LETTER: UNRWA prolongs suffering

As she is the head of the Desmond Tutu Intellectual Property Trust and with a long list of serious credential behind her, Dr Mamphela Ramphele’s recent piece about Israel’s banning of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) comes with a certain authority, but it is yet another example of someone professing to care deeply about the Palestinian people while standing firmly behind the very institutions that continue to ensure those same people’s perpetual suffering (Israel places itself above the rest of humanity by banning UN body, November 1).

She admits, for a start, that Hamas has been designated a terror group by the West, but seems more than a little reluctant to call it that herself. But whatever you may say about their methods — which are terrorism, by definition — she is especially neglectful to mention the jihadi ideology behind the terror, which is not about Palestinian freedom, but is about murdering Jews, destroying Israel, and working with Iran to create a regressive, oppressive, extremist Islamic Caliphate across the region.

She talks of Tutu’s visit to Gaza in 2008 and notes the terrible suffering, but she incorrectly labels it “Israeli occupation” when Israel had left Gaza three years prior, leaving it entirely to the Palestinians, who then went on to elect to power the radical Islamist extremists of Hamas, who in turn went on to oppress the people of Gaza and robbed them blind for the ensuing two decades.

As for the UNRWA, I can only suggest heading over to the website of UN Watch (unwatch.org) for a full list of documented evidence against the refugee agency to understand that those who partook in the October 7 massacre weren’t rogue agents, but were emblematic of the whole rotten organisation. Beyond its direct connections to Hamas, according to Impact-SE, an NGO that monitors school curriculums worldwide for harmful material, UNRWA is directly responsible for creating a curriculum that brainwashes Gazan children into Hamas’ hateful, violent and self-destructive ideology, and has been set up to perpetuate the refugee status of Palestinians — including those who are fully integrated citizens of Jordan.

The biggest lie, though, is the idea that no other agency can step in to help the Palestinian people who have suffered so horribly under Hamas. It is patently absurd. There are dozens of proven NGOs and relief organisations — including several within the UN itself — that can easily take UNRWA’s place. One can certainly argue the time frame that Israel has given for another agency to take over (three months), but if the Palestinians are to have any hope of a better future, UNRWA has to go.

Ilan Preskovsky
via email

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