Rightwing activists demonstrate outside Unrwa office for third week over claims of links between staff members and Hamas

Dozens of Israeli settlers and rightwing activists have protested by again blocking the entrances of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) office in Jerusalem and calling for the body’s closure.

Last week, Israel announced it would no longer approve Unrwa food convoys to the north of Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest. The decision came after the agency was accused by the government of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza, with its staff facing a systematic campaign of obstruction and harassment by the Israeli military and authorities, as revealed in internal UN documents seen by the Guardian.

On Wednesday, a group of settlers, activists, and members of the rightwing extra-parliamentary political group Im Tirtzu staged a protest for the third week in a row, fixing posters to the building and demanding that the agency be abolished.

“Unrwa needs to be disbanded,” said Aynat Libman, a 52-year-old Israeli settler from Efrat. “Israel doesn’t need to provide space to Unrwa in our capital. They support terror, teach children from a very young age to be terrorists, provide support to Hamas, and supply Hamas. They are terrorists.”

  • AdeptusPrimarisEnglish
    134·
    8 months ago

    I must be honest, whenever i hear people from the US say/chant ‘vote blue no matter who’, they genuinely sounds like cultists to me.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      93·
      8 months ago

      It used to be the smart play.

      But the danger was always holding your party to a lower standard, means lower quality candidates.

      Especially in American politics where money and corruption are both readily available and often flat out legal, it’s hard for honest candidates to win primaries.

      Primaries are orders of magnitude cheaper, so lots of people realized their money not only goes further there, but you could play both sides.

      Especially in the House where a tiny rural district can be bought for like $20k. And people who openly oppose you are easily targets on reelections.

      The state of the democratic party in 2024 was always going to be the result of no standards, I just thought we had longer.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      Only if you ignore the reasons for that policy. We’re stuck in a two-party system, no matter how hard anyone would like that to not be the case. One party is a coalition of infighting assholes, including Israeli fanboys from a shocking variety of backgrounds, and all the people calling out Israel’s genocide. The other party wants a dictatorship. Not even an accusation, at this point. Their guy outright said he’d do it. He already spent the last election year trying to subvert our democracy in half a dozen ways, culminating in a failed coup d’etat. And his party supported him. And supports him now. And would gladly cheer him on if he did it again.

      A rhyming shorthand for KEEP THOSE FASCISTS OUT OF POWER, FOR FUCK’S SAKE is not somehow cult behavior.