Biting The Hand That Feeds Them

In an ironic twist of fate, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the dedicated overseas staffers received credible death threats and threats of violence. The officials were also said to have been harassed by employees of the agency.
An agency source claimed that approximately 10 staff members crossed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Monday. They were taken out of the Strip via the Erez Crossing, despite the fact that the checkpoint was officially closed for Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). The Israeli Defense Ministry unit that oversees the crossing said a number of foreign employees from the agency known as UNRWA “were evacuated from the Gaza Strip to Israel.”
UNRWA’s leadership has been supportive of the Hamas-inspired (along with other militant Islamist groups) so-called March of Return. Since March, increasingly violent riots – not peaceful protests – as UNRWA officials and others would have us believe – have taken place alongside the border fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. It must be especially galling that when Hamas-led attackers on Israel’s border are armed with guns, grenades, Molotov cocktails and wire cutters that Palestinians are “exercising their right to protest,” but when those same “demonstrators” turn on UNRWA officials it becomes a “threat to security.” Added to that combustible mix is the fact that those same staff had to flee to Israel.
UNRWA’s plea to Gaza’s Hamas authorities “to respond to its repeated demands to provide effective protection to its employees and facilities,” apparently fell on deaf ears.
BreakingIsraelNews

Palestinian refugees hold banners during a protest against the UNWRA's decision on aid cuts and downsizing plans in Bethlehem, West Bank on 26 September 2018 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu Agency]

Canada's previous Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognized the United Nations for the horribly flawed institution that it is, ostensibly dedicated to human rights and equality, but led by blocs like the Non-Aligned Nations, African nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, their overwhelming numbers allowing them to shape UN policy, form committee memberships and head groups meant to support human rights irrespective of the fact most are human-rights abusers of the first order.

He took the step of eliminating aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the singular refugee support group dedicated solely to the well-being of Palestinians whom it supports as the world's longest-standing refugee group, including generations of Palestinians born to the original 750,000 Palestinian 'refugees' who fled Israel on its declaration of sovereignty when surrounding Arab nations gathered their military forces to destroy the nascent Jewish state.

The very fact that funding and sympathies through UNRWA, supports violence against Israel is a travesty the former prime minister recognized leading him to withdraw Canada's support.

When the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015 it was swift to restore funding to UNRWA by 2016. Since that time roughly $110-million of Canadian tax dollars has been allocated to continue funding UNRWA activities, the largest employer of Palestinians in Gaza, including members of Hamas. When the Trump administration after repeatedly warning UNRWA that it was expected to tackle corruption and its support of Hamas violence, finally withdrew its $300-million funding as the largest contributor to UNRWA, Canada stepped in to help fill the gap with another $50-million.

It was last March when Canada pledged "emergency humanitarian assistance" in the sum of $10-million to UNRWA, and again in late July funding of $50-million to both the West Bank and Gaza through a number of UN humanitarian agencies, several projects to be implemented as well by Canadian humanitarian groups. All this support for a people who name themselves 'refugees' though they live not in refugee camps but cities of substance, yet fail to build the necessary infrastructure for full employment and economic independence, while its leadership siphons off assistance funding for their personal use, and a substantial amount of the funding is set aside for 'martyrdom' financing.

And then, on October 12 another announcement by Canada's Minister of International Development that Canada is offering another $50-million over two years to the UNRWA dedicated to Palestine Refugees in the Near East. All the while the State of Israel must defend itself from the hostile presence of Palestinians who have been inculcated from birth to death to view Jews as foreign usurpers on Palestinian land, instilled with the mirage that Israel will one day disappear and 'return' will be effected, an outcome of Palestinians devoting themselves to the cult of martyrdom.

Attacking and killing Jews is a matter of national pride, one that calls for celebration and the handing out of sweets whenever a Palestinian succeeds in killing Jewish men, women or children. Hamas in Gaza has undertaken a vicious provocation by convincing Palestinians living under the Hamas boot they must avenge themselves on the usurpers and 'return' to the land 'occupied' by Jews. Armies of rioters in the thousands, many wielding Molotov cocktails, knives, even grenades set out each Friday following mosque attendance to wreak havoc at the fence dividing Israel from Gaza.

Palestinians protesting on the Gaza side of the border between Israel and Gaza, June 2018. (photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

Should any of those knife-wielding 'martyrs' breach the fence small Israeli farming communities and towns near the border are in peril. As it is, beyond the fence riots is the arson launching kites, some carrying explosives, others incendiary devices which have incinerated over 4,000 hectares of Israeli farmland and nature preserves, destroying crops, killing animals. Hamas has convinced Gazans that the squalid and desperate conditions they live in has resulted from Israeli blockades, rather than deliberate Hamas withholding of funding to alleviate the condition of the Palestinians to their own plans of acquiring more sophisticated rockets and building tunnels.

Egypt, in self-protection from Hamas, and an influx of Palestinians hoping to escape the confines of Gaza, has imposed a harsh border blockade permitting rare infrequent passage for those whom humanitarian needs trumps isolation. The withdrawal of U.S. funding for UNRWA has exacerbated the living conditions of Gazan Palestinians, as well as forcing the underfunded agency to terminate employment for some of the many Palestinians in Gaza working for UNRWA. Which unleashed murderous rage and threats to its foreign personnel, forcing them to flee to Israel for haven.

Through all of this, the Hamas charter pledge to annihilate Israel and its Jewish population aside, the Hamas leadership speaks of its dedication to peace. Its political chief, Yahya Sinwar describes the arson kites as "messages" harming no one, readily put out with fire extinguishers. As for the deaths of Palestinians warned by the IDF that to forcefully enter Israel and destroy the fence they will be targeted, Sinwar breezily responds "We make headlines only with blood"; theirs, or that of Israelis, it makes little difference to Hamas.

Like any radical ideology, the cost in human lives is irrelevant to achieving the goal.

Palestinian protestors shout during clashes with the IDF ( IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA / REUTERS).