Israel tells the civilian population of the northern part of Gaza to leave; UN chief reacts
The announcement and the UN reaction :
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appeals for Israel to “avert a humanitarian catastrophe,” after the Israeli army ordered more than one million people to evacuate north Gaza.
“The Secretary-General and his team have been working the phones. He’s been in constant contact with Israeli authorities, urging them to avert a humanitarian catastrophe,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric tells reporters. …
He calls for the order “to be rescinded, avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
The massacre on Saturday was a tragedy in that it was extremely sad, but it was also a war crime perpetrated by the government of Gaza. The order to evacuate northern Gaza was issued in order to help civilians avoid being killed by Israeli’s attempts to defang Hamas, the perpetrators. The situation is already “calamitous,” and telling Israel to desist merely puts Israeli lives further at risk at the expense of the Palestinians.
But I would expect nothing less of the UN for many reasons. The first one is that for decades the UN has become a cesspool of anti-Semitic anti-Israel rhetoric and condemnations, and pro-Palestinian activity. The second one is that the UN is the main agency running the Palestinian camps and providing for them. Palestinians are the UN’s most-favored refugees, until the umpteenth generation. For example:
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced the transfer of its operations to the south of Gaza, but he said some staff had asked to stay in the north.
“We are not pushing people to move. People have to make their own their own decisions,” he says.
There are “13,000 UNRWA staff members in Gaza, frontline workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, people offering psychosocial services. …
He says the UN was working with the Israelis and with Egypt to get aid in and create “areas of safety” for civilians.
“People should be able to be safe in their own in their own homes,” Dujarric says.
Indeed they should – even if they are Israelis. But when a nation wars on another nation, the citizens of that first nation become at risk. Israel is fairly unique in giving warnings for humanitarian reasons.
And what of this sudden mention of Egypt? The Palestinians could easily go to Egypt, but Egypt’s border has long been closed to them because Egypt doesn’t want any more of them. They’ve worn out their welcome with most of the Arab states many times over by their truculent desire to disrupt and take over every state they enter. Ask the people who fled Lebanon during the Civil War there, and ask the Jordanians who recall Black September.
The UN has been an enormous enabler of the keeping of Palestinians in camps and on the dole. See this:
Camps are set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to accommodate Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War or in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967, and their patrilineal descendants. There are 68 Palestinian refugee camps, 58 official and 10 unofficial, ten of which were established after the Six-Day War while the others were established in 1948 to 1950s.
Whilst only a third of registered Palestinian refugees live within the boundaries of the refugee camps, Palestinian refugees “show extraordinary social and economic integration outside the camps and informal gatherings”. Many Palestinian refugees live in adjacent or nearby “gatherings”, defined as “the geographic area, outside the official camps, which is home to a minimum 15 Palestinian households.
The total number of registered Palestine refugees has grown from 750,000 in 1950 to around 5 million in 2013.
Those are the generations of their children and grandchildren and perhaps great-grandchildren, born and raised in these “camps” which are not exactly camps:
Refugee camps developed from tented cities to rows of concrete blockhouses to urban ghettos indistinguishable from their surroundings (effectively becoming urban developments within existing cities or by themselves), that house around one third of all registered Palestine refugees.
The funding for UNRWA activities comes almost entirely from voluntary contributions from UN member states. UNRWA also receives some funding from the Regular Budget of the United Nations, which is used mostly for international staffing costs
I don’t think there’s any other group in the world that’s been given such preferential treatment by the UN for over seventy years.
As for how many Palestinians don’t support and cheer the murder of Jewish babies, I don’t know. I am virtually certain there are some, but I don’t think it’s even a majority. I’m with this guy on the question:
Do you think any of the UN people did not know what was about to happen? Do you think they might have been involved? Do you think?
The UN will not condemn what Hamas has done in Israel.
I immediately thought of your article[s] on Martha Gellhorn’s article in The Atlantic on The Arabs of Palestine. Palestinian refusal to take responsibility for their actions is a constant through the decades. It appears that the Palestinians’ position hasn’t changed since Gellhorn wrote the article in 1961, or 1948, for that matter.
Since the Palestinians of Gaza apparently still believe “from the river to the sea….” shall be Pali-ruled with either Jews expelled, killed, or living in Palestine as dhimmis, Israel should respond accordingly. No live-and-let-live attitude from the Palestinians.
The Atlantic online article on Gellhorn’s The Arabs of Palestine can no longer be freely accessed, but one can freely download a PDF of the article.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1961/10/the-arabs-of-palestine/304203/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2005/09/15/palestinians-more-things-change-more/
https://www.thenewneo.com/2007/05/22/the-palestinians-when-does-a-victim-stop-being-a-victim/
The UN and the UN Refugee Camp scam in the Middle East is one of the key players keeping the “Palestinian problem” alive.
UN’s motto: More Harm Than Good! Rrraaaaawwwrrrr
One quibble about the video speaker, because I’ve seen it repeated by many on both sides: He says that the proposed partition “gave” Israel to the Jews, and I sometimes think people take that to mean that there had not been any Jews living there before and they all came in suddenly from somewhere and took over.
As I understand history, Jews had either been long-established residents of the area that was being divided, or relatively recent purchasers of land for their kibbutzim and other homes.
The UN Partition Plan would have established the borders of the Jewish and Arab states by ethnicity, but did not move people around to match the boundaries.
Instead, the committee considered the majority-minority composition of the different sectors to be included in each state. You can read the details below. According to the table of demographics (data based on 1945), the Arab state was to be 99-1% Arab, the Jewish state 45-55% Arab, and the International segment (mostly Jerusalem) 52-49% Arab. The Mandate’s total population was 67-33% Arab.
Essentially, it was gerrymandering.
Complaints about who got what percentage of the surface area are partially negated by the fact that the Negev Desert allotted to Israel was mostly uninhabited.
“According to the plan, Jews and Arabs living in the Jewish state would become citizens of the Jewish state and Jews and Arabs living in the Arab state would become citizens of the Arab state.”
IOW, setting political boundaries for governmental purposes did not dispossess anyone, or make them non-voters. It just designated where they would send their taxes when their elections were over.
The point is somewhat moot, as Britain opposed the UN plan and ended the mandate without making any provisions for an orderly transition, and the boundaries were eventually determined by the 1948 war, and later the 1967 war.
There are some useful maps at Wikipedia, along with the reasoning of the UN, but the important part comes in the Reactions segment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine#Reactions
The Arab population of Israel left voluntarily in 1967 assuming they would return as soon as the Jews had been obliterated, but it didn’t work out that way.
Onward to the contextualization, nuances, and spin — what would political discussions be without them?
AesopFan:
Yes, he’s not good on the formation of Israel, but I think he’s trying to not get bogged down in all the details of that. He’s trying to be brief – too brief.
Much of the Arab population of Israel left, egged on by their fellow Arabs who promised them they’d defeat Israel. But many Arabs stayed in Israel and Israel has a 20% Arab population today.
““The Secretary-General and his team have been working the phones. He’s been in constant contact with Israeli authorities…”
The UN response is entirely predictable. But why, why are Israeli authorities bothering to talk to those who have repeatedly demonstrated their hostility to Israel?
If the Israeli authorities spoke clearly and forcefully enough, declaring that the U.N. bears much responsibility for enabling these genocidal attacks,
the U.N. apparatchiks would stop calling.
The linked article makes the good point that, while there are bomb shelters for the people in Israel, despite the billions of aid dollars which have been directed, over the decades, to supposedly help the Palestinians, while Hamas and it’s leaders have dug deep tunnels and bomb shelters for themselves and to shelter their terrorist activities, no such shelters have been provided for ordinary Palestinians.
Now, why would that be, do you think?*
* See https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/10/13/there-are-no-civilian-bomb-shelters-in-gaza-n584646
IIRC fuel air explosive ordnance are pretty effective for “clearing” tunnels of “combatants.”
Dead men walking.
Human shields don’t need no stinkin’ shelters. They are all martyrs for Allah after all.
Not only is the UN complicit in hobbling any Palestinian resolution, there are reports that some UN agencies are helping immigrants heading into the US.
I’d be happy if we cut all of our monies to the UN. Starve the beast.
All you RAH fans out there, thinking of Starship Troopers and the alien opponents brought to mind Hamas and its Gaza underground bunkers and tunnels. Islam as a malignant evil foe? Nuclear hand grenades to the rescue?
Massive worldwide anti-Israel, pro-Palestine demonstrations today. It’s obvious that many people either don’t know the history of the Jews and Israel or they don’t want to know it.
I skimmed through the history of Israel going back to the Bronze Age. The history is complex – many wars, conquerors, and movements of people. However, the Jews lived in the area for the better part of 2000 years.
After the area became a part of the Ottoman Empire, life for Jews became much more difficult. They had to wear identifying clothes or symbols and pay a special tax. They were second class citizens. Many moved to other parts of the world looking for more tolerance and a chance to prosper.
After the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews during WWII, it was decided by the victorious allies that they deserved a home where they could be free and safe. Many Jews had been migrating back to “Zion” beginning in the early 1900s. So, as Aesop Fan mentioned, there were many Jews living in Israel and the Zionist movement was well recognized when the decision was made to create the Jewish state.
As soon as Israel was formally declared, the Arab armies invaded and were repulsed by the Israelis. Israel has been in a constant battle to survive with on and off wars with Muslim armies and terrorist groups since.
The Jews in Israel have persevered and prospered. They have become an example of what can be done with hard work and enterprise.
While the Jews were building a country, the Palestinian refugees have spent their years trying to destroy Israel and have thus languished on the UN dole. Quite a contrast!
That the Jews deserve a place of their own is accepted by people of good will who know the history. Those who think otherwise are either ignorant of the history or as antisemitic as the Nazis.
The outlook, based on the demonstrations today, is for more conflict and the need for steely nerves to stand with Israel and all Jewish people.
Drive them all into the sea or Egypt.
J.J
While the Jews were building a country, the Palestinian refugees have spent their years trying to destroy Israel and have thus languished on the UN dole. Quite a contrast!
Through my father, I knew a Palestinian Christian family. The patriarch of the family, who from 1949-1967 worked in the Jordanian civil service, had told his children well before the 1967 Six Day War to get out of the West Bank. He told his children that Muslims in the workplace would never promote a Christian if a Muslim were available to be promoted. Sounds as if he had some experience with that.
As a result, several of his children went to the US for college. They were very bright, very capable: Masters or Doctorate level STEMs. A grandson went to the US for graduate school, got his STEM doctorate, and worked for several decades in the US. He had been in elementary school when the Israelis took over the West Bank. (Recall that the Israelis told King Hussein that if he didn’t declare war in 1967, the Israelis would stay put.) As a result of living a decade or so under the Israelis, he had a much more anti-Israeli attitude than his aunts or uncles living in the US. In his several decades of employment at US universities, he appeared to spend as much time in political activism for Palestine as he did on his work. (I read once online that his daughter had a Jewish boyfriend!)
He eventually moved back to the West Bank.
One irony about his anti-Israeli activism is that one of his cousins on the other side of the family has posted online about Hamas and other Muslim groups harassing Christians. (I knew several from his mother’s side of the family; the aforementioned cousin was from his father’s side.)
The patriarch visited the States in the mid-1970s, and had dinner at my parents’ house. He did not like the Israeli occupation- no surprise there. The last I heard of him, he sent a Christmas card to my mother before she died in the late 1980s. He and his wife were living with a son in Kuwait. Given the Palestinian support for
Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, I doubt that ended well for the patriarch or his son’s family in Kuwait.
the Oslo cargo cult is alive in well, on the left, the blame is not on that Shambling husk, but really on Bibi, who has been warning about these consequences for 40 years, when he was at the UN, against Arafat’s toady, Hanan Ashrawi, so they gave him a state on the Jordan plain, and of course he fouled it, his KGB successor Abu Mazen was no better, Sharon foolishly gave up Gaza and here we find our selves,
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-embassy-authorizes-departure-of-diplomat-families-non-essential-workers/
US State Dept bugging out. Sundown arrives at ~11:00am edt. The annular eclipse today, as it happens, also begins at roughly 11am.
Hi, Gringo. Your story is interesting. I’ve been wondering if there is any Orthodox Christian community in Gaza these days, and have been really hoping that they’ve not involved themselves with the butchers.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/plo-official-say-israeli-efforts-to-evacuate-civilians-from-gaza-a-war-crime/
PLO offical says Israel’s existence is a war crime. Pffft.
People should be able to be safe in their own in their own homes,” Dujarric says.
Reallly? Name ten example wars in which this happened. I’ll wait.