03-Jul-15: Misery, terrorism and money-making: a cynics' guide

From "How We Are Financing the Suffering of the Palestinians"
Click here to view the video

One factor beyond all others ensures that the Palestinian Arab cause manages to sustain its momentum nearly seventy years after the UN decision to split the compact British-occupied territory of Palestine/Eretz Yisrael into two countries: the existence of UNRWA.

An expose published a few days ago in an Arab publication, Al-Araby al-Jadeed (published in London - we were made aware of its existence by the invaluable Daily Alert), takes a sympathetic look at the price being paid by UNRWA's existence - who loses and who wins (and there are plenty of winners). Some extracts from "The Nakba profiteering cliques", authored by Samer Jaber:

• The word [profiteering] refers to the practice whereby seemingly unfair profits are made through exploiting certain conditions of vulnerability. Profiteering does not necessarily involve manipulative or corrupt activities, but can simply occur by virtue of being in the right place at the right time...
• The foremost of these is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is a direct provider of services to refugees. UNRWA employs more than 30,000 people, including 28,000 Palestinians, and has a two-year budget of $1.4 billion for 2014-15. A large percentage of this comes from Western European and North American countries on a voluntary basis - which enables them to indirectly influence UNRWA policies. 
• For UNRWA to sustain its funding it has to maintain the principle of neutrality, which really means maintaining the status quo..
• [T]he decision-making ranks and most middle-line administrators are comprised of international staff assisted by local middle class personnel. The managerial ranks have developed vested interests, including high salaries and generous perks based on UN standards.
• UNRWA has, however, been suffering chronic budget shortages - though these tend not to affect the higher management ranks. Funding shortfalls almost always seem to lead to cuts in services to refugees.

It has to be said that it's refreshing to see some core truths about this bizarre, malevolent and damaging institution exposed, and by a Palestinian Arab analyst at that.

We would have appreciated some focus on the fact that budgetary funding for the billion-dollar UNRWA colossus has come almost exclusively from Western countries, which begs the question so rarely asked: if Arab states claim the Palestinian cause is dearer to them than life itself, why are they not at the forefront of ensuring a little less suffering by their Palestinian Arab cousins? [Some background on the money aspect here.]

The question gets magnified vastly when we take account of how parts of the Arab world have stratospheric cash resources, and ruling families, wealthier than almost anyone else on the planet, who can decide at the snap of a well-jeweled finger, to underwrite the education and health services that UNRWA keeps running out of cash to deliver. A recent article in Time Magazine ["Why Qatar is Spending $200 Billion On Soccer", July 11, 2013] gives some perspective on the sheer money power of Qatar's owners:

Qatar will spend 286 times more money per capita on the World Cup than Russia will on the most expensive Olympics ever, the Sochi games. The country will spent 1,852 times more capita to stage the same event that South Africa did in 2010. [Time Magazine]

The same article goes on to quote a Qatar expert from the University of Denver who says: "The World Cup is an amazing opportunity, and Qatar will do everything to make sure it works."

Where there's a will, there's a way. And when you want to preserve misery at all costs, leverage it to ensure a ready supply of human bombs and other terrorists, there's an ever-willing cast of international figures, NGOs and the many arms of the UN who are evidently only too pleased to be of assistance - or to be exploited by others with more detailed agendas. We touched on some aspects of this just a few weeks ago ["04-Jun-15: Exploding for decades: UNRWA needs more, more, more"], and dozens more times before that. And a recent video [click here] explains it reasonably well in a mere 3m40s.

Understanding the Palestinian Arab leadership's sociopathic obsession with terror requires some familiarity with the extremely shabby story of UNRWA [some background here].

(Here's a shout-out to to UNRWA's indefatigable "Spokesperson, Director of Advocacy & Strategic Communications", Christopher Gunness, to straighten us out and indicate a more UNRWA-friendly way of looking at this.)