphasizing that Judaism and the Land of Israel were an inseparable duo because, in reality, one could not exist without the other.

As mainstream Churches slowly gravitated towards a very ambivalent stance about Israel, the NZ Anglican Communion rewrote the Psalms in order to erase mention of Israel and Zion. This should have been a warning signal about what lay ahead.

Currently, with the three monotheistic faiths represented on some interfaith Councils, the situation has become more complex.

It is becoming glaringly obvious which way the wind is blowing. Islamic groups, with all the best goodwill in the world, would always be hesitant to openly acknowledge the centrality of Israel to Jews and recognize that Jewish sovereignty predated Islam.

Prevailing attitudes mean that nothing remotely inconvenient can be allowed to shatter the illusory narratives so beloved by practitioners of political correctness.

The current reactions by interfaith groups to the pogroms by Hamas do not surprise me in the least. Church groups (other than Evangelical Christians) and Islamic groups are united in their “even handed” reactions. Moderate Muslims who may wish to condemn Hamas are terrified of what may happen to them at the hands of their jihad-supporting colleagues. Some brave individuals have spoken out, as have a few Imams but unfortunately, it is the purveyors of fanaticism who are spreading hate. It is impossible to know what is being preached in each and every mosque, but one has only to witness the demonstrations supporting Hamas taking place to realize that something rotten is being incubated and spread.

The following declarations perfectly illustrated the situation whereby blame is apportioned evenly.

“As the conflict continues to grow in Gaza and Israel and tensions continue to rise regionally, members of the regional interfaith councils and faith leaders throughout Aotearoa New Zealand unequivocally condemn the violence and call for peace and justice. We send our healing love to our Muslim, Jewish, Christian and other faith brothers and sisters in the Middle East and to their families and friends here in NZ as they endure and try to come to terms with the huge loss, pain and worry. We ask all New Zealanders to reject all forms of hatred & violence through love, forgiveness, understanding the other and compassion at this dark time and forever more.”

The World Council of Churches, to which all mainstream denominations belong, stated:  “We appeal urgently for an immediate cessation of this deadly violence, for Hamas to cease their attacks and ask both parties for de-escalation of the situation. We are deeply concerned about the imminent risks of spiraling conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups – following a period of escalating tensions and violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”

The Roman Catholic Cardinal of Westminster pontificated: “Violence is never a solution. Retribution is never a contribution to peace.”

US Bishops: We call for a cessation of violence from both sides, respect for civilian populations and the release of hostages.”

Churches for Middle East Peace: “call for de-escalation, humanitarian access and addressing systemic issues after war breaks out in Israel/Palestine.”

Note the complete avoidance of condemning Hamas for its pogrom and calling them terrorists. Note also the frenetic attempt at casting blame on all parties concerned and thus equating Israel’s defence of its citizens with the terrorist group’s avowed agenda of murdering Jews. Painfully grating is the admonition that only love and a lack of retribution can defeat evil, given the millennia-long experiences of Jews in Christian Europe.

These few examples should demonstrate how interfaith fellowships have been damaged. A refusal and reluctance to openly condemn the murder of Jewish Israeli men, women and children and attempting to hide behind a façade of moral superiority makes a mockery of Jewish participation in any meaningful interfaith dialogues.

Last Friday, as reported by PMW, the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs issued this instruction for all Mosque preachers: All Mosques must teach that the extermination of Jews is an Islamic imperative.

The complete silence following this directive by Muslim groups worldwide, interfaith organizations, Churches, the UN and its Secretary General, plus all those politicians peddling a two-state solution, speaks volumes about what we are facing. As demonstrators march in various countries, shouting slogans such as “gas the Jews”. Jihad and “from the river to the sea,” the shameful silence from the rest of the world is shattering.

Jewish leaders should be acting by condemning and disassociating themselves from all those who refuse to own up to the truth and instead promote slanderous lies.

The current war against terror has also had an interesting flow-on effect for Israelis with friends and families domiciled overseas. It is at critical times like these that one discovers an individual’s true colours. We, like countless others, have received messages of concern and support from people we may not have heard from in years. Christian friends from New Zealand expressed their horror at events and are praying for Israel. Messages flowed in from Canada, USA, UK and Australia among other places. A non-Jewish colleague who I worked with over 40 years ago sent an email as did former Cheder (Hebrew School) pupils I taught more than 60 years ago. The outpouring of solidarity has been heartwarming.

The flip side has been the silence of those who many thought might show some empathy but who, it seems, have other more pressing priorities.

The American Secretary of State noted this week that “many world leaders express support for Israel in private but won’t publicly endorse its right to defend itself or denounce Hamas terror.”

Revealing one’s true colours has never been easier and more blatant.

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.