Nesrine Ben Slimen

Lover of humans,ideas, and words.

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

UNRWA is separate from the UN’s main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees.

Although Israel does not want you to know it, the reason for there being two UN refugee agencies is because Israel and its western backers insisted on the division back in 1948.

Why? Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.

Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians. Part of the IRO’s mission was to seek the repatriation of European Jews. Israel was worried that very principle might be used both to deny it the Jews it wanted to colonise Palestinian land and to force it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes.

So in a real sense, UNRWA is Israel’s creature: it was set up to keep the Palestinians a case apart, an anomaly...

Israel’s efforts to get rid of UNRWA are not new. They date back many years. For a number of reasons, the UN refugee agency is a thorn in Israel’s side – and all the more so in Gaza.

Not least, it has provided a lifeline to Palestinians there, keeping them fed and cared for, and providing jobs to many thousands of local people in a place where unemployment rates are among the highest in the world.

It has invested in infrastructure like hospitals and schools that make life in Gaza more bearable, when Israel’s goal has long been to make the enclave uninhabitable.

UNRWA’s well-run schools, staffed by local Palestinians, teach the children their own history, about where their grandparents once lived, and of Israel’s campaign of dispossession and ethnic cleansing against them. That runs directly counter to the infamous Zionist slogan about the Palestinians’ identity-less future: “The old will die and the young forget.”

But UNRWA’s role is bigger than that. Uniquely, it is the sole agency unifying Palestinians wherever they live, even when they are separated by national borders and Israel’s fragmentation of the territory it controls.

UNRWA brings Palestinians together even when their own political leaders have been manipulated into endless factionalism by Israel’s divide and rule policies: Hamas is nominally in charge in Gaza, while Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah pretends to run the West Bank.

In addition, UNRWA keeps alive the moral case for a Palestinian right of return – a principle recognised in international law but long ago abandoned by western states.

Even before October 7, UNRWA had become an obstable that needed removing if Israel was ever to ethnically cleanse Gaza. That is why Israel has repeatedly lobbied to stop the biggest donors, especially the US, funding UNRWA.

Back in 2018, for example, the refugee agency was plunged into an existential crisis when President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israeli pressure and cut all its funding. Even after the decision was reversed, the agency has been limping along financially.

You can read more from my latest article In waging war on the UN refugee agency, the West is openly siding with Israeli genocide here:
https://t.co/31iUb2ZLUd

[Dima Khatib @Dima_Khatib]

The Israeli Army’s page in Arabic making fun of the hospital bombing and clearly assuming public responsibility for it:
“Due to the lack of medical supplies and medical staff it has been decided to bomb the Baptist Hospital in Gaza to give them euthanasia”
This is what Biden, Macron & the rotten world support

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@MonicaLMarks @MeshkalTn @FadilAliriza You are so wrong and you clearly didn't read @MeshkalTn articles. I don't get you disseminate such false accusations

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@sarah81m C'est une cause perdue 😄

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@Monasosh يا رب

[Sofian Philip Naceur @SofianNaceur]

A virgil in solidarity with imprisoned #Egypt-ian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah,on hunger strike for 220 days and on water strike since sunday, is held in #Tunis in front of the journalist syndicate,calling for his immediate release @FreedomForAlaa @sana2 @Monasosh #COP27

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@Aida_SAFI_ ما عادش ثمة احترام

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@rania_tn Did not come across it

[Mona Seif @Monasosh]

يوم مكثف في حملة #FREEALAA
- لقاء رسمي بين سامح شكري ولورد أحمد
- خطابات رسمية لوزراء الخارجية المصرية والبريطانية
- وقفة تضامن من منظمة العفو الدولية أمام وزارة الخارجية بلندن
- تقرير في الجارديان عن قضية علاء والاجتماع المرتقب بين وزراء خارجية البلدين
https://t.co/oNkLdz9yZ9

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@Aida_SAFI_ شنيا العملة الجديدة اللي عملها؟

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

and I will not talk about its alleged responsibility on two political assassinations and turning a blind eye on the network of terrorist organizations

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

Nahda approved a very controversial reconciliation law with the corrupt businessmen and politicians that helped Ben Ali enhance his powers

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

Nhada turned against its electors and sympathizers by entering into a coalition with Nida Tounes in 2016 and Qalb Tounes in 2019

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

Throughout the past 10 years:-
Nahda blocked the establishment of the Constitutional court

Nahda postponed its own national congress, allowing thus Ghanouchi to remain president for undetermined period of time.

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

During past 10 years in #Tunisia #thread
-Nahda blocked the establishment of the Constitutional court
-Nahda changed its own legislative lists, that its own electoral base chose, to run for the 2019's legislative elections.

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@radwan_masmoudi and politicians that helped Ben Ali enhance his powers
and I will not talk about its alleged responsibility on two political assassinations and turning a blind eye on the network of terrorist organizations

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@radwan_masmoudi to remain president for undetermined period of time
Nhada turned against its electors and sympathizers by entering into a coalition with Nida tounes in 2016 and Qalb Tounes in 2019
Nhada approved a very controversial reconciliation law with the corrupt businessmen

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

@radwan_masmoudi Throughout the past 10 years:-
Nahda blocked the establishment of the Constitutional court
Nahda changed its own legislative lists, that its own electoral abse chose, to run for the 2019's legislative elections
Nahda postponed its own national congress, allowing thus Ghanouchi to

[Nesrine Ben Slimen @BenBslimen]

If there is anything that we learnt during the past days, with regard to what is happening in #Tunisia is that some western media outlets and ''experts" need to learn how to be more humble and stop their white savior complex. Just educate yourselves

[Haythem El Mekki @HaythemElMekki]

Abdesselem Zayan died in prison cuz he had diabete, and his guards kept his medicine away from him. A 15 years old man was stripped out naked by cops in the street, caught on camera. These are only samples of what happened this year in #Tunisia, under @EnnahdhaParty backed gov.