Life is Belief & Struggle - Ahmed Shawqi

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The Facebook State Or why there will not be a Palestinian state no matter how many votes the PLO/Palestinian Authority can marshal in any UN vote.



I seriously doubt there is any geographical area denser with NGO's than the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. One of the largest of these aid organization is reporting extreme budget shortfalls.Arutz Sheva report:  

 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday raised alarm over a $100 million shortfall in funding for the UN aid agency for “Palestinian refugees”, UNRWA, and called for urgent donations, AFP reported.

Ban said in a statement quoted by the news agency that UNRWA was "a pillar of stability" for five million Palestinian “refugees” at a time when the Middle East is in the throes of crises and suffering.

He called "on all donors to urgently ensure that the $100 million required be contributed to UNRWA at the earliest possible date so that the children of Palestine can begin their 2015-2016 school year without delay."  Ban has personally spoken to several world leaders in the past weeks about the unprecedented funding crisis at UNRWA, his spokesman said, according to AFP. UNRWA has previously warned that it may have to close its schools due to its large debts and fear of going bankrupt.

Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA media adviser, said in July that the financial deficit may cause the body to close 700 schools in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan at the start of the next school year.

I have no doubt that the UNRWA is facing a very dire financial shortfall, but not a single penny should go to either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.  Education, health care, housing, and job creation for Palestinians in either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip is not, and should not be the responsibility of the UNRWA. There is no time like the present to tell Palestinians that the refugee gravy train for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is no more.  These people are not refugees and treating them as if there is any comparison with the ongoing tragic plight of the Syrians is Theatre of the Absurd. 

I am told regularly that Palestinians want and long for statehood, but as long as the UN and NGO's pick up the tab, the Palestinians have no vested interest in creating the infrastructure of governance which creates statehood.  Job creation, medical and education should be the sole responsibility of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. The destruction of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip was the direct result of Hamas launching an offensive against Israel and consequently, it is up to the Hamas government to provide reconstruction to those citizens who have suffered their loss of their home and livelihood no the UNRWA.

It’s ironic that the Kurds, who have built all the necessary underpinnings and infrastructure for a state; including education, job creations, healthcare systems, and  are leading the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, are the very people the world seems determined to deny them statehood.  As long as the UNRWA provides, education, job creation, job training, housing, medical care for Hamas and the Palestinian Authority the Palestinians will continue their charade of being only a Facebook state.

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