American taxpayers have been subsidizing educators who call for the murder of Jews. Suspending these funds isn’t enough. UNRWA must be abolished for good.
Why not include a bigger truth in this article? Trump rescinded money to these thugs and Joey immediately reversed that. Trump knew. Trump was prescient.
Just another brick in the wall of radical leftist hate against sanity like allowing an open border
When Trump gets in again, I hope he goes all the way and completely defunds the UN. They can move it to Mogadishu
Did anyone else notice the clever little bit of misinformation in the article? Let's look again:
"...for too long, the UN and the U.S. government have turned a blind eye to the rot inside the agency"
How about we amend that statement to acknowledge that Republicans have both talked about this and acted on it for many years, while Democrats denounce and undo those efforts.
So what you are saying is that. Biden resumed funding UNRWA after Trump had stopped funding? And Trump had stopped the funding after Obama had funded it? And Obama had funded it after Bush II had stopped the funding? And Bush II had stopped the funding after Clinton had been funding it? And Clinton had restarted the funding after Bush I had ended it? And, you get the point. So what you are saying is that for decades GOP administrations had withheld funding from these clowns with flamethrowers, while the Dems continued or restarted the funding? If this is actually the case, then that is a huge problem. It sure looks like these folks were "hiding" in plain sight - which is to say, not hiding at all. Kinda makes ya wonder what other bat-shit crazy, evil stuff is being funded by us elsewhere, right now and over the years.
On an only slightly tangential subject: the Iran sponsored mayhem going on in the middle east right now, is exactly why we have carrier strike groups, and F-22s. But the ability to project power is only useful if we have the will to use it. So far not so much, we seem content to let the spec op guys risk their lives in "small" proportional action. (We've stopped making F-22s. I guess some folks think that it's better to wait until we have to shoot people from our porches than deal with them when they are still an ocean away.)
When you start your comment with the line, "So what you are saying is," and then insert your own rhetoric, I stop reading. Why are you telling someone who wrote something what YOU think they said? Why not just reread what they said instead of telling them what you thought they meant?
I live in Vermont which has a reputation for being very far along on the "progressive" spectrum. And that's probably true in Burlington, although the consequences of unfettered progressivism are universally disliked there now, so we'll see. Anyways, no one is coming for anyone's guns even in this seemingly very "progressive" state. And if they did, good luck.
I know we all love Biden bashing here, and Dems are so evil but according to the following link, eight years of the Bush administration from 2000 through 2008 yielded the UNRWA close to $1.1 billion dollars..
Have we as a country given too much to an agency not sufficiently vetted? Absolutely. But both parties are to blame.
I just had a friend from California visit me in North Carolina last week (very intelligent and the mother of two of the brightest students I ever taught). She is so disturbed about what she sees happening around her. She can’t understand what has happened to her city and state. But when we tried to explain, she repeated (again and again and again) “I never heard anything about that!” Seems she got tired of hearing all the political stuff years ago and only listens to PBS now. My husband spent the whole week digging through the internet to prove to her what she’d missed.
In the end, she said, “Now, I don’t know where to turn. I won’t vote for Biden, but I still CAN’T vote for Trump. Everybody says he’s awful.”
PBS & NPR are both funded via CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Both of these entities quit using X/Twitter in Apr ‘23 after NPR was labeled 'state-affiliated media’ and PBS as ‘government funded media’ by that platform. Initially CEO’s of NPR/PBS said “it must be some kind of mistake”. But Musk said there wasn't a mistake and these entities quit the site.
😮 wow! Would you rather get your info from Murdoch funded media? Or Bezos funded media? Or Alex Jones funded media? PBS and NPR or funded by people like me, who think about things instead of just calling names, like scared bullies. My news sources are funded by contributions from average citizens like myself. We don’t have to worry about a CEO’s ideals being filtered into our feeds. The bit of public funding they get, would never be enough to gather the NEWS from around the world to share with us. Best of all, they don’t spend all day night trying to scare the shit out of us!
PBS and NPR are funded by taxpayers and donors, but they are in no way politically neutral (i.e., they are left-leaning). I regard myself as fairly centrist, but I gave up on NPR years ago after having been a dedicated listener for more than a decade -- the blatant left bias was so maddening that I felt it was pushing me right out of sheer irritation. (Fox News has the same effect on me in the other direction.)
I no longer require neutrality from media sources -- mostly because I know I can't get it; no organization even tries anymore. I now assume that any source that feels "neutral" to me is actually just one that is in line with my own biases (i.e., if you don't hear another person's accent, it is often because you have the same one).
The best any of us can do is to deliberately consume news and commentary from both sides of the spectrum, try to keep ourselves civil in debate with those with whom we disagree, and honestly consider ideas that may seem, at least initially, contrary to our own.
Give News Nation a shot. They try to stick to facts, introduce multiple viewpoints and keep editorial bias out of their reporting. I find the afternoon drive shows are pretty fair overall and I like their opinion show The Hill at 6 pm and Leland Vittard at 7. After that it’s lefty-leaning opinion, but it’s pretty good stuff until then.
I turn on NPR in the car from time to time, but only to get a sense of the BS they are peddling to other suburbanites, some of whom are my friends and neighbors. I long ago left MSM for alternative news sources, and NPR and PBS are firmly, MSM. The news on that site is especially sinister in that in comes at you with a librarian-like voice, but it's too often over the top, race-baiting and I think poisoning to a critical thinking mind. Boy, have they gone to bat for Palestinians as of late. I will say, I do like NPR's 'Radio Lab' show which airs on Saturday afternoons, but this is because its actual investigative journalism of curiosities and generally not politics or ideology. Before that, I was a fan of NPR's Garison Keillor's 'Prairie Home'. NPR has been a Jekyll & Hyde sort of programming for at least the last 20 years, but particularly since 2016, way (way) more Hyde pumping into the FM airways.
I used to support NPR and PBS because I thought that public supported media would be the most honest. It's not! Both of these entities cater specifically to who they believe their supporters to be - progressives - and today's progressivism has devolved into an illiberal Jew hating victim worshiping fact ignoring deranged hate cult. About 14 years ago I started to realize with the Gaza flotilla incident how slanted, unfair, disrespectful and hateful NPR reporting was towards Israel and that ended my history of donations. Little by little I stopped listening to them altogether. I also stopped donating to PBS, though I do still selectively view a program here and there. I thank G-d everyday for a new culture of news sourcing. Though I follow many different independent writers my absolute favorite source of everything is Bari Weiss' Free Press and her podcasts, Honestly by Bari Weiss. BRILLIANT and, well, honest. LOVE. I trust her and the folks she publishes even though I don't always agree with everything, maybe that is in part why I trust her. And I24 and JBS. And publications like Tablet. No more regular MSM for me.They are all corrupt and partisan narrative driven.
Taxpayers pick up whatever budget percentage of PBS/NPR, I don't want to pay for the entertainment they yield. If you like PBS/NPR, you pay for it. Now we are being forced to pay.
I listened to NPR for years. I knew it was always fell far left of center and took that into account. I stopped listening to NPR and PBS in 2020 when they would not allow any dissenting voices on Covid. Many of those voices have been vindicated. Not trying to scare the "shit out of us" that is all they did from 2020 to 2022 and continue now with "our Democracy" bs . These are in no way neutral voices.
I haven't watched PBS or listen to NPR in years - but I'll say it - Trump is awful.
Let's rewatch him making fun of handicap folks, or disrespecting the parents of soldiers who gave their lives protecting us, or mocking aviators who acted bravely and honorably as POWs even under torture. Americans would find that awful. And nothing Biden did or didn't do would make Trump less awful.
Just because his administration had some good ideas, doesn't make him any less awful.
There are a bunch of Republicans who are definitely not awful and have more good ideas. I think the same things about the Democrats. The choice of Biden or Trump is just - unfortunate and depressing.
And it could be argued that this dividing everybody up in one of two sides and demonizing the other side is largely responsible for giving us this crappy choice.
We are all Americans, with much more in common than what divides us, and our children will all share the same country we leave it - so why not work together to leave it even better than we found it?
We liberals don't care much for Trump's personality, but when we take emotion out of the equation and look at his policies, we can remember that he was a Democrat his entire life until he ran for president.
Trump is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, accepting of trans people, charitable (donating his annual presidential salary of $400,000 every year), not racist, not a war-monger...
- Unlike every other recent president in American history, Trump did not get us into any new wars.
- In fact, we had historic peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords.
- He reduced illegal immigration with his Remain in Mexico Policy for asylum seekers (who passed through other countries they could have requested asylum from).
- Americans experienced economic prosperity, including record low unemployment for Black citizens (which is the real reason most people seek “asylum” in our country).
- He signed eight bills expressly targeting human trafficking.
- He commuted the excessively long prison sentences of nonviolent drug offenders (who were primarily Black).
- He is one of the few politicians who came out of their office with a lower net worth than when he came in (Nancy Pelosi inspired an app so you can copy her stock trades because, with an average return of 65%, she’s better at trading than Warren Buffet.)
- What made me finally not care that he’s a bloviating narcissist was when he banned CRT from the federal government before the 2020 election. He has been against this neo-racist, anti-American, DEI movement from the start.
- Americans experienced economic prosperity, including record low unemployment for Black citizens (which is the real reason most people seek “asylum” in our country).
Based on practically no policy or dint of Trump being in Office. He walked into an economy on its 8th year of recovery and expansion, where unemployment was already at 4% and falling, GDP growth steady (and higher on average under both Obama and Biden terms), and also inherited the post-2008 crash Fed interest rates that were still at almost 0% rates to stimulate growth. That is a "feeling" based on the inaccurate blame/credit American voters give Presidents over economic conditions that are external to most Presidential policies and actions in the near term of their actual terms, let alone the partisan split over how people view the economy based on whether “their team” is in charge - make no mistake if this was Trump’s second term and we had the same economy this would be another “Trumpian Miracle” replete with wine from water and fishes from loaves that he shephered us from post-COVID, versus the “disaster and ruin” under Biden.
- He signed eight bills expressly targeting human trafficking.
OK, passed by Congress I presume. Pretty low bar, and not one that would be unique to Trump. What President wouldn't have signed onto that kind of legislation? Thank Congress :)
- He commuted the excessively long prison sentences of nonviolent drug offenders (who were primarily Black).
OK, I'll give you some of that, mostly on the requests of others that came to him and the persuasion of Jared Kushner for Trump to take on First Step (which was mostly done out of pure self interest on Kushner’s behalf because the primary beneficiary was Kushner’s pops). Trump has made statements since regretting that support and passage because he thinks it made him look “weak on crime”, so there you go. Hard to give him credit for something he doesn’t seem to want credit for, and would assuredly not pursue further in a second term.
BTW - Biden is promising to pardon all federal low level marijuana sentences as well. Criminal justice reform is hardly a unique to Trump affair, and one must also consider the other pardons he gave (Stone, Bannon, etc) - and how he blatantly set up a pardon for pay and patronage scheme through Giuliani and others.
- He is one of the few politicians who came out of their office with a lower net worth than when he came in (Nancy Pelosi inspired an app so you can copy her stock trades because, with an average return of 65%, she’s better at trading than Warren Buffet.)
LOL. No one knows what Trump's actual net worth is (at least until the current NY civil fraud case!), and this is largely his own claims and “accounting” to make it sound like he didn't profit from Office. We know that besides his Presidential travel scamming, Trump DC Hotel was a massive Emoluments violation where his companies took in massive amounts from foreign and domestic lobbyist types of traffic (and where stays and traffic at dropped off the cliff the instant Trump lost the election which resulted in them fire selling the property), among other business to Trump branded properties that spiked during his Presidency. I doubt this "valuation" accounted for that. We do know though that outside of the political and foreign favor traffic to his properties, he did lose value and traffic to other properties that were less central to his Presidency (like Doral, which he tried to beef up with a ham fisted attempt to host the next G7 conference at) and that's his own damn fault for engaging in partisan politics while running a personal name branded brand that would become associated with his politics for good or bad (and maybe, ya know, he should have divested himself from his brand like all other Presidents have done with their businesses and investments while in Office).
He's also made a stink load from his PAC's, essentially tax free and no strings attached GoFund Me vehicles. He's taken in over half a billion by many estimates so far through these and we have all the reason to believe he's using the money for personal and legal expenditures - certainly not on "fighting election fraud" because there's about 0 record of his PAC money funding any such operations.
There’s also the money he and his SIL have made from Saudi sources, during and post-Presidency. Kushner walked away with over $1B in “investments” to his newly formed private equity firms immediately after negotiating the Abraham Accords, as well as the Trump Administration’s running interference for MBS over the Kashoggi murder (again with Trump DC, the Saudi government had rented entire floors of the hotel for months on end that no one actually occupied). Trump has since made lucrative income from hosting the Saudi based LIV golf tournaments at his resorts, and has several open deals going on in Qatar, Dubai and elsewhere with the “Accord” signees for Trump properties. But this is apparently above reproach for a potential incoming POTUS in a way that that Hunter Biden’s punter money from Burisma and Ukraine are the “worst corruption ever” ;P
I will agree that there should be some reforms/restrictions on government and political officials and stock trading. Beyond that, if we apply Trumpian ethics to this, Nancy is "smart" from benefiting from the rules that allow her to do so. And this is not a partisan phenomenon either, plenty of Republicans are working from the same system and profiting from it, just appears Nancy is better at it to have inspired an app!
- What made me finally not care that he’s a bloviating narcissist was when he banned CRT from the federal government before the 2020 election. He has been against this neo-racist, anti-American, DEI movement from the start.
You do have a point there, but you could likely get an anti-DEI administration through any generic Republican - including DeSanctimonius, as your boi likes to say, ; P Or no, sorry, that's too many syllables for The Stable Genius Who Aced The Pre-Dementia Cognitive Screen (while admitting some questions were really hard (none should have been "hard" if you don't have early dementia lol!) and has shortened to a much less punch and essentially meaningless "DeSanctus" (hint: the joke is that DeSantis is sanctimonious, what the hell is "Sanctus" other than Trump not really "getting" it?)
So basically - you provided about zero reasons for anyone to come over to Trump, at least from the perspective of those who do not support him and view pretty much each and every one of those planks with contrasting views on the topic.
And here is how a non-Trump supporter/Democratic voter would respond to these points:
1. Trump is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, accepting of trans people, charitable (donating his annual presidential salary of $400,000 every year), not racist, not a war-monger...
Trump's personal views are entirely besides the point, and practically unknowable as to what are genuine and what are based on whatever audience he's in front of at the time. We do know that he adopted an anti-abortion stance to win the Evangelical Right support, and that he followed through on this stance through his Supreme Court appointments, all guaranteed Roe repeal votes and selected for that reason, and that he bragged about "his judges" being the vehicle to Roe repeal explicitly, and bragged about the result until he realized it became a political liability for Republicans in the aftermath of repeal. Nevertheless, we shouldn't listen to what he says about this in the election but his track record - which has been all about promoting anti-abortion views and policies, and he would be immune from public opinion in a second term and much more likely to indulge his base for his post-Presidency financial support than he would be inclined to steer away from.
Trans/LGBTQ support: Trump attempted a trans service ban in the military (and enacted it?). And whatever nominal LGBTQ support he might portray, I think this is a lot like abortion - he will sell out the LGBTQ community in a split second to shore up his strong right wing Evangelical regularly donating base - and why not if he believes the majority of LGBTQ are Democratic voters? Again, I don't think it's about where he has nominally been in his past public statements regarding these issues, it's that he really doesn't give a shit about these issues, beyond the transactional nature of them in that he knows his bread is buttered by the Right and he will make the Right happy where he can regarding, if there's any hint that he doesn't need the support from the Right, he'll sell out the Right in that same instant. Trump fans consistently make the error of believing that Trump has foundational beliefs and "principles" - he doesn't, beyond the belief and principle of doing what is most immediately beneficial for Donald Trump, and right now that is in base service.
Charitable? LOL. We have only one such donation of his salary on record, based on his tax returns and receipts, and that was from the first year - and there's some ambiguity around that as well, as apparently there's some rules about federal agencies (he donated to the BLM I believe?) about not accepting outside donations so one wonders if his "donation" was actually returned to him quietly. And for that donation, he soaked the taxpayers for over $100M over his term in the revenue he was taking in from over-charging Secret Service for protecting him at his own resorts as if they were paying guests, let alone the abusing of his travel allowance of using Air Force 1 the 747 to practically go down the block and back, and to golf exclusively at his own resorts every single weekend (he exceeded Obama's golfing record for 8 years in his 4 years and refused to use the already secured and nearby Andrews Air Force Base golf course that Obama used that would have been much less costly to Secret Service and the taxpayers to provide, let alone the costs he billed the government for renovations at his preferred properties that he stayed at for "security" and other upgrades like a helipad at Mar a Lago and Bedminster, stuff that will certainly benefit his commercial/private business at these resorts), and also stayed for extended periods during the winter and summer at his own resorts while again merrily billing the government for the required stay of his security and retinue the entire duration of his stays and what are essentially his homes.]
We also know that the Trump Charitable Foundation was forcibly shut down by court order after it was proven that it was just basically a tax shelter for Trump's personal spending and actually scammed donations to real charities (the howler about this charity using funds to purchase an awful portrait of Trump that he hung in his own property), such as a children's cancer fund that never received a dime of promised donations. There's also the incident during his 2016 campaign where he made a big show of not participating in the second Fox News debate over his spat with Megyn Kelly from the first one, and held a rally instead and promised donations made there would go towards a veterans fund. SHOCKER! no check was ever written to a veterans fund until a journalist followed up months later and Trump was shamed out of political necessity into cutting the check. There's many, many other anecdotes and evidence that "charity" for Trump was mostly about getting himself into charity dinners and events and not really giving anything after it was said and done.
- Unlike every other recent president in American history, Trump did not get us into any new wars.
- In fact, we had historic peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords.
Mostly by virtue of him being a 1 termer and the luck of timing. There's good reason to believe that his shredding of the Iran Nuclear Deal created a direct line to October 7 and Iran's role in it, by re-isolating Iran and ramping up the sanctions to where Iran retaliated in this fashion. The Abraham Accords made "peace" with the only nations in the ME that Israel was not in active hostilities with (and again isolating Iran and the Palestinian Authority in the process), and where the hell are they now for Israel in the aftermath of Oct 7. He abandoned Syrian and Iraq military bases, and the Kurds to Turkey, Syria and Russia. He essentially surrendered to the Taliban by negotiating the US withdrawal directly with and cutting out the Afghani government and our allies, setting the stage for the withdrawal Biden had to execute on and ensuring the collapse of the Afghani government ahead of the withdrawal, let alone having had withdrawn troops before he left office to where Biden only had about 1500 active duty troops to execute with. He repeatedly provoked Kim Jong Un recklessly on Twitter until the dictator figured out how easy it is to manipulate Trump through cheap and obvious fake flattery “the love letters” (JFC what a fucking idiot to have read those as genuine!), and then gave away US enforcement on NK's nuclear program on a pinky swear with his new bestie (of which they continued and expanded their program regardless). He gave all the signals to Putin that the US commitment to NATO and Ukrainian independence was weak. And yes, he might avoided the fighting in Ukraine because Trump had discussed his commitment to a US withdrawal from NATO in his second term (if he got one) and would have given Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter, so that's one way to keep the peace I suppose - see: Neville Chamberlain.
-He reduced illegal immigration with his Remain in Mexico Policy for asylum seekers (who passed through other countries they could have requested asylum from).
Actually, pre-COVID border crossings remained high and consistent with previous years, and captures and deportations are actually higher under Biden. Don't you remember the "caravans" that were reported on breathlessly by right wing media outlets for the first half of Trump's term? The last year, 2020, the borders between most Central American nations and the US were closed for COVID - not because of any policy of Trump’s. I will grant that Biden should invoke a "first border crossed" rule for asylum similar to “Remain in Mexico”- if asylum seekers pass through any candidate asylum nation on their path to the US, they have to claim asylum there and cannot get asylum in the US. That is the true test of political asylum, versus "economic asylum".
The current bi-partisan immigration/asylum reform bill appears to have many provisions for asylum restrictions and border security enhancements, but here’s “Mr Border Policy” ordering his captive party to not vote for it, because he prefers to keep the issue salient for his campaign and deny Biden a victory. Either immigration and the asylum migrants are a national emergency demanding immediate attention and should get the bill signed regardless of political benefit, or it’s not, in which case the fire and fury over it is a lot of politicking from Trump and the GOP. Which is it? You could argue of course that Biden and the Democrats were too late on this, but here’s the moment regardless. And now it’s Trump cockblocking.
I hear you. When I (increasingly rarely) try to engage or debate with Democrat supporters, it's truly disturbing the things they don't know. They only know what the Democrat-bootlicking media wants them to know. And they're conditioned to be suspicious of any other source as "right-wing propaganda." And the party is only too happy to keep them in the dark.
I remember Trump doing that. My thought at the time was that everyone knows UNRWA is corrupt (so good), but the Palestinians do need to eat (so bad). Trump made no plans for the latter in rejecting the former. Is that better than enabling some corruption to alleviate poverty? Even just on a practical level - poverty is a powerful driver of extremism. But I think now the depth of UNRWA's corruption is clearer, and to the extent that it enabled 10/7, it's plainly heinous despite any good works it may also do.
Also, I imagine that everybody is not just PBS for your friend. It's probably most of her friends, family and local community (and maybe her personal sense of morality). Lots of people don't like Trump, and he makes it quite easy to do. If you have an argument for Trump, it's worth explaining it to your friend (ideally more kindly than most of the commenters here would) and genuinely listening to her concerns. There is often a huge divide between Trump supporters and non-Trump supporters that will not be easily bridged.
My husband and I have been independent since the middle of the Clinton administration. Before that, I was Democrat.
Neither of us would be a "Trump supporter" now, if we had a viable choice.
I did explain my reasons for supporting Trump: they are not based on hearsay or any MSM reporting. My friend did say she ONLY listens to NPR and PBS. I came from California, and understand why many with traditional viewpoints don't speak up. I'm certain she has had little chance to discuss openly very often.
The most amazing thing to us was that, after all our discussions, we were on the same page on virtually every issue, but that the social and media pressure in her life has been such that she cannot take that final step over the line.
"poverty is a powerful driver of extremism" This is a myth. Ask yourself, what would it take for you to put a gun to someone's head? It's culture that makes one this extreme.
I don't think poverty is an excuse or a sole cause of extremism, and there are plenty of examples of well-off terrorists and impoverished kind souls to point to. But there's little doubt in my mind that feeling like you have nothing to lose would motivate someone to consider extreme acts. Pair that with a culture that rewards certain extreme acts and it's an even more explosive combination.
I do not forgive Hamas, which is evil, from building a culture of hate. But these things work together. That's one reason why Hamas doesn't just preach hate, they intentionally keep Gazans poor and desperate. Then they tell them dignity awaits in heaven and martyrdom payments await in life for their family - as long as they die for whatever cause Hamas tells them to. It's evil. But I do think it would be less effective if more Gazans were less desperate.
It's tragic!! At least she's reached the point where she admits she won't vote for Biden! Most of my indoctrinated friends will go fill in the bubble for the bubble-brained Biden-- just because- "gotta vote blue!"
Nope. She actually even remembered a number of good things about his presidency. But she kept saying he was “so racist.” She couldn’t actually give one example to support her assertion, but she was quite sure this was true.
I live in Ilhan Omar's Minneapolis district. In a recent talk, she claimed to be a representative of Muslims and didn't mention being an American. Those of us who see her as a threat to America and democracy (and not just Jews) are mobilizing to get her out.
The capture--and looting--of tax dollars for nefarious purposes by poseur idealists has got to stop. Transparency and accountability on everything funded by government. Action!! As being illustrated by the research and reporting here. And, last weeks Taibbi report on the groups, organizations and individuals attempting to destroy and undermine the American Electoral College, and through legal warfare, our coming Presidential Election.
Marxist feminism built and installed the system we call the DEI by claiming virtuous indignation, distorting and preventing the legitimate conversation around the issue of women rights and creating hatred and division at every turn, while lining their pockets. Their job was /is to serve the political actors funding them, prevent solutions and healthy dialogue and keep the pipeline flowing. Form a committee, create a problem, scream bloody murder, threaten careers and demand a tax dollar payoff. They didn't give a f'k about women anymore than the UNRWA cares about Palestinians. It's a grift. That Hamas looted resources intended for poor Palestinians to build its organization is pretty much a given. --- By their works you shall know them. (Who said that?)
The current Israeli/Palestinian horror, the Biden/Ukraine grift (and war), the fascist DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos globalist NGO manipulation of populations and economies to destabilize and undermine the lives of free peoples, are all in part funded by looted tax dollars. Crocodile tear poseurs who cause harm with American tax dollars should be exposed, investigated, prosecuted and jailed.
Harm? "From the river to the sea" protestors who can't tell you the name of the river or the sea. A million dollar a year American classroom whose brain washed educators can't teach a child to read. DNC political appointees at a Congressional hearing who can barely keep the smirk off their nasty little faces. D.C. hog trough bureaucrats who straight faced LIE to Congressional committees. The capture, with the help of American tax dollars, of American universities by political grifters who receive a million bucks a year to undermine the moral principals of the culture and civilization they represent and selectively look the other way at calls for violence and harm.
Mike R.: Perhaps you meant "Tired of being played for a fool?" instead of "Tired of being payed for a fool?". The latter has a rather different connotation :).
Yes. And if Trump weren't such an ass (that's being kind) and had more backbone, we wouldn't be dealing with Biden. Trump is disloyal to his staff, he turned on them, he was so wacky he couldn't keep a cabinet.
I understand his appeal. And his competitors are... gleah. But the man was an ass as president.
get over your dislike / distaste of Trump. #45 may be an ass to some people in some ways, but he is not a DUMBASS like Obama and Biden are (insert Commie-la Harris as well).
Trump was way ahead of the curve on many things, yet gets no credit from the MSM press. Yes he may have lost some of his staff, but generally for the better (Nikki Haley quit, not Trumps issue). Heck, he even gets shit for keeping a few he should have punted on (Fauci , Birx, etc). I hope can find a way to reform the civil service regulations to get the dead wood out of the DC swamp.
He did turn on a fair number of the staff he hired. Hire'em, fire 'em. I don't care. But the career bureaucrats who were disloyal to a duly elected president are far more troubling to me. That is a Constitutional crisis of the greatest magnitude.
Brilliant idea, although I don’t believe they will last long in Mogadishu, the reason being there are no Jews and Israelis who live there so their cause wouldn’t gain much traction there.
Trump rescinded money to the UN. I can’t believe you are suggesting that trump could read the tea leaves on this, he was clawing back money from every institution, that is his money grubbing style, never really thinking of the consequences later. I don’t think it was out of concern for terrorism happening. But any chance to toot the big fat Orange horn!!
How on earth has this separate agency, exclusively to promote NOT resettling Arab Palestinian refugees, been allowed to continue for 75 years? The fact that this agency was not long-ago folded into the overall agency for dealing with refugees suggests a very deep rot at the UN, and an intention on the part of too many UN member states to support the destruction of Israel.
Why? Because the world loves dead Jews. The converse is true. The world hates living, successful Jews. Israel has succeeded. Vast swaths of the 20+ Arab nations with hundreds of millions of people have failed to live up to providing an approximation of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ (to paraphrase our American success) that Israel has provided to her citizens, Jew and Arab, since 1948. It is easier to try and destroy Israel than to improve the lives of Arabs living outside of Israel. Europe is filled with refugees from these Arab lands. The last thing European nations and increasingly Canada want are riots from the restless population. Additionally, the ‘educated’ among the Western world has been poisoned by the ‘colonizer, powerless’ binary choice that doesn’t allow any critical thinking. Therefore they continue to fund the UNRWA. The UN is ‘Useless among Nations’. The US needs to wake up, or we too will be lost.
THE GRIFT IS IMPARTIAL. What it hates and fears is an educated intelligent successful citizen with agency, insight, and a living connection to a meaningful life, who is immersed in the history, culture and society that informs the fact of it. He can't be played for a fool and the fruits of his labor and treasure can't be looted. For success (as typified by all fascist totalitarian regimes (--DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos--) his connection to family and community must be severed, human moral reason subverted and any cohesive access to the transcendent spiritual mocked and distorted. Their capture of representative political organizations is imperative. Distortion of the national dialogue and the reduction of the press to the propagandist arm of dangerous bureaucratic surveillance state a first priority.
It is a UN affiliated agency, which buys it legitimacy. However, it is nothing more than an antisemitic grift staffed almost 100% by Palestinians. It has allowed the Jew hating groups in the U.S. and Europe a vessel to funnel their money to support ant-Zionism. It is BDS on steroids. UNRWA must be eliminated completely.
There is a 1/29/24 WSJ article online that details allegations of widespread collaboration between UNRWA staff and Hamas. It is really a shocking article (published in the News section not editorial page). Please read. UNRWA must be defunded, disbanded and those participating in the massacre must be prosecuted. Pressure must be put on Biden administration to permanently defund.
If UNRWA is the canker sore, international criminal finance and the willing complicity of a compromised elected political leadership is the disease. Always has been. The looting of labor, the destruction of lives and the theft of public treasure and resources is what keeps it alive. Control, fear, learned helplessness, a population living from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis and the criminalization of (and the ultimate rationalization to murder) anyone who stands in their way.
What we're witnessing in Gaza is the result of what happens when free peoples lose their connection to moral reason, their lives and control of public institutions. Mercenary poseur ideological utopian virtuosity in service to avaricious narcissism (self-interested greed). It's pathology not politics. It is the totalitarianism that murdered and buried millions in the 20th Century and if left unchecked will do it again. Millions slaughtered, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the destruction of a civilization by insane grifters like Adolf, Joe Stalin and Mao who promised a utopian future but delivered death camps, the ovens of Auschwitz and the killing fields. What do we think the Globalist DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos juggernaut is? We see the escalation of the assault on free peoples and the institutions created by them to ensure their freedoms every day of the week. Because it isn't happening to me doesn't me it isn't happening. (Ask Julian Assange, Snowden, Gonzalo Lira, Leonard Peltier (remember him?), Fred Hampton or the 80 plus journalists who have lost their lives in Gaza so far.) Never mind the decade long public murder of every visionary and truth speaker America produced in the '60's. What conclusion do we draw about those funding NGO's that dump more migrants in a town than the population of the town itself? They don't give a f'k!!
Transparency!! Names and organizations!! Cause, direct effect and the consequences of immoral criminal actions!! Every day!! All the time!! "We the people" of the world demand it. Those involved in subverting public tax dollars for political ends: Jail!!
Everything I find on this is opaque, as you’d expect from the UN
But they clearly state on the main website they have 37,000 employees and if you dig through sources you can find they employ 13000 in Gaza and 4000 in the West Bank, which will be in part all these “teachers” telling the kiddies to brush their teeth, oh and make sure to kill Jews”.
Which, in turn, says what about Nikki Haley? That she didn't know this when she was Ambassador? I call bs on that. She also,turned a blind eye. So much for her "foreign policy" experience and "expertise".
At one point, I was willing to vote for her if she was the nominee, although she was my second-to-last choice (after Christie). But I have read things in the last couple of weeks that have changed my view of her.
I knew there were issues with the UN, but until now I wasn't aware how long and how completely the UN was compromised.
Oh girl, it's bad. My brother worked overseas in Africa for a number of years, and I can remember stories of how UN aid packages would end up getting sold for profit by greedy officials who worked at the ports, or brokers too, rather than distributing the free aid to the people it was for. It became a tool for political favors. The rot has been going on for a long time.
Can we honestly blame Haley for all the fraudulent activity at the UN? She just might be a good start to attacking the horrible doings there, since she has a foot in the door, so to speak.
Haley is a for sale fixer, bag man and want to be political marionette. Total transparency on the use of all public funds now. No hidden budgets or disappeared unaccounted for millions. No more "gee we found a few billion we didn't know we had".
Accept the willing involvement and profiteering of America elected political leadership with, and the merger of, international criminal finance with cartels and black market entrepreneurs, that tax dollars are divided long before an appropriations bill ever reaches our legislature, and you'll sleep better. There are so many nasty little piggies at the trough Americans can't have effective public education, jobs, and a stable economy. They can have gun fire, car jacking's, a crumbling infrastructure, burning freeways, the train wreck of the week, hypodermic needles in the street, thugs to burn small businesses to the ground, wide open borders and all the Fentanyl their children can eat.
Tech created an engine that deliveredf political/financial TRANSPARENCY. Subscription journalism is providing an ESCAPE from the psyop. The MSM is in collapse. The perp's are scared and dangerous. DEMAND depth reporting and ACCOUNTABILITY on every tax dollar spent!! A truth/fact based human reality is the first step forward.
The Clinton's took the pay-to-play ball, built a fortune and ran it for a touch down. The Biden/Ukraine scandal is exactly what it appears to be. A grift!! An international community of heartless thugs who, just as in WWII, will willfully (and gleefully) burn the lives and resources of free peoples to the ground.
Of course we can't blame her for all of it. It started before she was born. We can absolutely blame her for shedding light on it during her tenure as ambassador. And if she did not know that really does not bode well for her leadership acumen.
Yeah, I didn't realize until recently either. I had previously just assumed that the UN was a waste of time. But these last few years have shown what a horrible place it has become.
That’s like saying the US Ambassador to Russia or Qatar or Saudi Arabia is responsible for what those governments do. Haley is irrelevant to this topic. And at the time she and King Donald were on the same team, so it’s particularly silly to bring this in now. As I recall, like all Republican UN ambassadors, she was critical of the UN and pushed back against the usual pompous despot/shit hole countries pretending to care about human rights and so on.
I doubt King Donald even knew what UNRWA was, and as others have noted, suspending funding for this or that at the UN is something Republican administrations have done in the past.
Sigh. I even voted for the dude once. Sorry I don't have TDS and have never been a Never Trumper etc. At ths point the problem has come around full circle - there's a cult of personality around the guy which is just as delusional as TDS ever was. Which is quite likely to result in another fricking Biden term which leads to President Kamala, God help us all.
What the hell is a cult of personality exactly? Is it possible that Trump supporters are independent voters who see no other viable option? That many of them in 2016 were like so many Democrats in 2024, homeless Republicans.
Look I'm pissed off enough about so many things that I might even convince myself to vote for the guy again, even though I despise him. A cult of personality is "the result of an effort which is made to create an idealized and heroic image of a glorious leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise". Trump has a devoted base which enjoys the spectacle of the showman, revels in the liberal tears and the blown heads at NPR and NYT and WaPo, and thrills (apparently) in the pathetic namecalling and insults of other public figures which should be embarrassing to a 5th grader. You can see from the rejection of RDS that it is not about policy - RDS offered the same policies and battles against wokeness, with actually doing stuff and not just talking and with competent executive governance already proven and without the clown show. He was soundly rejected.
Arguing the merits of Trump with a Trump fan is as utterly futile as arguing the merits of Obama was with an Obama fan. In fact in many ways they are funhouse mirror versions of each other, and I think Obama helped pave the way for Trump.
President Newsom. Kamala is just the fake blackface great granddaughter of slave plantation masters. She's Dems pretending to not be racists. Biden hates her when he can remember.
There is a good book called Complicity: How the North Promoted, Profited and Prolonged Slavery. Written by 3 writers from the Hatford (Connecticut) Courant, published in 2006, that does a historical dive. Pretty impressive.
I'm not convinced that "we the people" do know - probably 95% of the country has no idea what the hell UNRWA even is. What engine are we building to do it? MAGA 2? Good luck with that plan. I fail to see how that's going to work. Electorally, the only outcomes I see are either a Biden cruise to victory in November (the most unpopular president ever to win re-election) or another crazy, impossible Trump victory - followed by a Democratic blowout in the following 2 elections that leads to full Democratic power at the federal level, with all the wondrous things they've promised: end the filibuster, pack SCOTUS, add DC and Puerto Rico for a magical 4 new Dem Senate seats, etc, etc.
I think subscription journalism is building transparency and the the truth/fact based reality in which human beings thrive. Distortion of the healthy national dialogue we deserve and imposition of a hyperrealistic lie by mal actors is harming everyone and everything.
I agree that a choice between Biden and Trump is a horror. We deserve access to real political choice. Hopefully we can build a reality that will allow that. 20,000 people sending a subscription journalist 50 bucks each will help get the news out but 50,000,000 people sending 50 bucks each to a viable candidate might change the political landscape altogether.
The DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos juggernaut is a would be fearsome repeat of the 20th Century totalitarianism that almost burned the world to the ground. We are in a brand new age. A new consciousness is emerging and the only legitimate engine of survival is the American Republic, the Constitution and the free citizen. Everything else is pathology. As I've said elsewhere: We're about to find out how powerful the truth actually is.
Disagree. She was a strong ambassador who wasn’t a pushover. But to me the real issue is that the UN is nothing but a corrupt pot of gold for the greedy and a waste of money. It allows dictators and some of the world’s most evil leaders to pass public judgment on our country and supports crap like the WHO, which is nothing but an arm of the Chinese government. Trump was right to stop supporting WHO. I wish we’d dump the entire UN.
You’re entitled to that opinion. I find her understanding of world affairs and recent history to be shallow and dogmatic. As to the UN, like all huge bureaucracies it’s inevitable corruption was guaranteed. Besides your opinion of Mrs. Halley I generally agree with your sentiments.
Her job was a United States representative, which means she represents United States policy, not her own policy and means she has indeed much "foreign policy" experience and "expertise." This country has devolved into a place I don't recognize and Haley, I believe, is someone who could pull off getting the ginormous maintenance job of putting the country back into focus.
And guess who was originally defined a Palestinian refugee?
“The UNRWA defines a Palestinian refugee as “persons 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 War.“
This is a 2 year period!! I remember reading about this at one point but can’t remember how and who defined this. It’s especially striking seeing how Europe was awash with refugees and DP camps into the 50s.
Of course now the definition includes any descendants - even if they have been granted citizenship elsewhere. The number of Palestinian “refugees” keeps growing but apparently Israel is committing genocide.
President Carter sent a special investigator (name escapes me) to determine exactly how many Palestinians there were in Gaza, WB, Lebanon, Jordan, and the number she came up with was far lower than what unwra said. There was a lot of criticism with her methods. I don’t think anyone knows how many actual Palestinians there are - numbers are inflated and some values also add in Israel Arabs.
I have missed your commentary. Palestinians are a made up designation. After the second (I think) Jewish revolt against Rome, the Romans renamed the area Palestine as an insult to the Israelites. I think it comes from Phillistine. And the Phillistines migrated to the area too.
Hi Lynne. Yes, the word Phillistines comes from the Hebrew word with a root of “po-lesh” which means invader (they are considered Greek in origin). As of 1948 the designation Palestinian Arab was not a distinct ethnicity or culture. Today I must say that is no longer the case.
Oh no Remesh, I disagree. They are Arabs we now refer to as Palestinians (AWNRTAP). Accuracy matters. Palestine is at best a geographic designation. The AWNRTAP refused creation of a Palestinian state in 1948 and continue to do so to this day. As such there is no Palestinian state. Also Lebanon and Jordan were created by the same decisions that Israel relied on in establishing statehood.
Top 10 Unrwa donor countries in 2022 ( source WSJ 1/29/2024) in descending order: USA, Germany, EU, Sweden, Norway, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey…….question where are oil rich countries in the region?? Where is South Africa? - who sides with the Palestinians and tried to get Israel prosecuted for genocide at world court. How much money is S. Africa sending to this esteemed UN Palestinian relief agency, the “Urwa”?
People turning a blind eye and not wanting to upset the so-called apple cart, as well as millions being funneled into these projects that would be lost if they called it out, can be one hell of a deterrent. To make institutional change as it's called, required a lot of attention and outrage like is being focused on UNRWA currently; people are happy to let things keep going, as long as it doesn't upset "their" work. Happens on the smaller scale all the time.
The League of Nations, UN's precursor, has been corrupt from the start. They agreed to create a Jewish homeland in the first place because they didn't expect it to survive. They knew that the Arabs (they weren't called Palestinians back then) would never accept the creation of a Jewish state, and the reason why the vote was unanimous in 1947 is because the Arab countries expected to win it back quickly.
UNRWA (and most of the UN) operates by corruption, self-delusion, and stupidity of the West.
Many examples. The UN sent blue helmet troops to Sierra Leone. When did that happen? Who did they protect?
UN protected Foday Sankoh. He invented the tactic (in modern times) of cutting off hands and feet you saw in the movie, "Blood Diamonds".
And, Foday was, you guessed it, Muslim. It preserved a source of income for Muslim terrorists.
Foday was losing and about to be killed, his army of children slaughtered as they deserved. That's when the UN stepped in.
The Ivy Leaguers who populate most administrations do not (cannot) take islamists seriously. That is why Jimmy Carter used them against Russia, Bill Clinton came in on Al Qaeda's side in Kosovo, Hillary Clinton allied with Al Qaeda and ISIS against Syria, and Biden is doing it now against China.
I have an article with scholarship (FOIA, interviews, news articles) proving this. FP should run it, but won't. Why? FP is virtually all Ivy League elite liberal arts majors too.
The Ivy League elite think it's always about the money and only the money. So regime change should fix the world, and alliance with the nutcases who will fight and die fanatically? Well! That's just good business!
your last sentence is key - it is and always has been designed to perpetuate the fiction of the "palestinian refugee," who can only be made whole by a right to return, which can only happen when Israel is destroyed.
Thank you, Free Press, for giving the courageous Hillel Neuer of UN Watch a platform to expose the utter rot and corruption of UNRWA. On January 4th I listened to this podcast from The Daily Objective: (https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-daily-objective/id1518860114?i=1000640570979) "What UNRWA Teachers Say When You're Not Listening" which chronicled the shocking, vile, antisemitic and celebratory Jew-hatred messages in the UNRWA teachers' Telegram group. As someone who has followed and supported Mr. Neuer for years, these revelations did not surprise me, but I had no idea how this message would reach a wider audience. And as happy as I am to see major funders currently withdrawing their support, I also heard a soundbite from UN Chief Antonio Gutteres today that a major humanitarian disaster would unfold if the global community did not reinstate its funding. I hope our leaders can resist the temptation to throw money at this problem until a full investigation is complete and people are held to account. It's also time to change the narrative. Generations of Palestinians should no longer be considered refugees. (They are the only displaced peoples to retain this special status. Thank goodness Holocaust survivors moved on with their lives and chose to chart new paths and become contributing citizens to the many countries they built new lives in--as has been the case with Armenian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Tibetan, Somali, Ethiopian and so many other refugees.) UNRWA, the UN and the Arab world has enslaved the Palestinian people for at least three generations. It's time to break the shackles and transform Gaza into the Mediterranean jewel it was destined to be! There can be another way...
This sounds like a bigger problem than UNRWA. The UN is now implicated in breeding antisemitism and terror against a member state. It shows a systematic failure that goes beyond just one leader or one organization.
Western countries should reconsider the entire premise of the UN.
The ongoing travesty at the ICJ reveals the full extent of global anti-semitism. Where are the genocide cases against Syria, Russia, Sudan and China? Why isn’t Egypt accused of genocide as well for refusing Gazans refuge in Egypt? Where are the global demands for Hamas to release all hostages immediately?
Well, that is an interesting quesiton. I have been amazed at how differently the decision has been reported. NPR and BBC presented the order as ordering Israel to comply with the Geneva Convention (implying that they were not doing so currently) and an affirmation of the claims of genocide. The WSJ presented it as a recognition that the claims of genocide remain unproven and the order is essentially meaningless since Israel is already subject to the Geneva Convention.
Fair point about the order including language calling on Hamas to release the hostages. However, my perception is that there is a lot more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire than on Hamas to release the hostages. The latter is an undeniable war crime and the release of the hostages should not be conditioned on anything.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply (if anyone is looking, the response of mine that Ham is addressing is below). I agree with you that broadly speaking the chant seems to be for a ceasefire with the hostages either being ignored or their release seemingly tacked on almost as an "oh right, that too" afterthought. While I read the ICJ ruling as relatively fair (no ceasefire, hostages released unconditionally, greater care for civilians in Gaza), I'm not surprised various interests are making whatever hay they want to out of it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the recent ICJ ruling explicitly did call for Hamas to release all hostages immediately. While I dislike South Africa preening about how righteous they are by bringing this case - which as you note, is somehow only being brought against Israel - I felt like the actual ICJ did ok here.
Not saying the blatant hypocrisy of Israel being singled out isn't enough to get mad about, but curious if the ruling itself angered you too.
It is long past the time to demand Guterres's resignation. The UN is no longer an organization committed to peace or to human rights. Only bureaucracy and hate.
The US is the largest financial supporter of the UN, providing just under 20% of its operating funds with U.S. taxpayer dollars. At some point, there needs to be a serious discussion about what exactly all of us are getting for these taxpayer dollars. The heroic work of Hillel and the folks at UN Watch is a perfect example of what our tax dollars are enabling. There are many others. The International Court of (so-called) Justice recently met to accuse Israel of “genocide” for defending itself against the attack of October 7th. Iran was recently appointed to chair a forum on the UN Human Rights Council, which routinely identifies Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as the leading violator of “human rights.” I could go on but it becomes nauseating. Unless and until we stop funding these activities, we are complicit in these activities. Withdrawing funds from UNWRA is a good first step. What’s next is the question.
We should simply leave the UN. We could create a new organization with civilized countries if we felt we need this. I personally think organizations like this degenerate into mechanisms to drain resources from and punish the US. We really don’t need that.
Ideally, the Congress should hold a hearing to review our participation in the UN, and ask some hard questions about the extent our funding (particularly in relation to other countries), how effective the UN and its various agencies like UNRWA have been in their declared missions, the extent to which our participation has helped advance our interests and the interest of our allies (Israel most importantly), and what changes need to be made to justify our continued financial support. A naive expectation, perhaps . . . .
You could argue that in the face of growing global conflicts the UN is needed more than ever. But you could also argue that the UN is so corrupt, bloated and incapable of self-reform that it is no longer able to help maintain world peace and order.
We always hope that forming a group will help elevate the lowest members, but what invariably happens is the group is dragged down to the level of the lower members. The UN is no different.
The people who control, create or pipeline American tax treasure knowingly into organizations that allow it to be used as largesse for either the attempted control of mal political hustlers or willing support for their violence should be publicly prosecuted.
Yes, however, Congressional hearings rarely consist of both parties seeking truth. Watch YouTube coverage of recent hearings. The Dems are always acting as a block against the interests of objectivity and truth-telling.
"[…] UNRWA officials that the agency operates “on the principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity.” So wrote Elizabeth Campbell in The New York Times, in April 2019 […]"
It is a good thing the legacy media gets to define what the facts are so none of us ever get misinformed with disinformation. Knowing that media like the NYT, WaPo and others so carefully validate what they print with a critical mind toward the truth gives me reassurance.
Thank you Un Watch for your diligent efforts in exposing the treacherous behaviours of UNRWA; it is beyond outrageous that western monies have continued to subsidize this cadre of hateful terrorists. I hope your presentation of facts will result in the elimination of UNRWA and perhaps, lead to an investigation of why our money has been misspent so egregiously.
This is a textbook example of regulatory capture, with the regulated party (Hamas) controlling the regulator (UNRWA). The good news for all those fired UNRWA employees is that full professorships await them at Harvard if they are willing to move to Boston. They would instantly go from zeroes to heroes on that illustrious campus.
Wow. I just listened to a report about this on NPR's Morning Edition. They emphasized the point that it was "only" 12 employees, and stated that it "was likely" that the US would bow to pressure and resume funding to the UNRWA shortly.
Defund the UN and NPR. Use the money saved to pay down our $34 trillion debt. And have the government quit spending money on crap using the taxpayer credit card.
12 documented UNRWA Oct 7 perpetrators (and counting) + 3k UNRWA telegram members cheering them on + 150 examples of antisemitic/ pro-terror teachers + many UNRWA sites used by Hamas
vs.
0 UNRWA “humanitarian” personnel warning Israeli civilians or aiding hostages
UPDATE: WSJ reports that "around 1,200 of UNRWA’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives" who belong to the terror groups
I heard the same thing, but I wasn’t remotely surprised - that’s NPR! They also right away pushed the "have to resume funding right away to help the poor Palestinians" line.
Oh for sure that's part of the masochistic fun - the whiny female "fingernails on chalkboard" voices of the "radio personalities". Never fails to amaze me.
I shared Ms. Weiss' video on "Feminist Silence on Rape" to my Facebook page, with my own comment about how someone could verbally attack the friends and relatives of the captives of Hamas as if there is any possible humane explanation for such attacks. A guy I worked with for 20 years messaged me almost immediately cursing me to get my facts straight before posting anything. He then asserted that Israel has been raping Palestinian women for decades. I responded by saying that even if what he stated is true, that two wrongs don't make a right and that Hamas' actions were crimes against humanity. His response was: "You and your western media are the problem where is the proof your fucking president lie about it"
My point is that if an educated professional from the middle east, who has now lived in the US for many decades, who has a good life with a beautiful family and a nice home in an upscale suburb displays such a lack of compassion and reason after all of this time, then there should be no surprise in the magnitude of the support for Hamas no matter what Hamas does, and no matter where the supporter lives or works. But what is even more concerning is that the supporter's children are likewise infected with this intolerance as evidenced by the student groups attacking Jews at major universities.
I now suspect that are few tolerant people on either side. Palestinians think that Israeli's are animals and deserve whatever evil Hamas concocts as just payback.
Yes and to have true peace we have to destroy the people who support the lies. No one is even willing to consider the consequences of such an action. But the other side is willing to consider such an action and their actions indicate that if they had the means to carry it out that they would. The Democrats continue to give money to such people and countries.
We all chuckle a bit at the Hatfields and McCoys. But we're willing to throw our borders open to peoples who were indoctrinated and conditioned into the mindset of the feud. A major manufactured weapon preventing the future Americans deserve is exploitation of unreflective upon hatred and polarization. We need a unifying third. And we have it. It's called the American Constitution. Things aren't the way they are by accident. I probably share this JFK observation too much. Told by a reporter that "..where there's smoke there's fire.." Kennedy replied that perhaps "..someone has a smoke making machine..".
What they do, among other things, is perpetuate the vacuum of economic opportunity. And as we all know, areas that lack economic opportunity are feeding grounds for gangs and organized crime - which is essentially what this is - to recruit, promising riches of one sort or another. In this case the rewards are plentiful: having a gun, wielding power through that and by being a part of the gang, having your way with a woman, killing Jews of course, and if killed, ascending to heaven and to the 72 virgins that await. Someone here used the word “perverse” and that’s a good descriptor. Meanwhile, in the context of world without UNRWA, the wood to chop ahead is daunting: de-sensitizing, reverse brainwashing and instilling appropriate curriculum for each age group of children, teens and young adults. Who takes this on? What political process and funding is needed for THAT? Yikes...
CAIR along with Qatar are providing materials and partnering with US schools (not only universities but k-12). This may not be the dragon that UNRWA is, but the materials are lizards that can grow into dragons.
Strongly agree. Biden’s White House teaming up with CAIR for help with anti-Semitism (along with the thrown in there for image not factual rise in anti-Muslim activities) is like inviting a committee of wolves to guard the hen house.
Nice piece. It’s important to make clear that 12 UNRWA employees were CAUGHT participating in a massacre. Assuming there is only positive video identification of a subset of the assailants caught in the act (say 10% for arguments sake) we can safely assume there are many more who participated but weren’t caught.
Similarly if there are 150 posts on Telegram of people stupid enough to put their livelihood at risk by cheering for murder and rape then we have to assume there are 1000x more who concurred but didn’t post (just like everywhere else on social media). If 10% of employees are known Hamas operatives but the allegiances of the other 90% is unknown then we can reasonably extrapolate to a much higher level.
Point is, it won’t due to fire those who are caught murdering, raping or inciting children to hate and go on with business as usual. These aren’t aberrations, they are the norm.
While defunding UNRWA won’t change the way these people educate in the short term, UNRWA salaries are an important source of $ for Hamas. It allows them to divert other funds to the construction of tunnels and terror infrastructure instead of investing in education.
Any reform efforts need to include accountability for the people in charge. If any publicly funded US institution had this many employees engaging in this level of depravity there would be hell to pay for its leaders. The fact that UN and UNRWA leaders are brazenly asking for their benefactors to keep funding them in light of these allegations shows how little concern they have for their own positions and legal culpability in all this.
There is some contention going on right now among journalists around the demand for the full release of the Hamas videos of the massacre. They're say that like the manipulated J/6 footage it should all be available for inspection. I'm mentioning this because the possibility of greater "transparency" concerning the forces hampering our political/social/financial lives seems to be the firstborn of subscription journalism.
On today's issue, and the Taibbi reports last week, self-interested avarice shielding itself behind an acronym while diverting national treasure for its own profit and political gain has to stop. We can at least make sure they do it on their own dime.
Anyone who has ever looked below the sanitized surface presented by legacy media has been aware for years that UNRWA is Hamas' quartermaster in Gaza. It beggars belief that State Department and anti-terrorist agencies, not to mention their Western counterparts, were ignorant of that. What goes on in these people's minds?
Why not include a bigger truth in this article? Trump rescinded money to these thugs and Joey immediately reversed that. Trump knew. Trump was prescient.
Just another brick in the wall of radical leftist hate against sanity like allowing an open border
When Trump gets in again, I hope he goes all the way and completely defunds the UN. They can move it to Mogadishu
Did anyone else notice the clever little bit of misinformation in the article? Let's look again:
"...for too long, the UN and the U.S. government have turned a blind eye to the rot inside the agency"
How about we amend that statement to acknowledge that Republicans have both talked about this and acted on it for many years, while Democrats denounce and undo those efforts.
Yeah. That is correct. HILLEL.
Correct your article to say, "...for too long Democrats have turned a blind eye and painted Republicans as evil for criticism..."
So what you are saying is that. Biden resumed funding UNRWA after Trump had stopped funding? And Trump had stopped the funding after Obama had funded it? And Obama had funded it after Bush II had stopped the funding? And Bush II had stopped the funding after Clinton had been funding it? And Clinton had restarted the funding after Bush I had ended it? And, you get the point. So what you are saying is that for decades GOP administrations had withheld funding from these clowns with flamethrowers, while the Dems continued or restarted the funding? If this is actually the case, then that is a huge problem. It sure looks like these folks were "hiding" in plain sight - which is to say, not hiding at all. Kinda makes ya wonder what other bat-shit crazy, evil stuff is being funded by us elsewhere, right now and over the years.
On an only slightly tangential subject: the Iran sponsored mayhem going on in the middle east right now, is exactly why we have carrier strike groups, and F-22s. But the ability to project power is only useful if we have the will to use it. So far not so much, we seem content to let the spec op guys risk their lives in "small" proportional action. (We've stopped making F-22s. I guess some folks think that it's better to wait until we have to shoot people from our porches than deal with them when they are still an ocean away.)
When you start your comment with the line, "So what you are saying is," and then insert your own rhetoric, I stop reading. Why are you telling someone who wrote something what YOU think they said? Why not just reread what they said instead of telling them what you thought they meant?
Great points!
If HAMAS could build tens of thousands rockets and hundreds of miles of tunnels, then clearly they are getting too much aid.
Ah, but, we can only shoot from our porches if the idiots don't take our guns away.
I live in Vermont which has a reputation for being very far along on the "progressive" spectrum. And that's probably true in Burlington, although the consequences of unfettered progressivism are universally disliked there now, so we'll see. Anyways, no one is coming for anyone's guns even in this seemingly very "progressive" state. And if they did, good luck.
I know we all love Biden bashing here, and Dems are so evil but according to the following link, eight years of the Bush administration from 2000 through 2008 yielded the UNRWA close to $1.1 billion dollars..
Have we as a country given too much to an agency not sufficiently vetted? Absolutely. But both parties are to blame.
thejerusalemfund.org/2022/12/foreign-financial-dependence-the-case-of-palestine-and-unrwa/
Bush is Bidenistic. This is something everyone should know.
Gee, I thought everybody here assumed Biden was Obama Lite - same people in the Administration, same Lefties..
Now you're saying Bush and Biden are connected too? Who knew?..
Dear Lee, don't play coy with me.
Being coy is my defence mechanism..
:)
Unbelievable. I didn't know this so I looked it up and read multiple articles condemning Trump for doing this in 2018. It makes me sick.
I just had a friend from California visit me in North Carolina last week (very intelligent and the mother of two of the brightest students I ever taught). She is so disturbed about what she sees happening around her. She can’t understand what has happened to her city and state. But when we tried to explain, she repeated (again and again and again) “I never heard anything about that!” Seems she got tired of hearing all the political stuff years ago and only listens to PBS now. My husband spent the whole week digging through the internet to prove to her what she’d missed.
In the end, she said, “Now, I don’t know where to turn. I won’t vote for Biden, but I still CAN’T vote for Trump. Everybody says he’s awful.”
PBS = everybody.
Sigh.
She can’t vote for Trump because everyone says he’s awful.
This is the problem with so many voters. Can’t vote for the logical candidate because….feelings.
Btw, your equation is wrong:
PBS = stupid people
Exactly. No independent thought whatsoever.
PBS=please be stupid
PBS & NPR are both funded via CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Both of these entities quit using X/Twitter in Apr ‘23 after NPR was labeled 'state-affiliated media’ and PBS as ‘government funded media’ by that platform. Initially CEO’s of NPR/PBS said “it must be some kind of mistake”. But Musk said there wasn't a mistake and these entities quit the site.
😮 wow! Would you rather get your info from Murdoch funded media? Or Bezos funded media? Or Alex Jones funded media? PBS and NPR or funded by people like me, who think about things instead of just calling names, like scared bullies. My news sources are funded by contributions from average citizens like myself. We don’t have to worry about a CEO’s ideals being filtered into our feeds. The bit of public funding they get, would never be enough to gather the NEWS from around the world to share with us. Best of all, they don’t spend all day night trying to scare the shit out of us!
PBS and NPR are funded by taxpayers and donors, but they are in no way politically neutral (i.e., they are left-leaning). I regard myself as fairly centrist, but I gave up on NPR years ago after having been a dedicated listener for more than a decade -- the blatant left bias was so maddening that I felt it was pushing me right out of sheer irritation. (Fox News has the same effect on me in the other direction.)
I no longer require neutrality from media sources -- mostly because I know I can't get it; no organization even tries anymore. I now assume that any source that feels "neutral" to me is actually just one that is in line with my own biases (i.e., if you don't hear another person's accent, it is often because you have the same one).
The best any of us can do is to deliberately consume news and commentary from both sides of the spectrum, try to keep ourselves civil in debate with those with whom we disagree, and honestly consider ideas that may seem, at least initially, contrary to our own.
I like this one that we're commenting on and I also like Unherd coming to us from the UK. Neutral, thoughtful and intelligent.
Perfectly expressed. Thank you!
Give News Nation a shot. They try to stick to facts, introduce multiple viewpoints and keep editorial bias out of their reporting. I find the afternoon drive shows are pretty fair overall and I like their opinion show The Hill at 6 pm and Leland Vittard at 7. After that it’s lefty-leaning opinion, but it’s pretty good stuff until then.
If you do not think NPR and PBS are compromised you are kidding yourself. I think the only solution is diverse sources and doing your own research.
yes! which is why they worked so hard to silence "misinformation" on Twitter, facebook, youtube, etc. - too many people doing their own research there
I turn on NPR in the car from time to time, but only to get a sense of the BS they are peddling to other suburbanites, some of whom are my friends and neighbors. I long ago left MSM for alternative news sources, and NPR and PBS are firmly, MSM. The news on that site is especially sinister in that in comes at you with a librarian-like voice, but it's too often over the top, race-baiting and I think poisoning to a critical thinking mind. Boy, have they gone to bat for Palestinians as of late. I will say, I do like NPR's 'Radio Lab' show which airs on Saturday afternoons, but this is because its actual investigative journalism of curiosities and generally not politics or ideology. Before that, I was a fan of NPR's Garison Keillor's 'Prairie Home'. NPR has been a Jekyll & Hyde sort of programming for at least the last 20 years, but particularly since 2016, way (way) more Hyde pumping into the FM airways.
Sorry but NPR is often full of shit. Like everything else. No better.
No you allot your time telling many of us we are racist, xenophobic , homophobic, transphobic, sexist irredeemable deplorables
I used to support NPR and PBS because I thought that public supported media would be the most honest. It's not! Both of these entities cater specifically to who they believe their supporters to be - progressives - and today's progressivism has devolved into an illiberal Jew hating victim worshiping fact ignoring deranged hate cult. About 14 years ago I started to realize with the Gaza flotilla incident how slanted, unfair, disrespectful and hateful NPR reporting was towards Israel and that ended my history of donations. Little by little I stopped listening to them altogether. I also stopped donating to PBS, though I do still selectively view a program here and there. I thank G-d everyday for a new culture of news sourcing. Though I follow many different independent writers my absolute favorite source of everything is Bari Weiss' Free Press and her podcasts, Honestly by Bari Weiss. BRILLIANT and, well, honest. LOVE. I trust her and the folks she publishes even though I don't always agree with everything, maybe that is in part why I trust her. And I24 and JBS. And publications like Tablet. No more regular MSM for me.They are all corrupt and partisan narrative driven.
Taxpayers pick up whatever budget percentage of PBS/NPR, I don't want to pay for the entertainment they yield. If you like PBS/NPR, you pay for it. Now we are being forced to pay.
I listened to NPR for years. I knew it was always fell far left of center and took that into account. I stopped listening to NPR and PBS in 2020 when they would not allow any dissenting voices on Covid. Many of those voices have been vindicated. Not trying to scare the "shit out of us" that is all they did from 2020 to 2022 and continue now with "our Democracy" bs . These are in no way neutral voices.
You are aware that Bezos owns the far-left Washington Post, right?
Nice try.
I haven't watched PBS or listen to NPR in years - but I'll say it - Trump is awful.
Let's rewatch him making fun of handicap folks, or disrespecting the parents of soldiers who gave their lives protecting us, or mocking aviators who acted bravely and honorably as POWs even under torture. Americans would find that awful. And nothing Biden did or didn't do would make Trump less awful.
Just because his administration had some good ideas, doesn't make him any less awful.
There are a bunch of Republicans who are definitely not awful and have more good ideas. I think the same things about the Democrats. The choice of Biden or Trump is just - unfortunate and depressing.
And it could be argued that this dividing everybody up in one of two sides and demonizing the other side is largely responsible for giving us this crappy choice.
We are all Americans, with much more in common than what divides us, and our children will all share the same country we leave it - so why not work together to leave it even better than we found it?
We liberals don't care much for Trump's personality, but when we take emotion out of the equation and look at his policies, we can remember that he was a Democrat his entire life until he ran for president.
Trump is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, accepting of trans people, charitable (donating his annual presidential salary of $400,000 every year), not racist, not a war-monger...
- Unlike every other recent president in American history, Trump did not get us into any new wars.
- In fact, we had historic peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords.
- He reduced illegal immigration with his Remain in Mexico Policy for asylum seekers (who passed through other countries they could have requested asylum from).
- Americans experienced economic prosperity, including record low unemployment for Black citizens (which is the real reason most people seek “asylum” in our country).
- He signed eight bills expressly targeting human trafficking.
- He commuted the excessively long prison sentences of nonviolent drug offenders (who were primarily Black).
- He is one of the few politicians who came out of their office with a lower net worth than when he came in (Nancy Pelosi inspired an app so you can copy her stock trades because, with an average return of 65%, she’s better at trading than Warren Buffet.)
- What made me finally not care that he’s a bloviating narcissist was when he banned CRT from the federal government before the 2020 election. He has been against this neo-racist, anti-American, DEI movement from the start.
(cont)
- Americans experienced economic prosperity, including record low unemployment for Black citizens (which is the real reason most people seek “asylum” in our country).
Based on practically no policy or dint of Trump being in Office. He walked into an economy on its 8th year of recovery and expansion, where unemployment was already at 4% and falling, GDP growth steady (and higher on average under both Obama and Biden terms), and also inherited the post-2008 crash Fed interest rates that were still at almost 0% rates to stimulate growth. That is a "feeling" based on the inaccurate blame/credit American voters give Presidents over economic conditions that are external to most Presidential policies and actions in the near term of their actual terms, let alone the partisan split over how people view the economy based on whether “their team” is in charge - make no mistake if this was Trump’s second term and we had the same economy this would be another “Trumpian Miracle” replete with wine from water and fishes from loaves that he shephered us from post-COVID, versus the “disaster and ruin” under Biden.
- He signed eight bills expressly targeting human trafficking.
OK, passed by Congress I presume. Pretty low bar, and not one that would be unique to Trump. What President wouldn't have signed onto that kind of legislation? Thank Congress :)
- He commuted the excessively long prison sentences of nonviolent drug offenders (who were primarily Black).
OK, I'll give you some of that, mostly on the requests of others that came to him and the persuasion of Jared Kushner for Trump to take on First Step (which was mostly done out of pure self interest on Kushner’s behalf because the primary beneficiary was Kushner’s pops). Trump has made statements since regretting that support and passage because he thinks it made him look “weak on crime”, so there you go. Hard to give him credit for something he doesn’t seem to want credit for, and would assuredly not pursue further in a second term.
BTW - Biden is promising to pardon all federal low level marijuana sentences as well. Criminal justice reform is hardly a unique to Trump affair, and one must also consider the other pardons he gave (Stone, Bannon, etc) - and how he blatantly set up a pardon for pay and patronage scheme through Giuliani and others.
- He is one of the few politicians who came out of their office with a lower net worth than when he came in (Nancy Pelosi inspired an app so you can copy her stock trades because, with an average return of 65%, she’s better at trading than Warren Buffet.)
LOL. No one knows what Trump's actual net worth is (at least until the current NY civil fraud case!), and this is largely his own claims and “accounting” to make it sound like he didn't profit from Office. We know that besides his Presidential travel scamming, Trump DC Hotel was a massive Emoluments violation where his companies took in massive amounts from foreign and domestic lobbyist types of traffic (and where stays and traffic at dropped off the cliff the instant Trump lost the election which resulted in them fire selling the property), among other business to Trump branded properties that spiked during his Presidency. I doubt this "valuation" accounted for that. We do know though that outside of the political and foreign favor traffic to his properties, he did lose value and traffic to other properties that were less central to his Presidency (like Doral, which he tried to beef up with a ham fisted attempt to host the next G7 conference at) and that's his own damn fault for engaging in partisan politics while running a personal name branded brand that would become associated with his politics for good or bad (and maybe, ya know, he should have divested himself from his brand like all other Presidents have done with their businesses and investments while in Office).
He's also made a stink load from his PAC's, essentially tax free and no strings attached GoFund Me vehicles. He's taken in over half a billion by many estimates so far through these and we have all the reason to believe he's using the money for personal and legal expenditures - certainly not on "fighting election fraud" because there's about 0 record of his PAC money funding any such operations.
There’s also the money he and his SIL have made from Saudi sources, during and post-Presidency. Kushner walked away with over $1B in “investments” to his newly formed private equity firms immediately after negotiating the Abraham Accords, as well as the Trump Administration’s running interference for MBS over the Kashoggi murder (again with Trump DC, the Saudi government had rented entire floors of the hotel for months on end that no one actually occupied). Trump has since made lucrative income from hosting the Saudi based LIV golf tournaments at his resorts, and has several open deals going on in Qatar, Dubai and elsewhere with the “Accord” signees for Trump properties. But this is apparently above reproach for a potential incoming POTUS in a way that that Hunter Biden’s punter money from Burisma and Ukraine are the “worst corruption ever” ;P
I will agree that there should be some reforms/restrictions on government and political officials and stock trading. Beyond that, if we apply Trumpian ethics to this, Nancy is "smart" from benefiting from the rules that allow her to do so. And this is not a partisan phenomenon either, plenty of Republicans are working from the same system and profiting from it, just appears Nancy is better at it to have inspired an app!
- What made me finally not care that he’s a bloviating narcissist was when he banned CRT from the federal government before the 2020 election. He has been against this neo-racist, anti-American, DEI movement from the start.
You do have a point there, but you could likely get an anti-DEI administration through any generic Republican - including DeSanctimonius, as your boi likes to say, ; P Or no, sorry, that's too many syllables for The Stable Genius Who Aced The Pre-Dementia Cognitive Screen (while admitting some questions were really hard (none should have been "hard" if you don't have early dementia lol!) and has shortened to a much less punch and essentially meaningless "DeSanctus" (hint: the joke is that DeSantis is sanctimonious, what the hell is "Sanctus" other than Trump not really "getting" it?)
So basically - you provided about zero reasons for anyone to come over to Trump, at least from the perspective of those who do not support him and view pretty much each and every one of those planks with contrasting views on the topic.
Thank you for this informed and detailed reminder. People have such short term memory if not blind spots.
And here is how a non-Trump supporter/Democratic voter would respond to these points:
1. Trump is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, accepting of trans people, charitable (donating his annual presidential salary of $400,000 every year), not racist, not a war-monger...
Trump's personal views are entirely besides the point, and practically unknowable as to what are genuine and what are based on whatever audience he's in front of at the time. We do know that he adopted an anti-abortion stance to win the Evangelical Right support, and that he followed through on this stance through his Supreme Court appointments, all guaranteed Roe repeal votes and selected for that reason, and that he bragged about "his judges" being the vehicle to Roe repeal explicitly, and bragged about the result until he realized it became a political liability for Republicans in the aftermath of repeal. Nevertheless, we shouldn't listen to what he says about this in the election but his track record - which has been all about promoting anti-abortion views and policies, and he would be immune from public opinion in a second term and much more likely to indulge his base for his post-Presidency financial support than he would be inclined to steer away from.
Trans/LGBTQ support: Trump attempted a trans service ban in the military (and enacted it?). And whatever nominal LGBTQ support he might portray, I think this is a lot like abortion - he will sell out the LGBTQ community in a split second to shore up his strong right wing Evangelical regularly donating base - and why not if he believes the majority of LGBTQ are Democratic voters? Again, I don't think it's about where he has nominally been in his past public statements regarding these issues, it's that he really doesn't give a shit about these issues, beyond the transactional nature of them in that he knows his bread is buttered by the Right and he will make the Right happy where he can regarding, if there's any hint that he doesn't need the support from the Right, he'll sell out the Right in that same instant. Trump fans consistently make the error of believing that Trump has foundational beliefs and "principles" - he doesn't, beyond the belief and principle of doing what is most immediately beneficial for Donald Trump, and right now that is in base service.
Charitable? LOL. We have only one such donation of his salary on record, based on his tax returns and receipts, and that was from the first year - and there's some ambiguity around that as well, as apparently there's some rules about federal agencies (he donated to the BLM I believe?) about not accepting outside donations so one wonders if his "donation" was actually returned to him quietly. And for that donation, he soaked the taxpayers for over $100M over his term in the revenue he was taking in from over-charging Secret Service for protecting him at his own resorts as if they were paying guests, let alone the abusing of his travel allowance of using Air Force 1 the 747 to practically go down the block and back, and to golf exclusively at his own resorts every single weekend (he exceeded Obama's golfing record for 8 years in his 4 years and refused to use the already secured and nearby Andrews Air Force Base golf course that Obama used that would have been much less costly to Secret Service and the taxpayers to provide, let alone the costs he billed the government for renovations at his preferred properties that he stayed at for "security" and other upgrades like a helipad at Mar a Lago and Bedminster, stuff that will certainly benefit his commercial/private business at these resorts), and also stayed for extended periods during the winter and summer at his own resorts while again merrily billing the government for the required stay of his security and retinue the entire duration of his stays and what are essentially his homes.]
We also know that the Trump Charitable Foundation was forcibly shut down by court order after it was proven that it was just basically a tax shelter for Trump's personal spending and actually scammed donations to real charities (the howler about this charity using funds to purchase an awful portrait of Trump that he hung in his own property), such as a children's cancer fund that never received a dime of promised donations. There's also the incident during his 2016 campaign where he made a big show of not participating in the second Fox News debate over his spat with Megyn Kelly from the first one, and held a rally instead and promised donations made there would go towards a veterans fund. SHOCKER! no check was ever written to a veterans fund until a journalist followed up months later and Trump was shamed out of political necessity into cutting the check. There's many, many other anecdotes and evidence that "charity" for Trump was mostly about getting himself into charity dinners and events and not really giving anything after it was said and done.
- Unlike every other recent president in American history, Trump did not get us into any new wars.
- In fact, we had historic peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords.
Mostly by virtue of him being a 1 termer and the luck of timing. There's good reason to believe that his shredding of the Iran Nuclear Deal created a direct line to October 7 and Iran's role in it, by re-isolating Iran and ramping up the sanctions to where Iran retaliated in this fashion. The Abraham Accords made "peace" with the only nations in the ME that Israel was not in active hostilities with (and again isolating Iran and the Palestinian Authority in the process), and where the hell are they now for Israel in the aftermath of Oct 7. He abandoned Syrian and Iraq military bases, and the Kurds to Turkey, Syria and Russia. He essentially surrendered to the Taliban by negotiating the US withdrawal directly with and cutting out the Afghani government and our allies, setting the stage for the withdrawal Biden had to execute on and ensuring the collapse of the Afghani government ahead of the withdrawal, let alone having had withdrawn troops before he left office to where Biden only had about 1500 active duty troops to execute with. He repeatedly provoked Kim Jong Un recklessly on Twitter until the dictator figured out how easy it is to manipulate Trump through cheap and obvious fake flattery “the love letters” (JFC what a fucking idiot to have read those as genuine!), and then gave away US enforcement on NK's nuclear program on a pinky swear with his new bestie (of which they continued and expanded their program regardless). He gave all the signals to Putin that the US commitment to NATO and Ukrainian independence was weak. And yes, he might avoided the fighting in Ukraine because Trump had discussed his commitment to a US withdrawal from NATO in his second term (if he got one) and would have given Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter, so that's one way to keep the peace I suppose - see: Neville Chamberlain.
-He reduced illegal immigration with his Remain in Mexico Policy for asylum seekers (who passed through other countries they could have requested asylum from).
Actually, pre-COVID border crossings remained high and consistent with previous years, and captures and deportations are actually higher under Biden. Don't you remember the "caravans" that were reported on breathlessly by right wing media outlets for the first half of Trump's term? The last year, 2020, the borders between most Central American nations and the US were closed for COVID - not because of any policy of Trump’s. I will grant that Biden should invoke a "first border crossed" rule for asylum similar to “Remain in Mexico”- if asylum seekers pass through any candidate asylum nation on their path to the US, they have to claim asylum there and cannot get asylum in the US. That is the true test of political asylum, versus "economic asylum".
The current bi-partisan immigration/asylum reform bill appears to have many provisions for asylum restrictions and border security enhancements, but here’s “Mr Border Policy” ordering his captive party to not vote for it, because he prefers to keep the issue salient for his campaign and deny Biden a victory. Either immigration and the asylum migrants are a national emergency demanding immediate attention and should get the bill signed regardless of political benefit, or it’s not, in which case the fire and fury over it is a lot of politicking from Trump and the GOP. Which is it? You could argue of course that Biden and the Democrats were too late on this, but here’s the moment regardless. And now it’s Trump cockblocking.
(cont)
I hear you. When I (increasingly rarely) try to engage or debate with Democrat supporters, it's truly disturbing the things they don't know. They only know what the Democrat-bootlicking media wants them to know. And they're conditioned to be suspicious of any other source as "right-wing propaganda." And the party is only too happy to keep them in the dark.
I remember Trump doing that. My thought at the time was that everyone knows UNRWA is corrupt (so good), but the Palestinians do need to eat (so bad). Trump made no plans for the latter in rejecting the former. Is that better than enabling some corruption to alleviate poverty? Even just on a practical level - poverty is a powerful driver of extremism. But I think now the depth of UNRWA's corruption is clearer, and to the extent that it enabled 10/7, it's plainly heinous despite any good works it may also do.
Also, I imagine that everybody is not just PBS for your friend. It's probably most of her friends, family and local community (and maybe her personal sense of morality). Lots of people don't like Trump, and he makes it quite easy to do. If you have an argument for Trump, it's worth explaining it to your friend (ideally more kindly than most of the commenters here would) and genuinely listening to her concerns. There is often a huge divide between Trump supporters and non-Trump supporters that will not be easily bridged.
My husband and I have been independent since the middle of the Clinton administration. Before that, I was Democrat.
Neither of us would be a "Trump supporter" now, if we had a viable choice.
I did explain my reasons for supporting Trump: they are not based on hearsay or any MSM reporting. My friend did say she ONLY listens to NPR and PBS. I came from California, and understand why many with traditional viewpoints don't speak up. I'm certain she has had little chance to discuss openly very often.
The most amazing thing to us was that, after all our discussions, we were on the same page on virtually every issue, but that the social and media pressure in her life has been such that she cannot take that final step over the line.
Interesting - sounds like you had a good conversation. Thanks for sharing that view.
"poverty is a powerful driver of extremism" This is a myth. Ask yourself, what would it take for you to put a gun to someone's head? It's culture that makes one this extreme.
I don't think poverty is an excuse or a sole cause of extremism, and there are plenty of examples of well-off terrorists and impoverished kind souls to point to. But there's little doubt in my mind that feeling like you have nothing to lose would motivate someone to consider extreme acts. Pair that with a culture that rewards certain extreme acts and it's an even more explosive combination.
I do not forgive Hamas, which is evil, from building a culture of hate. But these things work together. That's one reason why Hamas doesn't just preach hate, they intentionally keep Gazans poor and desperate. Then they tell them dignity awaits in heaven and martyrdom payments await in life for their family - as long as they die for whatever cause Hamas tells them to. It's evil. But I do think it would be less effective if more Gazans were less desperate.
Thanks for your voice
Roberta, it's simple; gift her a subscription to TFP.
It's tragic!! At least she's reached the point where she admits she won't vote for Biden! Most of my indoctrinated friends will go fill in the bubble for the bubble-brained Biden-- just because- "gotta vote blue!"
I think she remembers the four years Trump was President..
Nope. She actually even remembered a number of good things about his presidency. But she kept saying he was “so racist.” She couldn’t actually give one example to support her assertion, but she was quite sure this was true.
Her kids might be smart, but she sounds like an idiot.
No. That would be so convenient, just to write her off. She is extremely bright.
“I won’t vote for Biden, but I still CAN’T vote for Trump. Everybody says he’s awful.”
One just can’t make that stuff up, it’s crazy though
I have a new chant we can use:
From 1st avenue to the East River
Tear down the UN!
I couldn’t think of a good rhyme!
Heh Heh Ho Ho
UN has to Go.
(I know cringe🥴)
Heh Heh Ho Ho
TheUN Has Got To Go!
Much better😂😂😂
Good enough for me.
From 1st Avenue to the River East
Tear down the UN,
It's an evil beast
And terrorism's yeast!
I have to be honest, even Mogadishu doesn’t deserve to be punished like that.
Uh it’s a shithole exporting shitty people who turn where they go into shitholes.
Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis. I rest my case
I live in Ilhan Omar's Minneapolis district. In a recent talk, she claimed to be a representative of Muslims and didn't mention being an American. Those of us who see her as a threat to America and democracy (and not just Jews) are mobilizing to get her out.
She most definitely never assimilated. A great example of our failed immigration policy.
You go Irv I’m rooting for you!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇮🇱🇮🇱
I sure hope you succeed!
Rooting for your success from Arizona.
I would donate to that cause. Please post follow-ups
OMG ILHAN OMY, (forgot about her) you’re right, send the assholes there.
The capture--and looting--of tax dollars for nefarious purposes by poseur idealists has got to stop. Transparency and accountability on everything funded by government. Action!! As being illustrated by the research and reporting here. And, last weeks Taibbi report on the groups, organizations and individuals attempting to destroy and undermine the American Electoral College, and through legal warfare, our coming Presidential Election.
Marxist feminism built and installed the system we call the DEI by claiming virtuous indignation, distorting and preventing the legitimate conversation around the issue of women rights and creating hatred and division at every turn, while lining their pockets. Their job was /is to serve the political actors funding them, prevent solutions and healthy dialogue and keep the pipeline flowing. Form a committee, create a problem, scream bloody murder, threaten careers and demand a tax dollar payoff. They didn't give a f'k about women anymore than the UNRWA cares about Palestinians. It's a grift. That Hamas looted resources intended for poor Palestinians to build its organization is pretty much a given. --- By their works you shall know them. (Who said that?)
The current Israeli/Palestinian horror, the Biden/Ukraine grift (and war), the fascist DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos globalist NGO manipulation of populations and economies to destabilize and undermine the lives of free peoples, are all in part funded by looted tax dollars. Crocodile tear poseurs who cause harm with American tax dollars should be exposed, investigated, prosecuted and jailed.
Harm? "From the river to the sea" protestors who can't tell you the name of the river or the sea. A million dollar a year American classroom whose brain washed educators can't teach a child to read. DNC political appointees at a Congressional hearing who can barely keep the smirk off their nasty little faces. D.C. hog trough bureaucrats who straight faced LIE to Congressional committees. The capture, with the help of American tax dollars, of American universities by political grifters who receive a million bucks a year to undermine the moral principals of the culture and civilization they represent and selectively look the other way at calls for violence and harm.
Tired of being payed for a fool?
Preach, brother, preach.
Mike R.: Perhaps you meant "Tired of being played for a fool?" instead of "Tired of being payed for a fool?". The latter has a rather different connotation :).
I did mean played. But the slip is interesting isn't it.
I'm sure Sigmund Freud would be fascinated. Perhaps both "payed" and "played" are true. I think lots of people get paid to be fools.
Everyone knew. But the Obama/Biden Democrats seem to be entirely invested in this horrible organization such that they simply ignore the truth.
They agree with what's being done.
Yes. And if Trump weren't such an ass (that's being kind) and had more backbone, we wouldn't be dealing with Biden. Trump is disloyal to his staff, he turned on them, he was so wacky he couldn't keep a cabinet.
I understand his appeal. And his competitors are... gleah. But the man was an ass as president.
We should definitely cut off our noses to spite our face and keep us from those terrible mean tweets by voting democrat.
You betcha! Altho, I like to think of it as yanking our nose hairs to groom our nose.
For a truly spectacular booger display, a bush of nose hairs is necessary---or a nice nose ring.
Nose ring boogers are more attractive tho. Different strokes and all that.
get over your dislike / distaste of Trump. #45 may be an ass to some people in some ways, but he is not a DUMBASS like Obama and Biden are (insert Commie-la Harris as well).
Trump was way ahead of the curve on many things, yet gets no credit from the MSM press. Yes he may have lost some of his staff, but generally for the better (Nikki Haley quit, not Trumps issue). Heck, he even gets shit for keeping a few he should have punted on (Fauci , Birx, etc). I hope can find a way to reform the civil service regulations to get the dead wood out of the DC swamp.
take care, give #45 some real credit.
In the meantime ship them to Elko, Jackson, Boise, Tucson, Chattanooga, Tulsa, ...
He did turn on a fair number of the staff he hired. Hire'em, fire 'em. I don't care. But the career bureaucrats who were disloyal to a duly elected president are far more troubling to me. That is a Constitutional crisis of the greatest magnitude.
Brilliant idea, although I don’t believe they will last long in Mogadishu, the reason being there are no Jews and Israelis who live there so their cause wouldn’t gain much traction there.
Trump was prescient but ...mean tweets.
Trump rescinded money to the UN. I can’t believe you are suggesting that trump could read the tea leaves on this, he was clawing back money from every institution, that is his money grubbing style, never really thinking of the consequences later. I don’t think it was out of concern for terrorism happening. But any chance to toot the big fat Orange horn!!
I feel sad for you. Your unhinged hate is showing.
So when Joey gave them $1 billion more you think he thought of the consequences?
Trump cut off UNWRA because anyone with two synapses knew they were in cahoots with hamas.
But believe what you want. I’m sure you consider it your truth.
I thought you don’t name call?
How on earth has this separate agency, exclusively to promote NOT resettling Arab Palestinian refugees, been allowed to continue for 75 years? The fact that this agency was not long-ago folded into the overall agency for dealing with refugees suggests a very deep rot at the UN, and an intention on the part of too many UN member states to support the destruction of Israel.
Why? Because the world loves dead Jews. The converse is true. The world hates living, successful Jews. Israel has succeeded. Vast swaths of the 20+ Arab nations with hundreds of millions of people have failed to live up to providing an approximation of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ (to paraphrase our American success) that Israel has provided to her citizens, Jew and Arab, since 1948. It is easier to try and destroy Israel than to improve the lives of Arabs living outside of Israel. Europe is filled with refugees from these Arab lands. The last thing European nations and increasingly Canada want are riots from the restless population. Additionally, the ‘educated’ among the Western world has been poisoned by the ‘colonizer, powerless’ binary choice that doesn’t allow any critical thinking. Therefore they continue to fund the UNRWA. The UN is ‘Useless among Nations’. The US needs to wake up, or we too will be lost.
THE GRIFT IS IMPARTIAL. What it hates and fears is an educated intelligent successful citizen with agency, insight, and a living connection to a meaningful life, who is immersed in the history, culture and society that informs the fact of it. He can't be played for a fool and the fruits of his labor and treasure can't be looted. For success (as typified by all fascist totalitarian regimes (--DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos--) his connection to family and community must be severed, human moral reason subverted and any cohesive access to the transcendent spiritual mocked and distorted. Their capture of representative political organizations is imperative. Distortion of the national dialogue and the reduction of the press to the propagandist arm of dangerous bureaucratic surveillance state a first priority.
Any of this sound familiar?
“Useless among Nations”. Good one, I’m gonna use that
It is a UN affiliated agency, which buys it legitimacy. However, it is nothing more than an antisemitic grift staffed almost 100% by Palestinians. It has allowed the Jew hating groups in the U.S. and Europe a vessel to funnel their money to support ant-Zionism. It is BDS on steroids. UNRWA must be eliminated completely.
There is a 1/29/24 WSJ article online that details allegations of widespread collaboration between UNRWA staff and Hamas. It is really a shocking article (published in the News section not editorial page). Please read. UNRWA must be defunded, disbanded and those participating in the massacre must be prosecuted. Pressure must be put on Biden administration to permanently defund.
Prosecuted? This is war. Eliminate them all. Their war is genocide by design.
If UNRWA is the canker sore, international criminal finance and the willing complicity of a compromised elected political leadership is the disease. Always has been. The looting of labor, the destruction of lives and the theft of public treasure and resources is what keeps it alive. Control, fear, learned helplessness, a population living from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis and the criminalization of (and the ultimate rationalization to murder) anyone who stands in their way.
What we're witnessing in Gaza is the result of what happens when free peoples lose their connection to moral reason, their lives and control of public institutions. Mercenary poseur ideological utopian virtuosity in service to avaricious narcissism (self-interested greed). It's pathology not politics. It is the totalitarianism that murdered and buried millions in the 20th Century and if left unchecked will do it again. Millions slaughtered, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the destruction of a civilization by insane grifters like Adolf, Joe Stalin and Mao who promised a utopian future but delivered death camps, the ovens of Auschwitz and the killing fields. What do we think the Globalist DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos juggernaut is? We see the escalation of the assault on free peoples and the institutions created by them to ensure their freedoms every day of the week. Because it isn't happening to me doesn't me it isn't happening. (Ask Julian Assange, Snowden, Gonzalo Lira, Leonard Peltier (remember him?), Fred Hampton or the 80 plus journalists who have lost their lives in Gaza so far.) Never mind the decade long public murder of every visionary and truth speaker America produced in the '60's. What conclusion do we draw about those funding NGO's that dump more migrants in a town than the population of the town itself? They don't give a f'k!!
Transparency!! Names and organizations!! Cause, direct effect and the consequences of immoral criminal actions!! Every day!! All the time!! "We the people" of the world demand it. Those involved in subverting public tax dollars for political ends: Jail!!
“We the people of the world demand it.” I like that
“Because it isn't happening to me doesn't me it isn't happening.”
That could be a modern remake of the brave Niemöller with my (though worn) all time still favorite quote (the original version:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
(https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists)
As I have noted, 17000 of 37000 un employees on earth work for the Palestinians. Almost 1 in every 2.
The UN IS a Palestinian organization and is completely racist as a result.
Everything I find on this is opaque, as you’d expect from the UN
But they clearly state on the main website they have 37,000 employees and if you dig through sources you can find they employ 13000 in Gaza and 4000 in the West Bank, which will be in part all these “teachers” telling the kiddies to brush their teeth, oh and make sure to kill Jews”.
So are these 17 k part of the 37k of on top of?
That would make it only 1/3 of total employees
So much better right?
Which, in turn, says what about Nikki Haley? That she didn't know this when she was Ambassador? I call bs on that. She also,turned a blind eye. So much for her "foreign policy" experience and "expertise".
At one point, I was willing to vote for her if she was the nominee, although she was my second-to-last choice (after Christie). But I have read things in the last couple of weeks that have changed my view of her.
I knew there were issues with the UN, but until now I wasn't aware how long and how completely the UN was compromised.
Oh girl, it's bad. My brother worked overseas in Africa for a number of years, and I can remember stories of how UN aid packages would end up getting sold for profit by greedy officials who worked at the ports, or brokers too, rather than distributing the free aid to the people it was for. It became a tool for political favors. The rot has been going on for a long time.
I found out years ago that much of the food aid that is sent to Africa gets seized by local warlords and distributed to their own gangs.
Can we honestly blame Haley for all the fraudulent activity at the UN? She just might be a good start to attacking the horrible doings there, since she has a foot in the door, so to speak.
Haley is a for sale fixer, bag man and want to be political marionette. Total transparency on the use of all public funds now. No hidden budgets or disappeared unaccounted for millions. No more "gee we found a few billion we didn't know we had".
Accept the willing involvement and profiteering of America elected political leadership with, and the merger of, international criminal finance with cartels and black market entrepreneurs, that tax dollars are divided long before an appropriations bill ever reaches our legislature, and you'll sleep better. There are so many nasty little piggies at the trough Americans can't have effective public education, jobs, and a stable economy. They can have gun fire, car jacking's, a crumbling infrastructure, burning freeways, the train wreck of the week, hypodermic needles in the street, thugs to burn small businesses to the ground, wide open borders and all the Fentanyl their children can eat.
Tech created an engine that deliveredf political/financial TRANSPARENCY. Subscription journalism is providing an ESCAPE from the psyop. The MSM is in collapse. The perp's are scared and dangerous. DEMAND depth reporting and ACCOUNTABILITY on every tax dollar spent!! A truth/fact based human reality is the first step forward.
The Clinton's took the pay-to-play ball, built a fortune and ran it for a touch down. The Biden/Ukraine scandal is exactly what it appears to be. A grift!! An international community of heartless thugs who, just as in WWII, will willfully (and gleefully) burn the lives and resources of free peoples to the ground.
Trump and Biden are so much better! Which old man do you think is going to get elected?
Biden. Trump is a narcissistic nightmare!
Of course we can't blame her for all of it. It started before she was born. We can absolutely blame her for shedding light on it during her tenure as ambassador. And if she did not know that really does not bode well for her leadership acumen.
Yeah, I didn't realize until recently either. I had previously just assumed that the UN was a waste of time. But these last few years have shown what a horrible place it has become.
Trump defunded while Haley was ambassador. They knew but Obiden reversed immediately.
That’s like saying the US Ambassador to Russia or Qatar or Saudi Arabia is responsible for what those governments do. Haley is irrelevant to this topic. And at the time she and King Donald were on the same team, so it’s particularly silly to bring this in now. As I recall, like all Republican UN ambassadors, she was critical of the UN and pushed back against the usual pompous despot/shit hole countries pretending to care about human rights and so on.
I doubt King Donald even knew what UNRWA was, and as others have noted, suspending funding for this or that at the UN is something Republican administrations have done in the past.
The TDS is strong in this one.
Sigh. I even voted for the dude once. Sorry I don't have TDS and have never been a Never Trumper etc. At ths point the problem has come around full circle - there's a cult of personality around the guy which is just as delusional as TDS ever was. Which is quite likely to result in another fricking Biden term which leads to President Kamala, God help us all.
What the hell is a cult of personality exactly? Is it possible that Trump supporters are independent voters who see no other viable option? That many of them in 2016 were like so many Democrats in 2024, homeless Republicans.
Look I'm pissed off enough about so many things that I might even convince myself to vote for the guy again, even though I despise him. A cult of personality is "the result of an effort which is made to create an idealized and heroic image of a glorious leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise". Trump has a devoted base which enjoys the spectacle of the showman, revels in the liberal tears and the blown heads at NPR and NYT and WaPo, and thrills (apparently) in the pathetic namecalling and insults of other public figures which should be embarrassing to a 5th grader. You can see from the rejection of RDS that it is not about policy - RDS offered the same policies and battles against wokeness, with actually doing stuff and not just talking and with competent executive governance already proven and without the clown show. He was soundly rejected.
Arguing the merits of Trump with a Trump fan is as utterly futile as arguing the merits of Obama was with an Obama fan. In fact in many ways they are funhouse mirror versions of each other, and I think Obama helped pave the way for Trump.
President Newsom. Kamala is just the fake blackface great granddaughter of slave plantation masters. She's Dems pretending to not be racists. Biden hates her when he can remember.
Kamala may be better.
Here, from the days when all this stuff was funny instead of terrifying:
I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles and never frowns
Soon I will be president
Carter power will soon go 'way
I will be Führer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will meditate in school
Your kids will meditate in school
California, Über Alles
California, Über Alles
Über Alles, California
Über Alles, California
Zen's fascists will control you
Hundred percent natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face
Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big bro on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back, you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay
California, Über Alles
California, Über Alles
Über Alles, California
Über Alles, California
Now it is 1984
Knock, knock at your front door
It's the suede denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece
Come quietly to the camp
You'd look nice as a drawstring lamp
Don't you worry, it's only a shower
For your clothes, here's a pretty flower
Die on organic poison gas
Serpent's egg's already hatched
You will croak, you little clown
When you mess with President Brown
When you mess with President Brown
California, Über Alles
California, Über Alles
Über Alles, California
Über Alles, California
There is a good book called Complicity: How the North Promoted, Profited and Prolonged Slavery. Written by 3 writers from the Hatford (Connecticut) Courant, published in 2006, that does a historical dive. Pretty impressive.
It isn't important that "King Donald" know. It's important that "we the people" do. And we're building the engine to do it.
I'm not convinced that "we the people" do know - probably 95% of the country has no idea what the hell UNRWA even is. What engine are we building to do it? MAGA 2? Good luck with that plan. I fail to see how that's going to work. Electorally, the only outcomes I see are either a Biden cruise to victory in November (the most unpopular president ever to win re-election) or another crazy, impossible Trump victory - followed by a Democratic blowout in the following 2 elections that leads to full Democratic power at the federal level, with all the wondrous things they've promised: end the filibuster, pack SCOTUS, add DC and Puerto Rico for a magical 4 new Dem Senate seats, etc, etc.
All I see ahead is disaster.
I think subscription journalism is building transparency and the the truth/fact based reality in which human beings thrive. Distortion of the healthy national dialogue we deserve and imposition of a hyperrealistic lie by mal actors is harming everyone and everything.
I agree that a choice between Biden and Trump is a horror. We deserve access to real political choice. Hopefully we can build a reality that will allow that. 20,000 people sending a subscription journalist 50 bucks each will help get the news out but 50,000,000 people sending 50 bucks each to a viable candidate might change the political landscape altogether.
The DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos juggernaut is a would be fearsome repeat of the 20th Century totalitarianism that almost burned the world to the ground. We are in a brand new age. A new consciousness is emerging and the only legitimate engine of survival is the American Republic, the Constitution and the free citizen. Everything else is pathology. As I've said elsewhere: We're about to find out how powerful the truth actually is.
TBF we all know that Darlin’ Nikki was a tad out of her depth at the UN.
Disagree. She was a strong ambassador who wasn’t a pushover. But to me the real issue is that the UN is nothing but a corrupt pot of gold for the greedy and a waste of money. It allows dictators and some of the world’s most evil leaders to pass public judgment on our country and supports crap like the WHO, which is nothing but an arm of the Chinese government. Trump was right to stop supporting WHO. I wish we’d dump the entire UN.
You’re entitled to that opinion. I find her understanding of world affairs and recent history to be shallow and dogmatic. As to the UN, like all huge bureaucracies it’s inevitable corruption was guaranteed. Besides your opinion of Mrs. Halley I generally agree with your sentiments.
But she did it in 5 inch heels CEO. 5 inches!!!
🤣
Excellent point. Thanks.
Her job was a United States representative, which means she represents United States policy, not her own policy and means she has indeed much "foreign policy" experience and "expertise." This country has devolved into a place I don't recognize and Haley, I believe, is someone who could pull off getting the ginormous maintenance job of putting the country back into focus.
And guess who was originally defined a Palestinian refugee?
“The UNRWA defines a Palestinian refugee as “persons 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 War.“
This is a 2 year period!! I remember reading about this at one point but can’t remember how and who defined this. It’s especially striking seeing how Europe was awash with refugees and DP camps into the 50s.
Of course now the definition includes any descendants - even if they have been granted citizenship elsewhere. The number of Palestinian “refugees” keeps growing but apparently Israel is committing genocide.
President Carter sent a special investigator (name escapes me) to determine exactly how many Palestinians there were in Gaza, WB, Lebanon, Jordan, and the number she came up with was far lower than what unwra said. There was a lot of criticism with her methods. I don’t think anyone knows how many actual Palestinians there are - numbers are inflated and some values also add in Israel Arabs.
Totally rotten and corrupt
So…to put it in perspective, UNRWA’s charges are the refugees from a war they themselves started.
Hey Remesh.
I have missed your commentary. Palestinians are a made up designation. After the second (I think) Jewish revolt against Rome, the Romans renamed the area Palestine as an insult to the Israelites. I think it comes from Phillistine. And the Phillistines migrated to the area too.
Hi Lynne. Yes, the word Phillistines comes from the Hebrew word with a root of “po-lesh” which means invader (they are considered Greek in origin). As of 1948 the designation Palestinian Arab was not a distinct ethnicity or culture. Today I must say that is no longer the case.
Oh no Remesh, I disagree. They are Arabs we now refer to as Palestinians (AWNRTAP). Accuracy matters. Palestine is at best a geographic designation. The AWNRTAP refused creation of a Palestinian state in 1948 and continue to do so to this day. As such there is no Palestinian state. Also Lebanon and Jordan were created by the same decisions that Israel relied on in establishing statehood.
Gee … a very deep rot at the UN. Who knew?
I remember as a school kid being involved in Model UN exercises in social studies class. How naive we were!
Top 10 Unrwa donor countries in 2022 ( source WSJ 1/29/2024) in descending order: USA, Germany, EU, Sweden, Norway, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey…….question where are oil rich countries in the region?? Where is South Africa? - who sides with the Palestinians and tried to get Israel prosecuted for genocide at world court. How much money is S. Africa sending to this esteemed UN Palestinian relief agency, the “Urwa”?
People turning a blind eye and not wanting to upset the so-called apple cart, as well as millions being funneled into these projects that would be lost if they called it out, can be one hell of a deterrent. To make institutional change as it's called, required a lot of attention and outrage like is being focused on UNRWA currently; people are happy to let things keep going, as long as it doesn't upset "their" work. Happens on the smaller scale all the time.
And larger scale I think. When was the last time a federal agency was abolished?
The League of Nations, UN's precursor, has been corrupt from the start. They agreed to create a Jewish homeland in the first place because they didn't expect it to survive. They knew that the Arabs (they weren't called Palestinians back then) would never accept the creation of a Jewish state, and the reason why the vote was unanimous in 1947 is because the Arab countries expected to win it back quickly.
UNRWA (and most of the UN) operates by corruption, self-delusion, and stupidity of the West.
Many examples. The UN sent blue helmet troops to Sierra Leone. When did that happen? Who did they protect?
UN protected Foday Sankoh. He invented the tactic (in modern times) of cutting off hands and feet you saw in the movie, "Blood Diamonds".
And, Foday was, you guessed it, Muslim. It preserved a source of income for Muslim terrorists.
Foday was losing and about to be killed, his army of children slaughtered as they deserved. That's when the UN stepped in.
The Ivy Leaguers who populate most administrations do not (cannot) take islamists seriously. That is why Jimmy Carter used them against Russia, Bill Clinton came in on Al Qaeda's side in Kosovo, Hillary Clinton allied with Al Qaeda and ISIS against Syria, and Biden is doing it now against China.
I have an article with scholarship (FOIA, interviews, news articles) proving this. FP should run it, but won't. Why? FP is virtually all Ivy League elite liberal arts majors too.
The Ivy League elite think it's always about the money and only the money. So regime change should fix the world, and alliance with the nutcases who will fight and die fanatically? Well! That's just good business!
Great comment Celia
your last sentence is key - it is and always has been designed to perpetuate the fiction of the "palestinian refugee," who can only be made whole by a right to return, which can only happen when Israel is destroyed.
Classic example of a permanent self serving bureaucracy.
Why on earth has the US (and other country) ever given them $344 million? Where, how, and why was this money ever given?
"suggests a very deep rot" ? If you get a chance: BACKSTABBING FOR BEGINNERS. Book or movie.
Thank you, Free Press, for giving the courageous Hillel Neuer of UN Watch a platform to expose the utter rot and corruption of UNRWA. On January 4th I listened to this podcast from The Daily Objective: (https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-daily-objective/id1518860114?i=1000640570979) "What UNRWA Teachers Say When You're Not Listening" which chronicled the shocking, vile, antisemitic and celebratory Jew-hatred messages in the UNRWA teachers' Telegram group. As someone who has followed and supported Mr. Neuer for years, these revelations did not surprise me, but I had no idea how this message would reach a wider audience. And as happy as I am to see major funders currently withdrawing their support, I also heard a soundbite from UN Chief Antonio Gutteres today that a major humanitarian disaster would unfold if the global community did not reinstate its funding. I hope our leaders can resist the temptation to throw money at this problem until a full investigation is complete and people are held to account. It's also time to change the narrative. Generations of Palestinians should no longer be considered refugees. (They are the only displaced peoples to retain this special status. Thank goodness Holocaust survivors moved on with their lives and chose to chart new paths and become contributing citizens to the many countries they built new lives in--as has been the case with Armenian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Tibetan, Somali, Ethiopian and so many other refugees.) UNRWA, the UN and the Arab world has enslaved the Palestinian people for at least three generations. It's time to break the shackles and transform Gaza into the Mediterranean jewel it was destined to be! There can be another way...
It's war. Antonio Gutteres is part of it.
This sounds like a bigger problem than UNRWA. The UN is now implicated in breeding antisemitism and terror against a member state. It shows a systematic failure that goes beyond just one leader or one organization.
Western countries should reconsider the entire premise of the UN.
The ongoing travesty at the ICJ reveals the full extent of global anti-semitism. Where are the genocide cases against Syria, Russia, Sudan and China? Why isn’t Egypt accused of genocide as well for refusing Gazans refuge in Egypt? Where are the global demands for Hamas to release all hostages immediately?
Well, that is an interesting quesiton. I have been amazed at how differently the decision has been reported. NPR and BBC presented the order as ordering Israel to comply with the Geneva Convention (implying that they were not doing so currently) and an affirmation of the claims of genocide. The WSJ presented it as a recognition that the claims of genocide remain unproven and the order is essentially meaningless since Israel is already subject to the Geneva Convention.
Fair point about the order including language calling on Hamas to release the hostages. However, my perception is that there is a lot more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire than on Hamas to release the hostages. The latter is an undeniable war crime and the release of the hostages should not be conditioned on anything.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply (if anyone is looking, the response of mine that Ham is addressing is below). I agree with you that broadly speaking the chant seems to be for a ceasefire with the hostages either being ignored or their release seemingly tacked on almost as an "oh right, that too" afterthought. While I read the ICJ ruling as relatively fair (no ceasefire, hostages released unconditionally, greater care for civilians in Gaza), I'm not surprised various interests are making whatever hay they want to out of it.
The third choice is for Hamas to surrender. But no one brings that up.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the recent ICJ ruling explicitly did call for Hamas to release all hostages immediately. While I dislike South Africa preening about how righteous they are by bringing this case - which as you note, is somehow only being brought against Israel - I felt like the actual ICJ did ok here.
Not saying the blatant hypocrisy of Israel being singled out isn't enough to get mad about, but curious if the ruling itself angered you too.
It is long past the time to demand Guterres's resignation. The UN is no longer an organization committed to peace or to human rights. Only bureaucracy and hate.
It’s not just the leader. The entire organization has been subject to decay for many years.
The UN and UNRWA, is a warmaking organization. It takes money from the west to make war on the west.
The US is the largest financial supporter of the UN, providing just under 20% of its operating funds with U.S. taxpayer dollars. At some point, there needs to be a serious discussion about what exactly all of us are getting for these taxpayer dollars. The heroic work of Hillel and the folks at UN Watch is a perfect example of what our tax dollars are enabling. There are many others. The International Court of (so-called) Justice recently met to accuse Israel of “genocide” for defending itself against the attack of October 7th. Iran was recently appointed to chair a forum on the UN Human Rights Council, which routinely identifies Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as the leading violator of “human rights.” I could go on but it becomes nauseating. Unless and until we stop funding these activities, we are complicit in these activities. Withdrawing funds from UNWRA is a good first step. What’s next is the question.
We should simply leave the UN. We could create a new organization with civilized countries if we felt we need this. I personally think organizations like this degenerate into mechanisms to drain resources from and punish the US. We really don’t need that.
Ideally, the Congress should hold a hearing to review our participation in the UN, and ask some hard questions about the extent our funding (particularly in relation to other countries), how effective the UN and its various agencies like UNRWA have been in their declared missions, the extent to which our participation has helped advance our interests and the interest of our allies (Israel most importantly), and what changes need to be made to justify our continued financial support. A naive expectation, perhaps . . . .
You could argue that in the face of growing global conflicts the UN is needed more than ever. But you could also argue that the UN is so corrupt, bloated and incapable of self-reform that it is no longer able to help maintain world peace and order.
We always hope that forming a group will help elevate the lowest members, but what invariably happens is the group is dragged down to the level of the lower members. The UN is no different.
The people who control, create or pipeline American tax treasure knowingly into organizations that allow it to be used as largesse for either the attempted control of mal political hustlers or willing support for their violence should be publicly prosecuted.
Yes, however, Congressional hearings rarely consist of both parties seeking truth. Watch YouTube coverage of recent hearings. The Dems are always acting as a block against the interests of objectivity and truth-telling.
"[…] UNRWA officials that the agency operates “on the principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity.” So wrote Elizabeth Campbell in The New York Times, in April 2019 […]"
It is a good thing the legacy media gets to define what the facts are so none of us ever get misinformed with disinformation. Knowing that media like the NYT, WaPo and others so carefully validate what they print with a critical mind toward the truth gives me reassurance.
/s
Thank you Un Watch for your diligent efforts in exposing the treacherous behaviours of UNRWA; it is beyond outrageous that western monies have continued to subsidize this cadre of hateful terrorists. I hope your presentation of facts will result in the elimination of UNRWA and perhaps, lead to an investigation of why our money has been misspent so egregiously.
This is a textbook example of regulatory capture, with the regulated party (Hamas) controlling the regulator (UNRWA). The good news for all those fired UNRWA employees is that full professorships await them at Harvard if they are willing to move to Boston. They would instantly go from zeroes to heroes on that illustrious campus.
12 employees were Hamas? No the entire org is Hamas.
Wow. I just listened to a report about this on NPR's Morning Edition. They emphasized the point that it was "only" 12 employees, and stated that it "was likely" that the US would bow to pressure and resume funding to the UNRWA shortly.
That’s why my family calls in National Palestinian Radio. I haven’t listened to it in years.
That’s what you get for listening to NPR.
Some of us continue to listen to NPR for comic effect and to keep track of what the enemy is thinking…
I listened to it years ago. They were such whiney liberal handwringers I just couldn’t stand it.
Oh it’s definitely masochistic to listen to it. I cackle with cynical cheer during much of it, but it’s certainly not for everyone.
National Propaganda Radio.
And National Victim Radio: NVR
Defund the UN and NPR. Use the money saved to pay down our $34 trillion debt. And have the government quit spending money on crap using the taxpayer credit card.
Let’s do the math for NPR:
12 documented UNRWA Oct 7 perpetrators (and counting) + 3k UNRWA telegram members cheering them on + 150 examples of antisemitic/ pro-terror teachers + many UNRWA sites used by Hamas
vs.
0 UNRWA “humanitarian” personnel warning Israeli civilians or aiding hostages
UPDATE: WSJ reports that "around 1,200 of UNRWA’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives" who belong to the terror groups
I heard the same thing, but I wasn’t remotely surprised - that’s NPR! They also right away pushed the "have to resume funding right away to help the poor Palestinians" line.
I just don’t miss the smug voices of the NPR broadcasters. Very annoying especially when they are totally wrong
Oh for sure that's part of the masochistic fun - the whiny female "fingernails on chalkboard" voices of the "radio personalities". Never fails to amaze me.
I shared Ms. Weiss' video on "Feminist Silence on Rape" to my Facebook page, with my own comment about how someone could verbally attack the friends and relatives of the captives of Hamas as if there is any possible humane explanation for such attacks. A guy I worked with for 20 years messaged me almost immediately cursing me to get my facts straight before posting anything. He then asserted that Israel has been raping Palestinian women for decades. I responded by saying that even if what he stated is true, that two wrongs don't make a right and that Hamas' actions were crimes against humanity. His response was: "You and your western media are the problem where is the proof your fucking president lie about it"
My point is that if an educated professional from the middle east, who has now lived in the US for many decades, who has a good life with a beautiful family and a nice home in an upscale suburb displays such a lack of compassion and reason after all of this time, then there should be no surprise in the magnitude of the support for Hamas no matter what Hamas does, and no matter where the supporter lives or works. But what is even more concerning is that the supporter's children are likewise infected with this intolerance as evidenced by the student groups attacking Jews at major universities.
That's truly disturbing. And how many people like this live here in the U.S.?
I now suspect that are few tolerant people on either side. Palestinians think that Israeli's are animals and deserve whatever evil Hamas concocts as just payback.
Yes and to have true peace we have to destroy the people who support the lies. No one is even willing to consider the consequences of such an action. But the other side is willing to consider such an action and their actions indicate that if they had the means to carry it out that they would. The Democrats continue to give money to such people and countries.
We all chuckle a bit at the Hatfields and McCoys. But we're willing to throw our borders open to peoples who were indoctrinated and conditioned into the mindset of the feud. A major manufactured weapon preventing the future Americans deserve is exploitation of unreflective upon hatred and polarization. We need a unifying third. And we have it. It's called the American Constitution. Things aren't the way they are by accident. I probably share this JFK observation too much. Told by a reporter that "..where there's smoke there's fire.." Kennedy replied that perhaps "..someone has a smoke making machine..".
besides being Hamas by its very existence UNWRA perpetuates the culture of generational grievance in Gaza.
What they do, among other things, is perpetuate the vacuum of economic opportunity. And as we all know, areas that lack economic opportunity are feeding grounds for gangs and organized crime - which is essentially what this is - to recruit, promising riches of one sort or another. In this case the rewards are plentiful: having a gun, wielding power through that and by being a part of the gang, having your way with a woman, killing Jews of course, and if killed, ascending to heaven and to the 72 virgins that await. Someone here used the word “perverse” and that’s a good descriptor. Meanwhile, in the context of world without UNRWA, the wood to chop ahead is daunting: de-sensitizing, reverse brainwashing and instilling appropriate curriculum for each age group of children, teens and young adults. Who takes this on? What political process and funding is needed for THAT? Yikes...
I’ll take this one step further. The UN is garbage. We all know it is.
We should pull out of the UN and demolish the building. It’s taking up valuable space in Manhattan that could easily be used for better purposes.
I believe the mayor is looking first space for all the illegal immigrants.
😂 I think that would be what we call a “win/win!”
Hillel described our teachers unions on steroids. We are seeing the fruits of the subversion of young minds here also!
CAIR along with Qatar are providing materials and partnering with US schools (not only universities but k-12). This may not be the dragon that UNRWA is, but the materials are lizards that can grow into dragons.
The FP did good reporting on this within the past couple months.
CAIR is another wolf in sheep’s clothing. An arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Like Students for Justice in Palestine.
Strongly agree. Biden’s White House teaming up with CAIR for help with anti-Semitism (along with the thrown in there for image not factual rise in anti-Muslim activities) is like inviting a committee of wolves to guard the hen house.
Nice piece. It’s important to make clear that 12 UNRWA employees were CAUGHT participating in a massacre. Assuming there is only positive video identification of a subset of the assailants caught in the act (say 10% for arguments sake) we can safely assume there are many more who participated but weren’t caught.
Similarly if there are 150 posts on Telegram of people stupid enough to put their livelihood at risk by cheering for murder and rape then we have to assume there are 1000x more who concurred but didn’t post (just like everywhere else on social media). If 10% of employees are known Hamas operatives but the allegiances of the other 90% is unknown then we can reasonably extrapolate to a much higher level.
Point is, it won’t due to fire those who are caught murdering, raping or inciting children to hate and go on with business as usual. These aren’t aberrations, they are the norm.
While defunding UNRWA won’t change the way these people educate in the short term, UNRWA salaries are an important source of $ for Hamas. It allows them to divert other funds to the construction of tunnels and terror infrastructure instead of investing in education.
Any reform efforts need to include accountability for the people in charge. If any publicly funded US institution had this many employees engaging in this level of depravity there would be hell to pay for its leaders. The fact that UN and UNRWA leaders are brazenly asking for their benefactors to keep funding them in light of these allegations shows how little concern they have for their own positions and legal culpability in all this.
There is some contention going on right now among journalists around the demand for the full release of the Hamas videos of the massacre. They're say that like the manipulated J/6 footage it should all be available for inspection. I'm mentioning this because the possibility of greater "transparency" concerning the forces hampering our political/social/financial lives seems to be the firstborn of subscription journalism.
On today's issue, and the Taibbi reports last week, self-interested avarice shielding itself behind an acronym while diverting national treasure for its own profit and political gain has to stop. We can at least make sure they do it on their own dime.
Anyone who has ever looked below the sanitized surface presented by legacy media has been aware for years that UNRWA is Hamas' quartermaster in Gaza. It beggars belief that State Department and anti-terrorist agencies, not to mention their Western counterparts, were ignorant of that. What goes on in these people's minds?
Or what goes on in their pockets?