Australia / Israel Review

As has been widely reported, on Aug. 5, more than six months after the allegations surfaced and evidence for them was provided, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) admitted that nine of its employees “may” have been involved in the October 7 atrocities, and fired them.

Yet news stories about this development almost all failed to report what these employees did and what the evidence against them was. Basically, there is footage taken by Hamas terrorists themselves on October 7 showing at least some of them taking part in attacks, including identifiable UNRWA workers putting the bodies of murdered Israelis into official white UN vans to take back to Gaza, presumably to further abuse the corpses and hold them for ransom.

Moreover, the fired employees are just the tip of the iceberg. Israel has identified many other UNRWA staff members who took part in the October 7 attacks through video and phone intercept evidence, and says it has intelligence that 10% of all UNRWA employees are officially linked to terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and has supplied UNRWA with names and ID numbers for more than 100 Hamas-affiliated employees. Plus, Hamas weapons caches and bases have been found in dozens and dozens of UNRWA schools, clinics and buildings in Gaza – including directly under UNRWA’s main headquarters in the form of a bunker, connected to the UNRWA building’s power supply, whose construction could not possibly have been kept secret from UNRWA staff just above.

These facts render the decision of Western governments, including Australia’s, to resume funding to the organisation based on nothing but purely verbal assurances all aid will be used properly as beyond irresponsible.

Jihad, rejectionism and antisemitism 

Here are some recent statements from Palestinian leaders:

1. “Allahu Akbar, come to Jihad, come to Jihad… strike the sons of apes of pigs, kill everyone who is a settler, slaughter everyone who is Israeli… this is Jihad, Jihad, victory or Martyrdom.”

2. “Allah, strike your enemies… Allah, strike the aggressive Jews, strike them and their allies, O Master of the Universe, and those who support them both politically and with weapons and money. O Allah, kill them one by one… do not leave even one of them.”

3. “The Israelites and the Jews spread corruption on earth… they kill people left, right, and centre… No one is safe from them – not trees, stones, people, children, women, the elderly, holy mosques, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, or Jerusalem. They spread corruption on earth, in every sense of the word. This is clear and obvious.”

4. “This struggle [against Israel]… is the same struggle… between good and evil, between truth and lies, between those loyal to the Merciful One [Allah] and those loyal to Satan.”

5. “My conflict against this occupation (i.e., Israel) is an existential conflict, not just a conflict over borders. It’s either me or him on this land.”

(All translations by Palestinian Media Watch, except number 3 which is from MEMRI). 

These five quotes seem to sum up Hamas’ ideology pretty well – the fight against Israel is a religious jihad demanded and sanctioned by Allah and every single Jew in Israel must be killed or expelled, all combined with religious antisemitism, including traditional Islamic racism such as referring to Jews as “sons of apes and pigs,” spreaders of corruption and followers of Satan. 

Yet there’s one problem with this analysis – all of these quotes come from individuals officially affiliated with the “moderate” and “secular” Palestinian Authority (PA), not Hamas. 

Numbers two and three are from sermons by PA Sharia (Islamic law) Judge Dr Abdallah Harb broadcast on official PA-TV on July 5 and August 2 respectively. 

Number four is a statement by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, also broadcast on official PA-TV on Feb. 9.

Number five is a statement made to Al-Arabiya TV on June 15 by Muhammad Al-Lahham, a member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, the ruling party of the PA. 

And number one is how Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the movement’s armed wing, reacted to the October 7 massacre, issuing a call to jihad and to “slaughter everyone who is Israeli” on its Telegram channel. 

My point is that, while most sophisticated people know there is no hope of Israel making peace with Hamas given its religious worldview, total rejectionism and open antisemitism, too many of them ignorantly imagine that the obvious alternative is to make peace with the “secular” and “moderate” Palestinian Authority. Yet the very same beliefs that make peace impossible with Hamas are also widespread in the PA. 

A two-state resolution must remain the ultimate goal. But wilful blindness about the realities of the PA as a partner for such a resolution in the near future only makes that goal more difficult to achieve. 

A simple test

Is someone you know confused about who is genocidal in the Israel-Hamas war, thanks to the propaganda and empty sloganeering that dominate social media and too much of the mainstream media? 

New York Times columnist and recent AIJAC guest Bret Stephens has proposed a simple test that should settle the matter for anyone at all open to persuasion and critical thinking (and sadly there are many who are not). It is simply this: Imagine that the armed forces of the other side surrender, does the killing stop?

Anyone who is not a complete devotee of Hamas ideology knows that if Hamas surrendered, Gazans would no longer be killed. There would be all sorts of complexities and issues, but the war and the deaths it is causing would be over.

However, if the IDF decided to surrender to Hamas, the result would not be an end to violence. Instead, there would be multiple October 7-style massacres on steroids – as Hamas has itself made clear.

So exactly who has genocidal intentions here?