by Bassam Tawil
The question needs to be asked: Is it actually "child welfare" that is at issue here, or is it the demonization of Israel, the only democratic country in the region, and one that actually respects human rights, thereby threatening the repressive dictatorships around it that is at the heart of the matter?
The UN, ostensibly dedicated to protecting human rights, and has, in fact, devolved into hurling bogus, tabloid-style allegations as it joins other blood-libel false charges by considering the addition of Israel to its list of blacklisted entities in its 2023 Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) Report.
The UN resolution draft bizarrely, with no evidence, "accuses Israel of recruiting three Palestinian minors as human shields and combatants," among other offenses....
One of the leaders, in the zeal unjustly to add Israel to the UN blacklist, is World Vision International. It circulated an open letter -- with 18 co-signatory NGOs -- addressed to UN Secretary General António Guterres, repeating the phony and libelous charges against Israel regarding child recruitment.
In addition to this evangelical missionary organization's own anti-Israel history -- which features comparing Israel to Hitler's army and the involvement of one of its managers in funding Hamas -- World Vision International's list of co-signers features a "Who's Who" of anti-Israel organizations, including Human Rights Watch, authors of the notorious report accusing Israel of "apartheid" and "crimes against humanity".
Importantly, Israel is recommended for blacklisting while Palestinian and Iranian armed groups are distinctly not.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) disassociates itself, when it is convenient, from its armed wing, Fatah, and other terror groups while "unofficially" inciting them to violence and even genocide. This is the PA we are talking about -- dominated by the ruling Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas -- not Hamas or Islamic Jihad,
"In response to threat that this posed to IDF forces, the IDF repeatedly conveyed warnings to the hospital staff, Palestinian officials, and international aid organizations, including the World Health Organization, requesting that they act in order to stop the hospital from being used for military purposes." — Mission of Israel to the UN in Geneva, July 27, 2104.
[T]he early childhood indoctrination to terrorism by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is so well documented that it is beyond dispute. The same brainwashing administered by Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority is only slightly more discreet, but has consistently been presented as the supposedly "moderate" face of the Palestinian struggle, as if the organization concerns itself more with legal and diplomatic warfare.
Unfortunately, Abbas's statements to his constituents on official PA television as opposed to the general English-speaking media -- leave a dramatically different impression: "We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem... shed for the sake of Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah."
With the astronomical sum of pooled international donations that flood into Palestinian control every year through countless NGOs and humanitarian organizations, it is inconceivable that the poverty among so many Palestinians, especially in the refugee camps, is anything but a desired and designed effect: the result of, shall we say, "questionable" governance. The combination of intense early childhood indoctrination to hatred and terror with hopeless deprivation are a deliberate recipe for terrorism.
Photos of these dead children fuel sympathy donations, funds flow in the billions, and Palestinian officials, their families, and their friends enjoy the high-life at the expense of their own people – all in the name of "the Palestinian cause" and the fight against Israel.
The website of Defense of Children International – Palestine regularly features standard-looking photos of adolescents such as 17-year-old Mahmoud Majed al-Aydi and claim them as victims of Israeli aggression. Eventually, the not-so-innocent photos emerge of this same teen toting an automatic rifle.
None of these supposed child-welfare organizations seriously takes Palestinian groups to task for terrorizing children in Israel, for rocket strikes on kindergartens. None of them gives aid to expand the availability of rocket shelters in Israeli playgrounds or barricades at bus stops to defend against car-rammings, or to offer trauma counseling to children terrorized across Israel by both rocket and terror attacks.
The question needs to be asked: Is it actually "child welfare" that is at issue here, or is it the demonization of Israel, the only democratic country in the region, and one that actually respects human rights, thereby threatening the repressive dictatorships around it that is at the heart of the matter?
"One cannot consider the cynical exploitation of Palestinian children by the Palestinian nationalist movement without recognizing that international NGOs that claim to act on the behalf of the welfare of children often encourage this exploitation by refusing to criticize this practice." — Ahron Shapiro, senior policy analyst, AIJAC, May 30, 2018.
"Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the NGO Defence of Children International-Palestine, which has been identified by NGO Monitor as having close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.... and their responsibility to supervise children and prevent them from engaging in violent activity, must be addressed with the same vigour as allegations of mistreatment at the hands of Israelis." — Ahron Shapiro, AIJAC, May 30, 2018.
Instead of waging Jihad (holy war) on Israel, the UN might start paying attention to the human rights violations and massive child abuse committed by Palestinian and Arab leaders against their own people as well as against Jews.
The United Nations has adopted the nasty habit of many Palestinians: throwing everything at Israel but the kitchen sink. Accusations against Israel have ranged from fabricated claims not merely of "apartheid," but climate apartheid, water apartheid, violating women's rights (the only country accused of that in the midst of a sea of crushing Islamic fundamentalist regimes!), to kidnapping and murdering Palestinian children to harvest their organs.
The UN, ostensibly dedicated to protecting human rights, and has, in fact, devolved into hurling bogus, tabloid-style allegations as it joins other blood-libel false charges by considering the addition of Israel to its list of blacklisted entities in its 2023 Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) Report.
The UN resolution draft bizarrely, with no evidence, "accuses Israel of recruiting three Palestinian minors as human shields and combatants," among other offenses, which the Israeli Embassy to the UN has called, "strange" and "extreme and unusual allegations," asserting that, "no such cases took place... and that the claims are false."
One of the leaders, in the zeal unjustly to add Israel to the UN blacklist, is World Vision International. It circulated an open letter -- with 18 co-signatory NGOs -- addressed to UN Secretary General António Guterres, repeating the phony and libelous charges against Israel regarding child recruitment.
In addition to this evangelical missionary organization's own anti-Israel history -- which features comparing Israel to Hitler's army and the involvement of one of its managers in funding Hamas -- World Vision International's list of co-signers features a "Who's Who" of anti-Israel organizations, including Human Rights Watch, authors of the notorious report accusing Israel of "apartheid" and "crimes against humanity".
The open letter also complains that the "Israeli government forces have never been listed in the annexes [aka blacklist]" and says that both Palestinian armed groups and Israeli government forces should be added to the list.
Importantly, Israel is recommended for blacklisting while Palestinian and Iranian armed groups are distinctly not.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) disassociates itself, when it is convenient, from its armed wing, Fatah, and other terror groups while "unofficially" inciting them to violence and even genocide. This is the PA we are talking about -- dominated by the ruling Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas -- not Hamas or Islamic Jihad,
All the NGOs that signed this petition to the UN Secretary General cite a document titled "A Credible List: Recommendations for the Secretary-General's 2023 Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict," which was published by the NGO Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict ("Watchlist").
It is uncertain as to how Watchlist acquired this influential position with the UN, but apparently the other NGOs are all grinning triumphantly at Israel's nomination to this year's child-rapist and junta-laden top-ten list of shame.
Watchlist explains that it reached its conclusions solely via "a desk review of various publicly available reports... to inform the recommendations included in this policy note." This means that Watchlist did not send independent experts to verify the claims of the highly anti-Israel biased NGOs who provided the reports and whose livelihoods are linked to perpetuating the crisis. The official allegation reads: "Israel / Occupied Palestinian Territory: Israeli Government Forces for killing and maiming and attacks on schools and hospitals."
There seems to have been a lot of concentrated work trying to fit Israel into some of these definitions. As NGO Monitor notes:
"In the report, the primary cause of 'maiming of children by Israeli forces' is tear gas (more than 50% of incidents)... Indeed, tear gas uniquely appeared in the Israel section in the 2019 report, as well. However, in that year, the Secretary-General's report listed tear gas inhalation as 'injuries' distinct from 'maiming.' In a July 2019 press conference, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba acknowledged this distinction and indicated that her office was going to examine expanding the definition of 'maiming' to include tear gas."
Addressing the allegation of Israel's "attacks on schools and hospitals," it is well-substantiated with verbal and video confirmation that this has not been considered in the context that, "In Hamas' world, hospitals are command centers, ambulances are transport vehicles, and medics are human shields, in flagrant violation of international law."
"In response to threat that this posed to IDF forces, the IDF repeatedly conveyed warnings to the hospital staff, Palestinian officials, and international aid organizations, including the World Health Organization, requesting that they act in order to stop the hospital from being used for military purposes. On July 23, after confirming that no civilians were present, the IDF attacked the compound and the terrorists within the hospital grounds, in order to remove the threat posed to IDF forces."
Israel has been lauded by many for taking unprecedented pains to avoid civilian casualties and any unavoidable deaths, even of terrorists and combatants, and has even prosecuted its own soldiers for violations.
By contrast, the early childhood indoctrination to terrorism by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is so well documented that it is beyond dispute. The same brainwashing administered by Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority is only slightly more discreet, but has consistently been presented as the supposedly "moderate" face of the Palestinian struggle, as if the organization concerns itself more with legal and diplomatic warfare.
Unfortunately, Abbas's statements to his constituents on official PA television as opposed to the general English-speaking media -- leave a dramatically different impression:
"We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem... shed for the sake of Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah."
With the astronomical sum of pooled international donations that flood into Palestinian control every year through countless NGOs and humanitarian organizations, it is inconceivable that the poverty among so many Palestinians, especially in the refugee camps, is anything but a desired and designed effect: the result of, shall we say, "questionable" governance. The combination of intense early childhood indoctrination to hatred and terror with hopeless deprivation are a deliberate recipe for terrorism.
In the PA-controlled refugee camps, teens give in to the engineered combination of hopelessness with the promoted hero-worship of martyrs:
"Unemployment and frustration are high here.... we want to become... martyrs for God, to the grave, nothing else. We don't want to get married or work. To the grave directly, nothing else."
Photos of these dead children fuel sympathy donations, funds flow in the billions, and Palestinian officials, their families, and their friends enjoy the high-life at the expense of their own people – all in the name of "the Palestinian cause" and the fight against Israel.
On the list supporting Israel's addition to the UN's Children and Armed Conflict report is the NGO Defense of Children International – Palestine, which misleadingly lays the blame on Israel for the death of underage terrorists.
The organization's website regularly features standard-looking photos of adolescents such as 17-year-old Mahmoud Majed al-Aydi and claim them as victims of Israeli aggression. Eventually, the not-so-innocent photos emerge of this same teen toting an automatic rifle.
Nikki Haley, as US ambassador to the UN, lamented the fate of Palestinian children:
"Anyone who truly cares about children in Gaza should insist that Hamas immediately stop using children as cannon fodder in its conflict with Israel... It is quite simply an issue of decency. Humanity itself loses when the barbaric practice of human shields is tolerated and unanswered."
Virtually all of the child welfare NGOs that support the UN's latest Israel-slamming resolution declare their unwavering support for the "psychosocial wellbeing" and all other conceivable needs of Palestinian children, while completely ignoring those of terror-traumatized Israeli children.
None of these supposed child-welfare organizations seriously takes Palestinian groups to task for terrorizing children in Israel, for rocket strikes on kindergartens. None of them gives aid to expand the availability of rocket shelters in Israeli playgrounds or barricades at bus stops to defend against car-rammings, or to offer trauma counseling to children terrorized across Israel by both rocket and terror attacks.
The question needs to be asked: Is it actually "child welfare" that is at issue here, or is it the demonization of Israel, the only democratic country in the region, and one that actually respects human rights, thereby threatening the repressive dictatorships around it that is at the heart of the matter?
Australian senior policy analyst Ahron Shapiro encapsulates much of the issue:
"One cannot consider the cynical exploitation of Palestinian children by the Palestinian nationalist movement without recognizing that international NGOs that claim to act on the behalf of the welfare of children often encourage this exploitation by refusing to criticize this practice.
"Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the NGO Defence of Children International-Palestine, which has been identified by NGO Monitor as having close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
"If Palestinian children's rights are protected in the same way as children anywhere – as they should be – then the politicisation of the issue must end. Palestinian parental and governmental responsibility for raising and educating children in an environment free from incitement and hate, and their responsibility to supervise children and prevent them from engaging in violent activity, must be addressed with the same vigour as allegations of mistreatment at the hands of Israelis."
This bullying and agenda-mongering during the most current blacklisting resolution by the UN, the signatory NGOs, and the entire Israel-demonizing, Palestinian-promoting agenda in the crocodile-tears guise of legitimate concern for the welfare of children, is not only sickening, it also serves to further delegitimize the UN and other organizations that perpetrate such fraud.
Instead of waging Jihad (holy war) on Israel, the UN might start paying attention to the human rights violations and massive child abuse committed by Palestinian and Arab leaders against their own people as well as against Jews.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19715/un-jihad-against-israel
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