Transcript [00:00] Hey there everyone. So this week [00:01] Israel's Supreme Court held a hearing [00:04] that uh most people outside of Israel [00:06] didn't even hear about and if they heard [00:08] about it, they probably just heard about [00:09] a screaming match that happened between [00:12] some Israeli lawmakers who were there [00:14] and some of the lawyers. [00:16] But it's actually a very important legal [00:18] fight and it's happening in the country [00:19] right now and it goes to the heart of a [00:21] question that Israel has been avoiding [00:23] dealing with for 70 plus years. Here's [00:27] what happened. [00:28] Back in October 2024, [00:31] the Knesset passed two laws [00:34] banning UNRWA, the United Nations Relief [00:37] Works Agency, the UN agency that runs [00:40] schools, clinics, and services for [00:43] Palestinian refugees from operating on [00:46] Israeli soil [00:48] and these laws also demanded that no [00:51] Israeli official can have any contact [00:54] with UNRWA [00:55] and there's a legal [00:57] advocacy group called Adalah then [01:00] petitioned the [01:02] Israeli High Court, the Supreme Court, [01:04] to strike down those laws. Okay? [01:07] That's what happened. So this week the [01:09] justices heard the case and from what is [01:12] being reported, it did not go well [01:15] for Adalah. Okay, the panel signaled [01:18] that it's likely to reject the petition [01:20] and uphold the ban. Let's just take a [01:22] look at a little bit of this news item [01:25] here. [01:27] Um let me just make it bigger on the [01:28] screen for you. [01:30] Here we go. So this is the High Court [01:31] signals it will likely reject petition [01:33] against laws banning UNRWA activities. [01:36] The High Court of Justice recommends [01:37] that petitioners retract a petition [01:40] filed against legislation barring UNRWA, [01:43] the UN relief agency for Palestinians [01:45] from working in Israel and restricting [01:47] its operations in the West Bank and Gaza [01:48] indicating that it would likely reject [01:50] them. The recommendation comes at the [01:52] end of a hearing in which the justices [01:54] expressed skepticism that the rights of [01:56] Palestinians have been adversely [01:58] affected by the cessation of UNRWA's [02:01] activities as claimed by the Adalah [02:03] Legal Aid organization that filed the [02:05] petition, noting that the Palestinian [02:08] Authority and other organizations are [02:09] still providing for the needs of those [02:12] formerly aided by UNRWA. Okay, and then [02:14] there were it talks about this whole [02:15] shooting match that took place. [02:17] And and then here we have a little bit [02:18] more of the background. In October 2024, [02:21] the Knesset passed these two laws with [02:23] massive majorities banning UNRWA's [02:25] operations in sovereign Israel, East [02:27] Jerusalem, and banning state agencies [02:30] from having any cooperation with them. [02:34] Um [02:35] and then the International Court of [02:36] Justice [02:38] uh issued a non-binding advisory opinion [02:41] because everything the International [02:42] Court of Justice does is non-binding [02:44] because it's not a real court. But they [02:46] asserted that Israel was legally [02:48] obligated to allow UNRWA's operations. [02:51] And then we have this So then we have [02:52] this case now. Okay, that's [02:54] that's where So that's where we are with [02:57] this. [02:59] Now again, if you don't follow this [03:00] closely, you don't really know, your [03:02] instinct might be, "Wait, isn't UNRWA a [03:04] humanitarian aid agency? Why is Israel [03:06] banning a humanitarian aid agency? Isn't [03:09] that going to hurt hurt Palestinian [03:10] civilians?" So I want to explain why the [03:13] answer is no and why getting getting rid [03:15] of UNRWA isn't cruelty at all. It's [03:17] actually a very important step [03:21] uh [03:22] to moving forward if there's ever going [03:25] to be a future of any kind of peaceful [03:27] resolution and coexistence uh between [03:29] Israel and the Arab residents of Judea, [03:33] Samaria, and Gaza, what's known as the [03:35] Palestinians. If we're ever going to [03:36] have peace, getting rid of UNRWA is [03:38] actually critical. So we're going to get [03:40] into that, but before we get into that, [03:42] I want to tell you about a very exciting [03:44] event that we have coming up. Okay, [03:45] we're going to be talking about it in in [03:47] our videos for the next little while. [03:49] And this event is going to take place [03:51] Oops, sorry about that. [03:53] Let me remove that from from the [03:56] from the stage and here we go. We're [03:57] having a webinar and those of you who [03:59] attended our last webinar about around [04:01] it was amazing. There were thousands of [04:03] people, literally thousands of people [04:05] who registered for that webinar and it [04:06] was an incredible webinar. [04:08] Many of the clips from it were have been [04:09] posted ever since then [04:12] to the [04:13] to the Israel 365 news channel. [04:16] I think all the clips have been posted [04:17] at this point. But you don't want to [04:19] miss this webinar. This is taking place [04:20] on Sunday, August 16th at 2:00 p.m. [04:23] Eastern time. [04:25] That is 9:00 p.m. in Israel or you could [04:28] watch it anytime you want. If you just [04:29] like all of our webinars, if you [04:31] register for this webinar, even if you [04:33] can't make it to attend it live, you [04:36] will automatically receive an email with [04:40] the full, you know, with a link to watch [04:42] the full webinar immediately upon its [04:45] completion. Meaning you sign up for the [04:46] webinar and you'll be able to watch it [04:48] on your own time or you could attend it [04:51] live. Now, if you attend it live, you [04:52] also get to, [04:53] you know, to [04:55] you know, to see it live, but you're [04:56] also, you know, there's a chat and [04:57] you'll be able to interact and ask [04:58] questions. [04:59] So, there are some advantages certainly [05:01] to attending live. But you can sign up [05:03] for this webinar, Mamdani's New York [05:05] City, [05:06] a warning to America and we have an [05:09] unbelievable lineup. We have an [05:11] unbelievable lineup at this webinar. [05:13] We're going to be joined by former mayor [05:15] of New York, Rudy Giuliani. [05:17] We're going to be joined by Shabbas [05:18] Kestenbaum. Many of you probably know [05:20] who he is. He's a young man who has has [05:22] become a very important voice. [05:25] He is a He's a commentator and writer [05:26] for PragerU. Robert Spencer, who is in a [05:30] very prolific writer on the whole topic [05:33] of Islam and he actually wrote a book [05:35] about Mamdani during the election [05:37] campaign. If you haven't heard of Robert [05:39] Spencer and Jihad Watch, you should [05:41] definitely be following them. And Rabbi [05:43] Daniel Shonbach, my good friend, who is [05:45] He's at He's He's also on YouTube and [05:47] he's at rabbiforamerica.com [05:49] and has been leading the fight [05:52] in the of the anti-Mamdani [05:54] activism that's been going on in New [05:55] York City. It's an incredible lineup. [05:57] You don't want to miss this webinar. [05:58] Mamdani's New York City, a warning to [06:00] America. That is Sunday, August 16th, [06:03] 2:00 p.m. and you can sign up by the [06:05] link in the description of this video. [06:07] Or you can go to Israel365 [06:11] .com/mamdani [06:13] or you can click the the QR code on your [06:17] screen. If you if you click that [06:20] that QR code, go through there, you'll [06:22] be able to register for the webinar. But [06:23] you have to register if you want to [06:25] watch the the full webinar either live [06:28] or in your inbox afterwards. Okay, so [06:31] that is that. Let's remove this now from [06:32] the stage and get back to our subject at [06:34] hand. [06:36] Okay, for some basic background about [06:38] UNRWA. Most people don't know about [06:39] this. UNRWA is not the UN's refugee [06:42] agency. There's a separate body for [06:44] that, the UNHCR, the UN High [06:47] Commissioner for Refugees that handles [06:49] every refugee crisis on Earth except [06:52] one. In 1949, after Israel's War of [06:55] Independence, the Arab states insisted [06:58] on creating a completely separate agency [07:00] just for Palestinian refugees and they [07:02] insisted it have the letters UN in its [07:04] name. Why? Because they wanted the world [07:07] to see this as the international [07:09] community's problem, the UN's problem, [07:11] not the consequence of a war that five [07:13] Arab armies started when they invaded [07:15] the day that Israel declared [07:16] independence. Now, understand that [07:18] context. Had five Arab armies invaded [07:22] the brand new state of Israel the day [07:25] that it declared independence, had they [07:27] start had they not started that war and [07:28] accepted the UN the UN partition plan, [07:31] there would be zero refugees. No one was [07:34] expelled from their homes except in the [07:36] context of a war where a lot of people [07:37] get displaced. And notably in this [07:40] situation, most of the Arabs that fled [07:42] fled because the Arab leaders told them [07:45] to. I've talked about this before. This [07:47] is a documented historical fact. Now, [07:50] that's when you That's when UNRWA was [07:52] founded. Compare that to what happened, [07:54] let's say, in Korea around the same [07:55] time. Millions of Koreans were displaced [07:58] by the Korean War, millions. The UN set [08:00] up an agency called UNKRA to handle it. [08:04] Within about 3 years, the UNKRA had [08:07] resettled over 3 million Korean refugees [08:09] into new lives, and then it shut down. [08:12] It shut itself down because that's what [08:14] a refugee agency is supposed to do, [08:16] solve the problem and close. UNRWA has [08:18] been open for over 75 years, and it has [08:20] never resettled a single person, not [08:23] one. [08:24] Because, unlike every other refugee [08:26] agency on the planet, UNRWA doesn't just [08:28] serve refugees, it passes refugee status [08:31] down through the generations. If your [08:33] great-grandfather fled in 1948, you are [08:36] still officially classified as a refugee [08:38] today, even if you were born, raised, [08:41] and even if you hold citizenship [08:42] somewhere else entirely, which is a [08:44] complete contradiction in terms. The [08:45] very definition of being a refugee is [08:47] that you were kind of like homeless. If [08:49] you If you've been granted citizenship [08:51] and and have been living for multiple [08:53] generations in another country where you [08:55] are a citizen, you're not a refugee. [08:57] It's kind of like, by definition, you're [08:59] living somewhere where you have [09:00] citizenship, you're not a refugee. [09:02] Anyway, that's not because Look, this [09:04] isn't how refugee status works anywhere [09:06] in the world, but there's a special [09:07] exemption that in this case, with the [09:10] Palestinians only, this one population, [09:13] you can be a refugee [09:15] and you can be a refugee in perpetuity [09:16] for generation after generation, [09:19] and that num and the number can never [09:20] shrink, it can only grow. [09:23] That is why the original count of people [09:26] displaced in 1948, which was somewhere [09:28] around 700,000, [09:30] um and they were displaced for a whole [09:31] variety of reasons. Today, it's become [09:34] nearly 6 million official refugees on [09:36] UNRWA's rolls. Most of them have never [09:38] lived anywhere near Israel. A huge share [09:41] of them are fully functioning citizens [09:43] of the country of Jordan. [09:45] Which and Jordan of course was part of [09:47] the original Palestine mandate. So, [09:49] there's people in Jordan who are [09:50] Palestinians and they they and they were [09:52] considered refugees. Many of the rest of [09:54] them already live under Palestinian [09:56] self-rule in various parts of Judea and [09:58] Samaria known as the West Bank. In their [10:01] in their own places. So, they're not [10:02] really refugees. Why would they be [10:04] called refugees if they're in the land [10:06] that they're from that they live in? It [10:08] doesn't make any sense. Doesn't have to. [10:11] But, the category refugee has been [10:13] stretched so far in the case of these [10:16] Palestinian Arabs that it has basically [10:18] lost all meaning. [10:21] Now, the In other words, the only real [10:22] purpose of this is to keep this refugee [10:25] situation alive and the demand for [10:27] return which in this case means the [10:30] dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state. [10:33] Now, [10:34] here's where it stops being this [10:36] academic point about refugee definitions [10:38] and becomes much more serious. UNRWA [10:41] doesn't just hand out refugee cards. It [10:44] runs the school system for hundreds of [10:46] thousands of Palestinian children in [10:49] Gaza in the West Bank uh that's Judea [10:51] and Samaria. That's the term they use [10:53] for it. So, I'm using it, but it's it's [10:55] an incorrect term. I I digress. [10:58] UNRWA runs the school system for all of [11:00] them. [11:01] In Jordan, in Lebanon, in Syria, they're [11:04] running schools all over the region [11:06] for Palestinian refugees and for decades [11:09] watchdog groups have documented that [11:12] UNRWA classrooms have taught a [11:14] curriculum soaked in anti-Semitic [11:17] anti-Israel incitement, maps of the [11:20] Middle East with Israel erased, [11:22] textbooks that glorify terrorist [11:24] martyrs, lessons that frame the conflict [11:27] not as a dispute over land but as a [11:29] religious obligation [11:31] to erase the Jewish state entirely. This [11:33] is UN-funded schools. [11:35] Okay? Generations of children [11:39] who [11:39] grew up in this educational system built [11:42] around the idea that their identity [11:44] is defined by this this tragedy and that [11:48] the way to resolve it is to erase [11:51] Israel, to fight back, to go back home [11:53] to Israel. I mean, to take Israel off [11:55] the map. [11:57] This is UNRWA schools. Now, [11:59] this all matters because after October [12:01] 7th, we got a very [12:03] shall we say brutal [12:05] answer to what happens when you have an [12:08] education system like that for [12:10] generations. [12:12] UN Watch, a very respected monitoring [12:15] organization, uncovered a Telegram group [12:19] that was used by roughly 3,000 UNRWA [12:22] teachers and staff in Gaza. [12:25] In the hours and days after the October [12:27] 7th massacre, some of the administrators [12:29] of that group were posting celebrations, [12:32] footage of the attacks, shared with [12:35] captions like "Resistance on the roof of [12:37] settlers' houses." And and posts that [12:40] were praising the murder of civilians as [12:42] a fulfillment of religious duty. This [12:43] wasn't This wasn't a couple of bad [12:45] actors. It was people entrusted This is [12:47] the UNRWA chat group. These are people [12:50] entrusted by the UN to educate children [12:54] who were cheering on the massacre. And [12:56] then it turned out that about a dozen [12:58] UNRWA employees were themselves directly [13:00] implicated in carrying out the October [13:03] 7th attack. Several countries then [13:05] suspended their funding for UNRWA. [13:07] UNRWA's own leadership response uh [13:11] wasn't to launch a serious transparent [13:13] investigation. Instead, they attacked UN [13:16] Watch. Now, [13:18] um UNRWA [13:20] This institution [13:23] is being asked [13:26] or Israel, I'm sorry. Israel is being [13:29] asked by the International Court of [13:30] Justice [13:32] to keep allowing this organization, [13:35] UNRWA, [13:37] to operate freely inside its borders. [13:44] And of course, Israel has said no. And [13:46] this week, Israel's Supreme Court is [13:48] saying that it agrees. Now, that's not a [13:49] small thing. Israel's Supreme Court [13:51] tends to be the most It is the most [13:53] left-wing branch of our government by [13:55] far, and it tends to be very hard on [13:59] Israel when it comes to issues like [14:02] this, but they seem to be agreeing. [14:05] Now, [14:07] there's [14:09] there's a piece of this a lot of people [14:10] don't really get. You think, "Well, if [14:12] you remove UNRWA, then is aren't there [14:13] all these humanitarian needs that are no [14:16] longer being met, even if they've got [14:17] bad actors?" [14:19] Well, this is a bit misunderstood. [14:21] People assume that the choice is UNRWA [14:22] or nothing. Like, there's no more aid. [14:25] There's only There's going to be more [14:26] suffering, which is complete nonsense. [14:28] UNRWA does not [14:30] provide the food or the medicine or the [14:32] fuel that goes into Gaza. Other UN [14:34] agencies, other international NGOs, and [14:36] other governments [14:38] are fully capable of delivering [14:39] humanitarian relief, and in plenty of [14:41] cases, they already do in parallel with [14:43] UNRWA. [14:45] What UNRWA uniquely provides is not aid [14:48] capacity. [14:50] It's the 75-year-old bureaucratic [14:53] architecture that perpetuates its [14:55] refugee status. And as we've just seen [14:57] in Gaza specifically, it also functioned [14:59] as a payroll and support structure for [15:02] Hamas activists. [15:05] Now, think about it from Hamas's side [15:06] for a second. Hamas runs Gaza. [15:09] Okay? And this is really where you see a [15:12] piece of the UNRWA grift that doesn't [15:15] really come out when you just hear the [15:17] reports, okay? Hamas runs Gaza. [15:21] It has to feed people. It has to run [15:22] clinics. It has to pay teachers, right? [15:25] Because Hamas wasn't only a vicious [15:28] genocidal terrorist organization, it was [15:30] also ostensibly the government of Gaza. [15:33] It has to keep society functioning. [15:36] And in order to do it and now it it [15:39] it would have to divert some of its [15:41] Hamas resources to pay teachers and to [15:44] run clinics and do all that stuff. But [15:46] now they don't have to. You see, so long [15:48] as UNRWA exists, there's international [15:50] money coming in, a huge amount of money [15:52] coming in, and it's running the health [15:55] clinics, and it's paying the teachers, [15:57] and it's doing a whole bunch of [15:58] humanitarian things, which are just [16:00] basically normal normal infrastructure [16:02] and governance, [16:04] providing normal services that otherwise [16:06] a government would have to provide, and [16:08] Hamas doesn't have to worry about those [16:10] things anymore. [16:11] So, functionally, UNRWA is the mechanism [16:15] of the United Nations, [16:17] of all these countries, subsidizing [16:20] Hamas's ability to use its resources [16:23] and its manpower and pour it into [16:26] building tunnels and building rockets [16:29] and terrorism. [16:31] Dr. Einat Wilf, who has studied this for [16:34] years, she wrote a great book about it [16:35] called The War of Return, you should see [16:37] it. You you should you should find that [16:39] book, you should read it. It's a great [16:40] book about this issue. [16:42] Um Dr. Einat Wilf put it simply. She [16:45] said, "UNRWA frees Hamas from the [16:47] burdens of governing, so it can focus [16:50] on war." Take UNRWA out of the picture [16:53] and someone else has to take over all [16:55] those responsibilities on other terms. [16:58] Hamas would have to spend its own [16:59] resources, for example, feeding and [17:01] educating people instead of just [17:03] building terrorist infrastructure. [17:06] Now, even Switzerland's own foreign [17:08] minister, Ignazio Cassis, not exactly a [17:12] uh a hardline pro-Israel voice here, he [17:15] put it about as bluntly as any diplomat [17:17] ever could. He said that UNRWA has [17:19] become part of the problem. That by [17:20] supporting it, the international [17:22] community is supplying, in his words, [17:25] the ammunition to continue the conflict. [17:28] But he called it a perverse logic, and [17:30] he's right. Every dollar that goes to [17:32] keeping 6 million people frozen in [17:35] perpetual inherited refugee status, is a [17:39] dollar that isn't going toward the thing [17:41] that would actually help [17:44] the Palestinians building an economy, an [17:45] education system, civil society aimed at [17:48] a future, not backward at a war that [17:51] ended in 1949. [17:54] See, UNRWA is the perpetuation of the [17:58] of the issue. [18:00] Okay, of of the [18:02] of the claim. Meaning the whole claim [18:04] that they're all refugees, what [18:06] underlies that claim is the illegitimacy [18:09] of Israel. That's what UNRWA really is. [18:11] So when people frame this [18:13] this story, if you see it in headlines [18:15] at all, as Israel punishing Palestinian [18:17] civilians by banning UNRWA, no, no, no, [18:20] no, no. The people being failed by UNRWA [18:23] are the Palestinian civilians [18:24] themselves. 75 years [18:27] of an agency that was never designed to [18:30] solve their situation, whose own [18:32] definition of refugee traps them and [18:34] their grandchildren in perpetuity in the [18:37] same status, whose schools taught [18:39] generations to see their future only [18:43] through the lens of grievance, [18:46] as a war [18:48] as a [18:49] as a war for return, [18:52] rather than building a life [18:55] next door to Israel. [18:58] This is [19:00] Let me interject something. I've said [19:02] this before, and it's really worth [19:03] thinking about. [19:05] Could you just imagine how good the [19:08] lives of these people would be [19:11] if they would simply say, [19:13] "We're We're done trying to kill Jews. [19:15] We're done trying to destroy Israel. We [19:18] just want to work and raise our [19:19] families." If they simply did that, [19:22] they live [19:24] in a place in the most in one of the [19:27] fastest-growing, most prosperous [19:29] economies in the world with all kinds of [19:32] innovation and all kinds of possibility. [19:37] They could live [19:39] as [19:40] in [19:41] They could live off of that economy, off [19:43] the work that would be provided, and [19:45] they would have They would be the most [19:47] the most prosperous, they'd be the [19:49] happiest [19:51] Arabs in the Middle East. [19:54] But they don't. [19:56] And UNRWA [19:58] UNRWA with its education system, with [20:00] its message, with its very existence, [20:01] with its with with its reminder every [20:04] day to them of their grievance and their [20:06] status as refugees perpetuates the [20:09] entire problem forever. Because the day [20:12] the refugee problem is resolved [20:15] is the day UNRWA has no reason to exist [20:17] anymore and this whole system goes away. [20:19] And it's a And it's also There's tons of [20:21] money pouring through there or has been [20:23] in past years. [20:25] So, Israel banning UNRWA from its [20:27] territory isn't Israel walking away from [20:29] the welfare of the Palestinian people. [20:31] It's Israel saying, "We're done treating [20:34] the group that keeps the conflict alive [20:37] in perpetuity." [20:39] And [20:40] we're done pretending that they're [20:42] helping us solve it. [20:44] Let humanitarian aid come from agencies [20:47] without a stake in perpetuating the [20:49] refugee status forever. Let education [20:51] come from a curriculum that doesn't [20:53] teach their children that that their [20:56] birthright is war against Israel and [20:59] that's their reason for being. Let the [21:00] world finally send the same message to [21:03] the Palestinians that it sent to every [21:04] other refugee population in modern [21:07] history, the Germans displaced after [21:09] World War the Hindus and Muslims [21:11] displaced by partition, [21:13] the Greeks and the Turks, [21:15] the Poles, [21:17] all of them. And I mentioned the South [21:19] Koreans, [21:21] refugee status is a temporary condition [21:24] on the way to a resettled life. And in [21:27] this situation, you don't even have to [21:28] go anywhere. [21:30] Just educate them differently. [21:32] Let's start employing them. [21:34] You don't have to be trying to destroy [21:36] Israel and perpetuating this this [21:39] this whole mindset. UNRWA is [21:42] at the root of the problem. [21:49] Look, that's what this week's court [21:50] hearing was really about. Okay, it's not [21:53] there is a legal question here, but the [21:55] real question is whether Israel [21:58] uh will stop participating [22:02] in a grift [22:04] system that is specifically engineered [22:09] to keep the conflict unresolved. [22:14] Okay, that's that's what it's about. [22:17] And based on how the justices responded, [22:18] and I'm thankful because the justices, [22:20] you never know with them, they're very [22:21] left-wing, but based on how they [22:23] responded, it sounds like the answer is [22:24] finally moving in the right direction. [22:27] So, that's what this is about. Thanks [22:29] for watching. I hope this was helpful. I [22:31] hope you found it interesting. [22:32] Please uh [22:34] like, share, subscribe. Do all those [22:35] great things, and make sure you sign up [22:37] for the webinar about Mahmood Mamdani [22:40] and the and the and and what he [22:42] represents and the threat to America [22:44] from this whole phenomenon of what's [22:46] going on in New York. You don't want to [22:47] miss it. [22:48] That's Sunday, August 16th. I think did [22:51] I say August? Yeah, Sunday, August 16th, [22:52] coming up very soon [22:54] at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. Make sure [22:56] that you sign up for the webinar. You [22:58] don't want to miss it. So, go to the [23:00] link in the description of this video or [23:02] click on the QR code [23:03] and and make sure that you [23:06] that you're all signed up. All right, [23:07] God bless.
