https://arab.news/4r6ac
In every sphere of activity in which Israel’s government operates, it does so in a thuggish and mindless manner. Nuance, subtlety, restraint, consideration, and weighing options are just not in its vocabulary. The immorality of this approach is obvious and in the long term self-defeating, leaving the country living by the sword, with fewer friends, and constantly losing public sympathy.
The latest episode in this long-running series of acts of sheer folly took place last week when the government sent its enforcers, accompanied by security forces, to demolish the headquarters of UNRWA, the UN agency that since 1949 has been in charge of providing services for the well-being and protection of Palestinian refugees until a just resolution of the question of Palestine is found.
This is an Israeli government that tries to conceal its true intentions and incompetence with performative politics. Does it really believe that if UNRWA ceases to exist, the Palestinian refugees will disappear with it, and that their political, human, and civil rights will no longer exist? Israel blames UNRWA for perpetuating the Palestinian right of return by granting refugee status to successive generations. However, it is not UNRWA that perpetuates the right of return; it is their legal right in line with international law and UN General Assembly Resolution 194, for instance, which states that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors 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.”
