"No Evidence" in Key Dossier to Support Israel's UNRWA Allegations

[cbabe]

https://truthout.org/articles/report-finds-no-evidence-in-key-dossier-to-support-israels-unrwa-allegations/

“No Evidence” in Key Dossier to Support Israel’s UNRWA Allegations

The dossier has been used as a major basis for countries suspending their funding to the crucial aid group.

By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT
Published February 6, 2024

key Israeli intelligence dossier used by countries to justify defunding the primary aid group for Palestinian refugees contains “no evidence” to back up Israel’s allegations against the group, new reports have found.

U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 obtained a copy of the six-page document in which Israeli officials alleged that a dozen of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees’s (UNRWA) 30,000 employees were involved in the October 7 attack led by Hamas. The allegations made in the document, originating from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), have spurred 16 countries so far to suspend funding to the UNRWA, even as humanitarian groups warn that this will only further Israel’s genocide.

In a report this week, Channel 4 reported that, despite being used by many countries to justify withdrawing aid amid horrific conditions in Gaza and risk complicity in genocide, the document actually “provides no evidence to support its explosive new claim that UNRWA staff were involved.”

…more…

[Think. Again.]

1. K&R for exposure

[RAB910]

2. This is obscene and very upsetting

[Voltaire2]

3. A classic and effective disinformation program.

[stopdiggin]

4. and yet UNRWA dismissed (fired) these people - (those that aren't dead)

most likely because others in the org knew that there was some basis ...
Of course - all those cell phones could have just gone walkabout on a certain day ...
Don't worry though .. there will be other investigations I'm sure. (I'd be particularly interested to see what other western intelligence services have to say - if/when that is available)

[AloeVera]

5. If only we were as quick to defund Israel's war machine.

We have highly credible evidence, not merely allegations, of war crimes. Starvation as a tool of war as just one example. Collective punishment. Wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure. On and on. Not to mention the possibility, as the ICJ has acknowledged, of genocide.

But no. Instead let's defund the sole agency capable of actually delivering the massive and immediate aid the ICJ has ordered. An effective if not diabolical way of circumventing that very order.

Based on allegations without solid evidence that are somehow deemed "highly, highly credible".

Let me just state that EVEN IF every allegation turns out to be true, it would not justify the destruction of the entire agency and the collective punishment of 6 million people - two + million of whom are literally starving - based on the actions of 12. If that's the standard we hold, the IDF should be "defunded" and disbanded immediately.

[DBoon]

6. You mean the IDF lied to us?

I am shocked and dismayed (and sarcastic).

[Beastly Boy]

7. Stop the presses! Channel 4 found no evidence in a document that was not meant to include any evidence!

A six-page dossier on over 100 UNWRA employees with ties to Hamas... Just listing their names, the positions they held at UNWRA and the types of their affiliations with Hamas would have taken over six pages.

Yet 18 countries and UNWRA itself had no problem finding evidence elsewhere.

Performative outrage, full steam ahead!

Next investigative expose coming from Channel 4: no evidence of the validity of Einstein's theory of relativity in the Swedish Academy's statement awarding him a Nobel Prize.

[cbabe]

8. Jeremy Scahill: Israel Has Waged a "Deliberate Propaganda Campaign" to Justify Brutal Gaza Assault

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/7/israel_propaganda_gaza

Jeremy Scahill: Israel Has Waged a “Deliberate Propaganda Campaign” to Justify Brutal Gaza Assault

STORYFEBRUARY 07, 2024

The United States and more than a dozen other countries quickly moved to suspend funding to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a vital lifeline for millions of people in Gaza, shortly after Israel accused a handful of the agency’s staff of taking part in the Hamas attack on October 7. But the U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 obtained the intelligence dossier on UNRWA that Israel shared with allied countries, and found “no evidence to support its explosive new claim.” The Financial Times and Sky News also reviewed the materials and came to the same conclusion. Israel’s claims about UNRWA are just the latest example of what journalist Jeremy Scahill says is a “deliberate propaganda campaign” to justify its brutal assault on Gaza. “This is one of the most epic frauds in modern history, reminiscent of the lies told to explain and justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq,” says Scahill, senior reporter and correspondent at The Intercept.

…more…

[Beastly Boy]

9. If Jeremy Scahill thinks that 18 countries decided to defund UNWRA on the basis of a 6-page dossier,

he is dumber than he looks.