tv SPOTLIGHT UNRWA Funding Cut PRESSTV January 29, 2024 1:02pm-1:31pm IRST
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as terrorists when they're trying to stop the zinanis onslot in gaza, and now unra, institution which was created in 1948, after the first knockbock of palestinians to provide assistance for the displace is being defunded in the middle of this genocide by the us, the uk, australia, germany and several other small european countries. well, this has happened one day after the international court of justice released its initial findings regarding israeli generation. side as if to show the world once and for all that there is no international law, might makes right? well, i'd like to welcome my guests to this program. craig murray, former british ambassador to uzbekistan out edinburg, and robert fatina, author and journalist out of kishner on...
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here, well, thank you both for being with me. i'd like to start it off uh with craig. how do you explain these countries defending unra now? well, i think in part, um, it's a coordinated reaction to the uh international court of justice ruling, and it's important to note within its findings of fact, um, on the uh, genocide, what it the, icj said was plausibly a genocide in in gaza, um unra was quoted quite extensively for giving facts on of the ground, so obviously that gives them a motive to discredit uh unra before future icj hearings and also of course it adds to the genocide, it increases the genocidal pressure and speeds up the genocide by potentially.
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denying a incredibly needed food, water and sustenance to the the people of gaza. well, robert, are these countries simply in line with israeli policy and trying to make the palestinians especially in gaza as miserable as possible, and and do they represent this sort of a could we say, a genocide front, because they're totally supporting what the israelis are doing. yes, they are supporting this genocide. each of these nations that is now defunding is is part of genocide and history will judge them harshly. the problem is that the united states leads the way and despite its decreasing influence on the role stage, it does still have lot of influence, and by accepting this this accusation made by israel that there were some united nations people involved in what happened on october october. sixth, the united states is simply
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accepting their word and cutting funding, making things worse for the people of palestine who are suffering horrifically, especially in the gaza strip right now, that's what we're talking about, excuse me, but they are suffering horrifically, and these countries that are cutting funding to to un agencies that support the palestinians, are adding to the suffering and adding and and just supporting the genocidal actions that israel has been taking now for. months, well craig, allegedly there were 12 unremembers that they are saying were involved in the october 7th attacks uh against the zionis, i mean why would the united states just accept the word of the regime that's committing the genocide without any investigation and and uh even if the 12 people were actually involved, why would you stop a program for millions? on 12
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individuals, mean, how can they even get away with trying to justify their actions? it's quite incredible really, mean it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, they don't have to justify it because there's no effective opposition, and there's great opposition among the people, and there's great opposition on the streets and among online media, but there's nobody seriously quizzing them in in the mainstream media and the... political parties uh in almost all of the west, the the main opposition parties are as bought and paid for by the zionist lobby as the governing parties, so in a sense they can they can do anything and not actually have to justify it, but you're right, i mean this is absolutely crazy, the total number of unra employees is 30,000 in the gaza strip, it's about 14, and this is 12 people, and these as you say allegation. i mean sadly the un has of
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already sacked these people to try to head off trouble even though there's not been an investigation yet and that's a contravention of their rights. but it's just absolutely mad, would you close down the united states postal service, because dozen people in the us postal service have a criminal record or it's obviously disproportionate, and it flies in the face of the international court of justice, making plain that all parties to the genocide convention, which includes all of the countries who have just cut aid, must do everything they can to prevent the genocide, including preventing the deterioration of the conditions of living. so this is a deliberate slap in the face to inter the international order and international law, right? we have seen a lot of of that during the last several months since october, for as international law is concern. um, robert, uh, at least 152
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unroy unrow employees have been killed since october in gaza, why is it that we did not hear the united states - making a big deal about that, we didn't see them adding - pressure on the israeli regime, making them to be responsible, excuse me, for not only killing on employees, but of course we have seen them actually attacking onward one schools, um, your take on that, it's complete hypocrisy, imagine if russia had done something similar in ukraine, russia would probably bombed by the united states at this point, the united states is not... interested in international law, the united states government for decades has held the united nations in all its programs in contempt using them only when it serves its own geopolitical goals and purposes. so the fact that over 150 unra workers have been killed, that many
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unsponsored refugee centers have been bombed, despite the fact that israel knew the coordinates that they were the the centers were very clearly marked, these are of course are war crimes, crimes against humanity, the... united states isn't interested in that, the united states is only interested in supporting the apartthide regime of israel and keeping that as its uh kind of satellite nation in the middle east to control other countries there uh through the us military power and theec the combined economic and and combined economic power of israel and united states. the idea of justice, international law, these sorts of things are not of concern to the united states when a when the palestinians are the ones who are suffering? well, let's talk about that, craig, you heard what robert said when concerning the palestinians and their suffering, the united states is not uh worried about international law, but it seems that for a long time in many places the united states was not worried about international law, but it was never so
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black and white as it is today uh with the situation that is this genocide going on in gaza. let's talk about that side of things and the effect if you want to say credibility. i'm not sure they have any left, but in general on the united states and these other western entities that's backing backing the closing or defunding of undra, tell me about the effects of that. well, obviously there's a great deal of um diplomatic isolation of the of western powers in the world and in the united nations. um, this feels like a key moment in in history, if... "if if you like, the international court of justice case um seemed like an absolutely key test as to whether international law has any standing or not, well whether all potence has now been abandoned as it's simply matter of might is right and and of of dominance, which
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is very strange way for the united states to go, just as it's losing its position as the most dominant military part in the world to china, um, but the..." "this really does feel like a moment where the people can see through their rulers, where people are coming to understand particularly young people, that the entire narrative that they are told uh is untrue, that there's nobody has any power over the political class who who rule, because the people don't want this, and there's massive opposition particularly across europe, um, to what is happening, but but people are finding they have no leverage whatsoever on the actions of the the political class who govern them. um, so this is key moment, both in defining the sharpest
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of breaks in international relations between the nato powers if you like, and everybody else in the world, and in defining the gap between the people of the western. powers and their governments, yes, robert, what about that, how important of a time, would you say it's a watershed moment, because as craig has said, uh, first of all, dealing with the if you want to talk about the international order and how the mask is being dropped and then also the relationship between these governments and also their people, that more and more people are actually finally realizing that these so-called elected officials really do not represent our interests, yes that people are recognizing that they're elected officials and not elected representatives and even the manner where they're elected in the united states it's very... difficult for a third party to gain any traction because of all the money that is required to to run any kind of
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campaign, we're seeing more and more that people are people in the united states and other countries, instead of relying on the so-called mainstream media for the news, they're looking at social media, they're seeing the pictures of what's happening in gaza that may be maybe filtered out or or cleansed in some way for the general public on mainstream media, but people on so... media are seeing exactly what's happening and it's shocking to them and the the that's why they're taking to the streets and also they're starting to use or will be starting to use their power at the ballot box uh joe biden is not a popular president united states and his election is now in or his reelection is in jeperdy because some of the swing states that he relied on have large muslim and arab population and those are the people voted for him and supported him before, there is no way they're going to now,
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so there will be some accountability hopefully for for him for his crimes, although the alternative is just as bad. i donald trump was terrible president, would be terrible president, but what we're seeing is people are recognizing that the governments are run by lobby groups and the wealthy elite and that they, the individual man and woman on the street. has little if any power or influence in government policy. okay, i'm going to come back to that, but uh, craig, let's look at these countries that have uh basically defunded now, um, undra, and do you think there's a possibility that these countries could be charged with genocide? well, i think, um, possibly not until after the ' international court of justice has made its final ruling in a in a couple of years time, um, i think that they're going to be
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charged with genocide anyway, um, because these countries have been supplying arms to israel, they've been supplying intelligence cooperation to israel, for example, the united states, the united kingdom and australia have certainly all been giving military cooperation to israel to actively assist in the genocide, and "remember, when it comes to this crime of genocide, it's not just that the states are liable, the politicians who ordered this and the military who carried it out, everybody is individually liable in in in in in genocide. we all know that the international criminal court is a is a western tool, the international criminal court of course is not the same as the international court of justice where the genocide cases being heard, individual cases should be built before the international criminal court and and that" simply a tool of nato, so i don't expect anything to happen there unless things radically change, but
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most countries have domestic legislation, outlawing participation in genocide, certainly both the uk and the us to, um, and following determination by the icj, i think we may find politicians held individually liable, i think that's one of the things that might be, might be a game changer here, but sadly that's not. going to kick in very quickly, well crek, let me just stay with you, because you you talked about the courts and the possibility of what can happen, and of course that it's un supported or nato, the other court, so is this the the what we're looking at, basically um, the collapse of the international um rules-based order in general, as more and more people realize that so much of the jargon, the slogans, was basically a farse, the protection of human rights, um, the importance of women's rights,
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the importance of children's rights, all of these rights that we have heard over and over again, especially from the main hegemon and the hegemonic front, tell me your thoughts on that, is this a major moment for the international um liberal order? it definitely is a major moment, but it's... hanging in the balance, i must say that the the ruling by the international court of justice yesterday was much better than i than i expected, if you read the detail of the... the ruling, it found as matter of fact, not as what the south african said, it found itself for caught as a matter of fact, that tens of thousands of people have been killed, but the means of life have been removed, and that it found as matter of fact that israeli ministers including the israeli president,
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had made statements of genocidal intent, all of which are clear points to the fact that eventually south africa. will win its case, so the the icj, the international court of justice is doing its job and it isued an order calling on the israeli military to stop, at the end of the day to interrupt you craig, but at the end of the day, mean we saw the the first part of the ruling, and as you said it was better than you thought, because of course no one had dared up to now even trying to reprimand the israely regime, but at the end of the day as we're speaking right here, right now, real time, palestinians in gaz. are still starving, they're dying of thirst, they're still freezing, they're being bombed, i mean, at the end of the day, will it stop the palestinians from being killed? not immediately, um, and not perhaps for, whatever the icj said, the israelis were not going to stop the genocide, um, however, in
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the as things work through and work through the un general assembly and work through domestic legal. systems in the next few months, whether it stops the continuing genocide and whether it stops the elimination the palestinians of gaza, is the test? i mean, the answer is, i, i do not know, the icj's done as much as the icga could do, in the first two days, the signs are that the the imperial powers intend to ignore the icj, whether they continue to or not, or whether international law does manage to bite, okay? is the key question, that's a key moment, but i can't tell you the answer as of today, right? well, robert, back to your point that you had made earlier and talking about the political structures in these countries, i mean we see these countries that have backed this genocide, that they have done everything they could to basically help uh the genocide along and now of course the funding undra, and you talked about the people though in
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these countries waking up to the reality, um, are we looking a transition in? these countries that actually the people, you talked about donald trump and and and biden, that neither one of them actually represents what the people want, do you think that the people are reaching the point to understand that it's beyond a problem with if we're talking about the u.s. democrats or republic, it's the whole system that needs to be changed, your thoughts on that. that is going to be very challenging for people, they have an mythical idea of wonderful. democratic system that is just now broken and needs to be fixed, not that it needs to be uh discarded in something new put in this place, which is actually what needs to be done, but there's they're increasingly seeing that something is very wrong uh, this is there are people taking to the streets now who would never have considered marching a demonstration before, who always basically without thinking about it supported israel,
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but now they're seeing things very very differently, so these are all very good signs, but that needs to be uh in united states and other countries, the people need to change their governments uh through through voting, or uh, some countries have dictatorships, they still have to to to influence these governments to follow international law and justice. if the people can see that what's happening to the palestinians is horrendous, is just the worst possible suffering imaginable. there's no reason why their elected officials can't see it except that they refuse. to therefore they have to replace those officials uh the idea of let me just jump in here robert sorry to interrupt you bause you said that you know that they're not following international law, but but do you not think that basically what we are seeing was originally set up to do what it is doing, to have a certain elite few uh basically control the rest, basically
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whatever they want, that's the direction that it would go in, so so what's the direction? what's the answer? it's it's a very difficult question uh to answer, but as you said, it was set up that the elites would run the show, look at the security council in the united states having veto power uh vetoing, the united states actually vetoed ending a genocide, and this is this is accepted by the world, so there needs to be an overhaul in the uh the united nations and its policies, as your other commentator mentioned, the international criminal court is simply a tool the west uh, a tool of nato, these things need to be changed, and these are, these are major undertakings that aren't going to happen overnight, but as we're talking about them, and as you point out before, we're looking for change, we're seeing the possibility of change the winds, but today the... palestinians are suffering horrifically in gaza and that isn't changing, and it doesn't appear that it's going to change anytime soon because of the actions of israel, the united states and some other
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major world powers. okay, and on that note appreciate both of you being with me on the spot, like craig murray, foreign british, former british ambassador to uzbekistan out edinburg, robert fatina, author and journalist out of kishner, ontario, and thank you viewers for being with us on another spotlight, i'm marza hashimi, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye.
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we must not become part of south africa's problem. we must remain part of their solution. we must not aim to impose ourselves our solutions. our favorites in south africa, damn it, we have favorites in south africa. the favorites in south africa are the people who are being repressed by that ugly white regime. we have favorites. i also want to
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say. word about the situation in israel, the more we learned about the attack, the more horrifying it becomes. more than one thous, 1ous innocent lives lost including at least 27 americans, these guys make, they make al-qaeda look pure, they're pure, they're pure evil, but i said from the beginning, the united states make no mistake about it, stands with israel, united states stands with israel.
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the headlines, more palestinies are killed in the gaza strip as israel defies all international calls is toppest months long deadly onslot on the... territory's civilian minister population. the emmy army says it is carried out another strike on the us navy ship in the gulf of aiden responsed to the us's earlier attacks on the arab country. anyhan's foreign hussen. who is in pakistan, says that tehran and islamabad are determined to step up the joint fight against terrorist groups in the border regions.
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