Suleimani strike not the military game-changer America wanted
A year after killing top general, Pentagon still regards Iran as potent foe in Middle East
Iran s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (front) leading a prayer over the caskets of Qassem Suleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis at Tehran University in the Iranian capital. AFP
Army cadets attend a funeral ceremony for Qassem Suleimani, shown in posters, and his comrades at the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) square in Tehran. AP
Mourners gather to pay homage to top Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, after he was killed in a US strike in Baghdad, in the capital Tehran. AFP
Experts Doubt Report of Israel, UAE Cooperation to Pull Plug on UNRWA Tara Kavaler 12/28/2020
Despite many problems plaguing the beleaguered UN Relief and Works Agency, its elimination would come with high costs for the Arab world
A recent report in the French newspaper Le Monde accused the United Arab Emirates and Israel of collaborating to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), with no resolution of the refugee issue in sight. But experts on Israel and the Emirates say they doubt this is actually occurring.
A Palestine refugee, according to UNRWA, is one “whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict,” as well as the descendants of male refugees. Few of the original refugees, estimated to number around 700,000 people, are still alive, but their descendants now number approximately 5 million. Those eli
Israel believes the existence of UNRWA keeps alive the question of Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes by Zionist militias before and after Israel was founded in 1948.
Since then, Israel has barred Palestinian refugees from returning home solely on the racist grounds that they are not Jewish.
“UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the problem of the Palestinian refugees,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
“It also perpetuates the narrative of the so-called ‘right of return’ with the aim of eliminating the State of Israel, and therefore UNRWA must disappear,” Netanyahu added.
Perverse logic
UNRWA exists because refugees are denied their rights, and their basic humanitarian needs must be met until those rights are respected.
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