According to a report by the Times of Israel on January 10 local time, a recent "investigation" by the "UN Watch" organization (UW) found that UN staff in Gaza used the social platform Telegram to "praise" Hamas's "massacre" against Israel on October 7, 2023.
The organization's "investigation" found that many UNRWA staff had explicitly praised the attacks by some 3,000 terrorists crossing the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
In Gaza, an open-air prison (now purgatory on earth), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Near East (UNRWA) is the United Nations agency for relief and assistance to Palestine refugees. More than 140 of the agency's staff have been killed in Gaza during the current round of conflict.
Hillel Neuer (a Canadian Jew), executive director of UNWW, accused UNRWA teachers of "inciting the roots of jihadist terrorism."
Note that "investigation", "praise" and "massacre" are all words used by the Israeli media and this "UN Watch" organization.
Authenticity, don't you think?
Anyway, if they follow their definition of "massacre", then why is it wrong to define the more than 20,000 Gazans killed by Israel as genocide?
Having said that, after reading this report, I can't help but have some questions.
What is UN Watch? Its name is so confusing.
What does it have to do with the United Nations?
What does it have to do with Israel?
What is its relationship with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Near East?
What is the basis of its allegations?
Is it objectively investigated and conclusively demonstrated? Or is it a lie based on subjective political intentions?
When you see the name "UN Watch", do you think that this is an organization affiliated with the United Nations?
In fact, this organization has little affiliation with the United Nations.
On August 5, 2021, the UNRWA statement on the UN website read: "UNMO, an organization that has long been driven by political agendas to make baseless assertions against UNRWA, reads: "UNWR-OH is a ...... that has long been driven by political agendas."
UNWATCH is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Its essence is simply to fight against "anti-Semitism", advocate "human rights", protect Israel, and find faults, and it is targeted not only by the United Nations, but also by Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and several other countries in the non-Western camp.
The main purpose of UN Watch is to "monitor the continued discriminatory treatment of Israel within the United Nations system, the attitudes of world bodies towards Jews, and those issues that concern American interests." ”
Although the organization has a certain degree of recognition by the United Nations, its concealment and hypocrisy, like many organizations that do dirty things under the guise of NGOs, are no secret.
Phyllis Bennis, 72, a Jewish American journalist, anti-war activist and opponent of Israeli atrocities, called it "a small right-wing organization based in Geneva...... Virtually unknown outside of UN Headquarters".
Despite being Jewish, Bennis is a strong critic of Israel and the United States and has been a leading advocate for Palestinian rights. Bennis called "despicable accusations have always been an obsession with UN Watch".
I'd love to look at Bennis's work, and it feels like she's a bit like Jeffrey Sachs and Simon Hersh. If she also has a great article, she will definitely enjoy it with you.
Straight to the point.
Ian Williams, former president of the United Nations Association of Journalists, summed up the organization's role this way: "The main purpose of UN Watch is to attack the United Nations in general and its Human Rights Council in particular, accusing it of bias against Israel."
Williams supported the group's denunciation of the UN Human Rights Council as a hypocritical organization, but also slammed the hypocrisy of UN Watch itself for failing to condemn Israel's obvious human rights violations against Palestinians.
The French newspaper Agence France-Presse described it as a "lobby group with close ties to Israel" and a group that "defends human rights around the world".
The British newspaper The Economist described him as a "pro-Israel watchdog".
Even the Israeli media refer to it as a "pro-Israel watchdog."
So, it is no exaggeration to say that this organization (hereinafter referred to as UW) at least serves the interests of Israel.
In 1993, Morris Berthold Abram (1918-2000) founded UW in Geneva.
Abraham, an American of German-Jewish descent, was a distinguished lawyer and politician.
Many presidents of the United States personally assigned Abraham important positions in different roles in their own governments.
These U.S. presidents include John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.
More importantly, Abraham was "an ardent supporter of the Jewish cause." In his 50s, he served as president of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
At the time of founding UW, Abraham was still the honorary president of the AJC. As for why he came up with this thing, it is because he feels that there has been an "anti-Israel" bias in the United Nations for a long time.
On January 1, 2001, UW officially became an affiliate of the Jewish Council of America (AJC) and has been receiving funding from the latter ever since.
Since the founding of the State of Israel, the AJC has been a key supporter of Israel.
Founded in 1906 in New York, USA, primarily by German-Jewish groups, the AJC is said to be the oldest Jewish interest group.
Now, it has become influential in the Jewish lobby in the United States, the European Union, and even the United Nations.
It led to the creation of the Bipartisan Anti-Semitism Task Force in the U.S. Congress.
At its instigation, the EU set up a "Coordinator for Combating Antisemitism".
In 1975, the AJC spoke out against Resolution 3379, which was voted on by the United Nations General Assembly.
Based on reality, the resolution establishes Zionism as racist and racist.
However, after protests, boycotts, and manipulation by the AJC and other American Jewish interest groups, the resolution was repealed in December 1991.
Less than two years later, the UW was formed and began to conduct unofficial "supervision" of the United Nations, that is, to find fault.
In early January 2023, UW published a record claiming that the UN Security Council passed 15 resolutions "against" Israel in 2022 alone, while only 13 criticized other countries.
Clearly, it was dissatisfied with the admonition and condemnation of what Israel had done.
Of course, it doesn't think about the "why", but only the "why".
For example, of course, it will not care that in 2022, Israel has expanded more than 2,000 settlement units on the territory of East Jerusalem, which should be the capital of Palestine, three times the number of the previous year!
For example, it does not care that in 2022, Israel killed more than 200 Palestinians, including 41 children.
For example, it would not have cared that on August 5, 2022, alone, the Israeli army killed more than 20 Palestinians.
If you see the name of UN Watch, don't be misled by its remarks, just take it as a joke.
After all, impartiality and objectivity are fundamentally incompatible with it.
Finally, why did UNWG "investigate" the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Near East this time?
As of 8 January, 146 UNRWA staff members had been killed in Gaza at the hands of Israeli forces in the current round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In addition, one of the Israeli Government's post-war vision for Gaza was to expel UNRWA from Gaza.
These require pseudo-plausible excuses.