Tue 4-February-2025

Incitement and action point towards an ongoing genocide

Monday 3-February-2025

The relief over the brokered ceasefire was soon overshadowed by ‘coincidences’ which make one wonder about the oppression that Palestinians face relentlessly from Israel, the US and the international community. The ceasefire was agreed upon during the last dredges of the Biden administration, while Israel’s ban on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) came into effect after US President Donald Trump declared his intention to forcibly transfer Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Arab countries.

Palestinians need help to counter this seamless conspiracy against them.

On Tuesday, UNRWA’s General Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini warned of the forthcoming precarious situation for Palestinians if the ban is implemented. “Curtailing our operations now – outside a political process, and when trust in the international community is so low – will undermine the ceasefire. It will sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition,” he told the UN Security Council.

Of course, Lazzarini is speaking from the parameters of international consensus regarding the transition – which wants Hamas divested of political power and rule. Leaving aside the fact that Lazzarini is making a statement against Palestinian political autonomy by promoting a political transition that is an international imposition, the truth is that UNRWA’s ban, combined with the US intent to forcibly transfer Palestinians, means that we cannot speak of genocide in the past.

The incitement remains, and genocide may be carried out by other means. Starve or leave.

Not to mention the impact the ban would have across the colonized and occupied Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Authority is not protecting Palestinians in Jenin, for example. On the contrary, it has collaborated with Israel to crush the resistance in the camps.

The persistent fragmenting of each violation Israel commits against Palestinians needs to stop. There is an ongoing cycle and the PA cannot pick and choose what to focus on. Rejecting the ban is not enough, even more coming from a pathetic entity like the PA. In reality, the PA is not rejecting anything, as it lacks even the moral decency to combat Israel’s decision by taking a stance in favor of Palestinian political autonomy.

“When he wants something, it happens,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said of Trump and his forced transfer proposal. The statement is not without practical precedents. A look at Trump’s first presidency shows a series of unilateral concessions which culminated in the Abraham Accords. And even though the UAE signed the accords apparently on the condition that Israel halt its annexation plans, the reality is that the normalization agreements always took precedence.

Recently, the UAE defense company EDGE Group acquired a 30 per cent stake in the Israeli defense firm Thirdeye; right in the aftermath of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Gaza is not a priority for world leaders. Which means that despite the rhetoric, the Trump-Netanyahu alliance has no formidable opposition. Arab and international leaders will oppose forced transfer, but let us not forget that they didn’t lift a finger to stop the genocide. With humanitarian aid threatened and forced displacement rightly opposed for all the wrong reasons, the threat of another genocide, whether through military violence or starvation, hovers close.

-Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.

Short Url:

Coppied

More from Ramona Wadi