In the United States, the common murderer can even be put on death row. But the community of nations will do nothing and stand idly by, as people are slaughtered en masse. In fact, they are even capable of punishing countries that defend themselves against such massacres. This is the hypocrisy of the international community.
Recently, there was a demonstration in front of the UNRWA offices in Jerusalem, calling “to get the enemy out of Jerusalem.” Hundreds of people participated in the demonstration, initiated by the Im Tirtzu movement, Tikva – Forum of the Abductees’ Families, the Mothers’ March, Ribonut, Lach Yerushalim and more. The demonstrators chanted: “We put an end to the enemy. UNRWA will not be in our country!”
The demonstration took place following publications that revealed that UNRWA workers took an active part in the events of October 7th, participating in the massacre, rape, and the kidnapping of soldiers and innocent civilians. Following the publication of this information, UNRWA issued the following statement: “The Israeli Authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October.”
They added: “To protect the Agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay. Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution. UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families.”
Yet other than issuing this statement, the United Nations has so far done nothing with this information. There have been no UN resolutions condemning Hamas or UNRWA for that matter. In fact, last October, the UN General Assembly rejected a resolution that would have unequivocally condemned Hamas for their terrorist attacks against Israel. However, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel 14 times in 2023, while noting the rest of the world only 7 times. In fact, recently, as Israel is in the middle of a war, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres denounced Israel for the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and said it was unacceptable to oppose statehood for the Palestinian people. But for the victims of Palestinian terrorism, there is silence.
For most Israelis, this is not acceptable. Matan Peleg, chairman of Im Tirtzu, and Maor Tzemach, CEO of “Lach Yerushalyim” said in response: “It is impossible for an organization such as UNRWA to continue to exist on the sovereign territory of the State of Israel! This is an organization that fuels the Palestinian conflict, makes a living from it and takes an active role in terrorism, supposedly under the guise of concern for Palestinian rights. It’s time to put an end to it and close their offices immediately.”
Prominent Middle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar said in an interview: “UNRWA is an organization which was supposed to be dismantled 50 years ago. The whole existence of this organization is to perpetuate the instability in the Middle East by perpetuating the Palestinian refugee crisis. After the Second World War in Europe, no one was refugees 10 years on. But here, this agency is keeping the refugee problem alive and kicking. It was created to perpetuate war between the Israelis and Palestinians rather than solve the conflict.”
According to him, “They seek to repatriate the refugees in order to destroy Israel. This organization was operated by Hamas in Gaza. After they succeeded to infiltrate into organization, I am afraid that employees of this organization in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria are also members of Hamas. Therefore, UNRWA should be dismantled altogether and the Palestinian refugees should find work, and start living like human beings. They became professional third generation refugees thanks to UNRWA.”
Sadly, this is not the only area where the international community has demonstrated double standards and hypocrisy. Marina Kaljurand, member of PACE (Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe) from Estonia, recently called upon European countries to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan, who is an ally of the State of Israel that supplies the country with 40% of its oil and gas as the country is at war. Just as UNRWA calls for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, she said: Azerbaijan is “obliged to satisfy Armenians and should allow them to return to Karabakh.”
Never mind that the territory is recognized as part of Azerbaijan in four UN Security Council resolutions, which have been engrained into international law. Never mind that in the 1990’s, one million Azerbaijanis were ethnically cleansed from Karabakh and PACE was silent. However, in recent days, PACE wants to return Armenian colonialists to a region that they got no claim to under international law, just as UNRWA wants to return Palestinians to an area they got no right to under international law.
Canadian Jewish activist Esther Ha-Levi stated in an interview noted what Israel and Azerbaijan are facing in the community of nations: “We have been persecuted for thousands of years. Aside from that, Israel is facing 22 Arab countries that are seeking her destruction. There are 53 Muslim countries. It is a global war on Jews. In Latin America and North America, professors who are very well-trained and organized are using tricky words. All over the world in educational institutions, young men and women are being indoctrinated. At home, Israel is facing a genocidal movement that are seeking our complete destruction. Hamas is an ideology. You cannot defeat an ideology.”
Although she noted that Azerbaijan is different from Israel, as they are facing one main enemy and not a global movement, Ha-Levi emphasized: “Armenians and Palestinians are following the same playbook. The more lies you tell; the more people will believe it.” Azerbaijani journalist Anastasia Lavrina added: “PACE is very biased, unjust and unfair. Over the years, Azerbaijan tried to attract the attention of PACE towards the reality in the South Caucuses, so a peaceful solution could be found to the conflict. We tried to attract attention to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of forcefully displaced IDP’s in our country, who were forcefully displaced in the last century. Unfortunately, we did not receive a just attitude towards the situation.”
She added: “Sometimes they spoke about the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but other times they followed the disinformation spread by the Armenian side. And today, they don’t want peace in the South Caucuses. They politicized the situation. They don’t even want to rely upon UN reports, which said the Armenians voluntarily left the region. They close their eyes and want to talk a lot about things that never happened. This leads to destabilization globally.”
The time has come for the community of nations to end their hypocrisy. The time has come for the community of nations to condemn the October 7 massacre and to take real action against Hamas. The time has come for PACE to end their biased approach towards Azerbaijan. The time has come for the UN to assist conflict resolution instead of the perpetuation of conflicts worldwide.
Rachel Avraham is the CEO of the Dona Gracia Center for Diplomacy and an Israel-based journalist. She is also the author of “Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media.”
