Starmer’s Labour slammed by Israel backers for restoring UNRWA funding

Right, so as Israel gets handed it’s marching orders by the International Court of Justice & especially in light of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party losing a lot of votes, not to mention several seats as a direct result of their ongoing support of Israel despite what has been happening in Gaza all this time, we’ve seen a small shift in Labour positioning on this, though sadly, it still isn’t Keir Starmer offering an apology for saying that Israel had the right to commit war crimes in Gaza by turning off water and power. Instead, after two weeks, though frankly it should have been a day one instruction, Labour have restored UK funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, who’s crucial work is the difference all too often between life and death in the UK, but it has exposed just how influential and how reliant on the Israel Lobby Labour is for it’s own financial backing and public support, and the whole country before party mantra Starmer keeps coming out with is being put to the test already, as pro Israeli party backers flex their influence against the grain of public opinion and with that ICJ ruling now having been made, basically ordering Israel out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, this is an issue Starmer and his pro Israel leanings are going to put to the test over more and more.
Right, so finally, at long last the UK has restored funding to UNRWA, having been party to risking the collapse of the main aid agency helping the beleaguered, innocent people of Gaza and the West Bank to basically survive. Food, water, medicine, shelter, provide schooling, medical facilities, women’s refuges, all this and more is what UNRWA do. They enable the survival of these people under brutal Israeli occupation, now finally recognised in law as the apartheid violation of international law that it is. Israel made up a pack of lies about UNRWA, made false claims against the agency that they were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel on the night of October 7th and it truly exposed the agendas of a great many states who not only jumped as soon as this claim was made to defund UNRWA, completely reliant on funding from other nations to do it’s work as they are, but those who have continued to withhold funding from UNRWA for all of this time since Israel failed to present any evidence to back up their claims. Israel’s government and spokespeople lie with impunity. Any world leaders taking their word for anything, are not leaders worth having and their own pro Israel leanings need thorough examination as a result, because on this falsehood particularly, there was no foundation and no excuse to keep defunding them. To my knowledge, the only country left now that hasn’t resumed funding to UNRWA, is the United States, which should come as no surprise at all.
Now the UK, obviously we’ve just changed government. Do I believe if the Tories were still in charge funding would have been restored to UNRWA? Not one iota. That Labour have though has come as no less of a surprise, since that party and their leader Keir Starmer are arguably more in hock to Israel Lobbyists than even the Tories were, but unlike the Tories, they are more likely to be punished by their voters for continuing inexcusable unwarranted support for Israel in light of everything we know they are doing. It’s something you can imagine the Labour Party leadership will have taken to their Israel backers, saying to them something like: Look, I know you aren’t going to like this, but we need to keep the public sweet, they aren’t happy with us, they’ve punished us at the ballot over Gaza, we can’t just ignore that or we’ll be out of power at the next election, we need to bung them a sweetener, so we’ll restore funding to UNRWA. Now I absolutely welcome this and this is good from Labour, it would be remiss of me to not come out with, a straightforward well done, this is good, but I’m looking at it still through the lens of Labour needing to win some brownie points back from the public and unless this is just a first step, a start, it’s still not enough. Was this an acceptable compromise to Labour backers though? Well, certainly not every pro Israel supporter of Labour thinks so, as they’ve been seized upon over this, by the all too familiar pro Zionist organisation that passes itself off as the representative body of all Jewry in this country, despite most Jews actually wanting nothing to do with them, the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Let’s not forget that the outgoing President of the BoD, Marie van der Zyl, actually joined Starmer’s Labour upon stepping down from that role. Well, the Board have, as always happens when something they aren’t happy with happens, issued a statement over UNRWA’s funding restoration saying:
‘The UK, in line with other nations which had previously suspended funding to UNRWA, has now resumed this funding. While we of course believe it is vital that aid is delivered directly to those who need it, we believe the resumption of such funding needs to come alongside significant oversight of UNRWA’s activities.
We note the reports of UNRWA employees being among those who took part in the October 7th attacks and that Hamas appears in a number of cases to have been operating from within UNRWA facilities. This, coupled with longstanding concerns regarding antisemitism and incitement to violence within UNRWA schools, suggests to us that the government would be wise to insist on much stricter oversight before resuming it’s annual funding of more than £30m.
Ultimately, the existence of UNRWA as distinct from the UNHCR, which looks after all other refugee populations, is an anomaly that must be fixed and the two should ultimately be folded together.’
So in their opinion, Israel’s word is still gospel, they accept aid should get in, but actually don’t accept UNRWA should be doing it and actually it should be part of the remit of the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, so why not roll UNRWA in with the UNHCR? Just amalgamate them? Streamline UN aid for refugee operations?
Well for one UNRWA have been working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, have existed there doing the work they do, since 1949, they’ve basically existed since the state of Israel came to be, since the beginning of the Nakba, and I say beginning of deliberately, because it’s never ended. Therefore, their knowledge, their experience of working in that region is unmatched. That also brings me onto what I consider is the sneaky, dirty, underhanded bit of the Board of Deputies statement and their ostensibly reasonable suggestion that UNRWA merge with the UNHCR and it’s because of how UNRWA itself did actually come into being and this is important, it includes a crucial detail.
Now UNRWA basically came into being following the adoption of UN Resolution 194, particularly to Article 11 of that resolution, which resolves that:
‘Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible’
Article 11 of UN Resolution 194, was later cited in UN Resolution 302, which, in Article 7, established the creation of UNRWA. Other UN bodies were established here too under other articles, but not the UNHCR, that came later in 1950.
Article 11 of UN Resolution 194, if it didn’t occur to you already, basically lays out the right to return. The right to return is therefore part of the foundation of UNRWA. It is not part of the foundation of the UNHCR. If the Bod’s suggestion were to be adopted, it would remove the right to return for Palestinians, which Israel already dispute is what the wording of Article 11 says, but I challenge anyone to interpret it in another way.
Fundamentally though, as welcome as this move by Starmer’s Labour is, it can only be accepted as a first step, it is not enough on it’s own, but with the BoD, Starmer supporting as they are, especially when you consider how badly they used to lay into Corbyn, platformed on the mainstream media as they were, before many of us had even heard of them, even this first step is grating them, so for Starmer to go any further? For example if he were to agree with the ICJ ruling that Israel is an apartheid state now declared to be illegally occupying Palestine and instructed to not only leave immediately, but take down all settlements, resettle all settlers elsewhere and make reparations to those people illegally displaced, they’d probably have a collective aneurysm and how many of their pro Israel backers would leave, their Stuart Roden’s, their Gary Lubner’s – losing votes is one thing, losing the cash is another after they’d chased the membership away.
Functionally one thing we absolutely should expect in light of that ICJ ruling is the disbanding of Labour Friends of Israel. How can you justify being friends with a state the ICJ has declared to be guilty of apartheid?
Arms sales must end immediately, all military aid to Israel must end immediately, there are no excuses for not carrying out these actions too, otherwise the UNRWA restoration must be viewed as a stunt to win a positive headline for Starmer and nothing more.
When Starmer says country before party, many have asked the question as to whether that means this country or Israel, but the reality is it’s money that speaks loudest of all. It’s always been party before country and predominantly it remains to be seen if Starmer’s pro Israel money backers have more influence than voters do. What Starmer does regarding Israel and Gaza going forwards will certainly tell us which.
As for the BoD, with the position they’ve taken here on UNRWA they have in my opinion just continued to be shameless shills for Israel, complicit in everything they continue to do and have done and in this instance that includes promoting starvation as a weapon of war, therefore complicity in war crimes. They are not a serious organisation worthy of giving serious consideration to.
Meanwhile, one other thing that Starmer must do without delay is call off the nonsense at the ICC regarding the arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. Let the ICC Chief Prosecutor have his day in court, this latest ICJ ruling pretty much detonates any chance of getting them off those charges now in my view, so why waste time and public money with this farce? Get the latest on that shameful Starmer U-turn in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.