Last week Israel took an utterly illegal decision, decried by the whole world, to unilaterally ban UNRWA operations which are the lifeline of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians made refugees by Israel. Indian Express was ultra-quick to ask the Israeli ambassador in India to put across his government’s convoluted point of view while IE failed to give similar space to the Palestinian ambassador in India or to the UNRWA President or Spokesman. A rejoinder was emailed to the Indian Express on 1 November 2024 but it failed to carry even a truncated piece in its letters to the editor column. Here is the text of the rejoinder:
I find it strange that The Indian Express (30 October 2024) was so quick to offer space to the Israeli ambassador in India to justify the shutting down of UNRWA operations within Israel and the illegally annexed East Jerusalem. How moral is it to offer free space to the official representative of a state accused of genocide in front of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court for devastating Gaza Strip beyond recognition, killing over 43,000 and injuring over one hundred thousand Palestinians, mostly descendants of the hapless Palestinians Israel forced into exile seven decades ago.
The Indian Express would have been justified in offering free space to the Israeli spokesman only if it had given similar space to the Palestinian ambassador in New Delhi and the spokesman of UNRWA.
Israel, a state created by the UN, has been routinely flouting hundreds of UN resolutions and criticizing the international body. In its bluster and defiance of world public opinion, it has pronounced the UN Secretary General as persona non grata.
Israel forgets that it was accepted as a UN member in May 1949 with two conditions: (1) it must allow the displaced Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands and (2) it must vacate the excess land of mandated Palestine it illegally occupied during the civil war in 1948-49. (The proposed Jewish homeland was allocated 56% of the mandated Palestine lands but it occupied 78% during 1948-49.) Israel is yet to comply with these two solemn pledges it made to the UN. On the contrary, it made Palestinian refugees’ return to their erstwhile properties and lands impossible and, instead of vacating the excess lands of Palestine it captured during 1948-49, it occupied even the rest (22%) of the Palestinian lands in 1967 and it still keeps them despite hundreds of UN resolutions.
Israel is after UNRWA since long because its schools offer good free education to the children of the Palestinian refugees. Without such good education, the Palestinians would have become Rohingyas of the Middle East which Israel very much would like to happen. Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of collaborating with Hamas and, as a result, the agency had readily sacked nine of its 13000 employees. In contrast, Israel has already killed 260 of UNRWA staff in Gaza, according Lorenzo Rodriguez, director of the agency’s Brussels office.
The whole world, including the US, Israel’s main backer, has denounced the Israeli action against UNRWA which is bearing the burden of the people made refugees by Israel. Israel should have worked to rehabilitate these refugees. Instead, it confiscated all their properties and, vide the Law of Return of 1952, it invited Jews from all over the world to come and live in the properties and lands left behind by those refugees. The current Israeli Prime Minister himself lives in a property left behind by a Palestinian refugee.
Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan is Editor, The Milli Gazette; former Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission; President, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat
Email: [email protected]
