November 2, 2015: The UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) is running short of money, which is donated by member nations; (over 90 percent from the U.S. and European states. One reason for the lack of money is the usual donor nations refuse to give more because UNRWA is seen as supporting Islamic terrorism, especially against Israel. The UN does not like to admit this, even when they were recently shown very visible of anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist support on social media by dozens of UNRWA staff running UNRWA schools for Palestinian children. The UN very quietly apologized and said it would discipline or fire the offending employees.

About two percent of the UNRWA budget comes from Arab states. The wealthy Arab oil states refuse to give more (or much at all) to UNRWA because that would, technically, be supporting an organization that is, officially at least, not supposed to be supporting Islamic terrorists or anti-Semitism. This situation gets more and more bizarre the closer you look at it. The Arab oil states are also mad at Palestinian refusal to make some kind of peace deal with Israel. The Arab oil states are also mad at the Palestinians for supporting Saddam Hussein’s plans to conquer all of Arabia (starting with Kuwait in 1990). Then there is the common attitude in the Arab world that the Palestinian mess is all the fault of the West and they should pay for it.

UNRWA was established in 1949 because Arab nations refused to accept and absorb Moslems who fled (mostly) from what is now Israel on the promise of the Arab nations that they would soon mobilize sufficient military strength to destroy Israel, drive the Jews out and allow the refugees to return home. That never happened and the UN quickly recognized that there was a serious refugee problem. Not only was UNRWA established to take care of these refugees but in a very unusual move the 750,000 original Palestinian refugees were allowed to pass on their refugee status to their children. No other refugee group was allowed to do that by the UN. About the same number of Jews were driven out of Moslem countries after 1948 and they were all accepted and absorbed by other nations, mainly Israel and the U.S. Since 1947 the number of “Palestinian refugees” has grown to five million and Arab states continue to refuse to absorb them.

This situation was all about Arabs believing they had the right to decide who can live in “Moslem territories” and for them Israel was a major offense. This is nothing new. Moslems had been driving infidels out of Islamic nations for a long time. That’s why most Arab-Americans are Arab Christians. Despite having been there before Islam came along, Arab Christians (and Arabs professing other religions) were always under pressure to either convert, or leave. Many of those who left over the past two centuries, came to America, and prospered in a much more tolerant society.

When Jews began migrating to Palestine in the 19th century (to join the few who had always been there since the Romans ran most Jews out of the area 1800 years earlier), the Turks (who ran the area), were glad to have them. The Jews were mostly from Europe, and they brought with them money, technology and education. The Moslem Turks had long accepted Jewish refugees from religious oppression in Europe, but not many of those had come along since the 17th century. The Jews settled in and prospered, as did their Moslem neighbors. The word got around, and more Arabs moved to Palestine, to take advantage of the economic boom the Jews had created.

Then the Turkish Empire disappeared in 1918 and the British took over. The Arabs didn’t like this, as it was one imperial master replacing another. And at least the Turks were Moslem. Arabs increased their use of terror against Jews and Christians in Palestine. The Jews fought back. After World War II, many more Jews arrived. In many parts of Palestine Jews were now the majority. The Jews joined the Arabs in demanding that the British leave. In 1947 the British agreed, and tried to get the Arabs and Jews to agree on how to divide between them political control of the area they both lived in. The Arabs would agree to nothing and other Arab nations in the region vowed to exterminate the Jews. They tried in 1948 and failed. They tried again in 1956, ’67 and 73. And failed again.

Each failure was more humiliating than the last. Rather than accept blame for a dumb policy, inept diplomacy and military incompetence, the Arabs blamed outsiders, especially the United States. For decades, Arab propaganda, including stuff included in schoolbooks for kids, insisted that the Israelis were illegally occupying Arab land, were not capable to doing so without the assistance of other nations (especially the United States), committed the most outrageous (and non-existent) atrocities, and that there could be no compromise on this issue of Palestinian control. The message was clear; Israel must be destroyed, and Arabs were not at fault in creating the situation. Thus a growing number of Moslem (especially Palestinian) UNRWA employees feel they are being oppressed by the UN leadership for simply expressing what most Moslems agree with.