Whatever your position is, just take a moment to reflect on just how dark this is.
Just hours after the ICJ concluded that Israel was plausibly committing genocide and ordered it to dramatically step up humanitarian efforts, 7 Western countries sanctioned... not Israel but the Palestinians and the UN (!!!).
They cut funding for UNRWA, which is THE UN agency tasked with humanitarian assistance to Palestinians (and therefore their main lifeline).
Even if you were the world's worst cynic, you'd still have a hard time expecting such sheer level of cruelty and depravation. This is absolutely unfathomable.
They did so with the cheapest possible excuse, effectively using Israel's narrative that "UNWRA is Hamas" and allegations by Israel that some UNWRA staff were involved in the 7th Oct attack but 1) Israel has been making these accusations for months (so the timing of cutting funding right after the ICJ ruling is obviously not a coincidence) and 2) UNWRA has announced it's terminated the contracts of the staff members accused (12 people out of its 30,000 strong workforce) and launched an investigation, so it obviously doesn't condone this. Even if the allegations were to be proven correct, how can an organization of 30,000 staff be held collectively accountable for the individual actions of 0.04% of its workforce? Especially in the current context when its work is a life or death matter for millions of people.
To add to the cynicism here, UNWRA staff are actually a major victim of the war with at least 152 UNRWA staffers killed by Israel in Gaza to date. In a normal world, it is Israel that should be punished for killing so many members of a humanitarian organization. But nope, it's the humanitarian organization that's getting punished, alongside with the very vulnerable population it's committed to helping.
Mike
ISRAEL/GAZA NEXT STEPS FOR JUSTICE:
February 2024--Israel is to report back to the ICJ in one month to provide an accounting of actions take pursuant to complying with today's ICJ rulings
