This past September 11 – an indelibly dreadful date — thirty-four Palestinians were killed in a pair of Israeli airstrikes on a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.

Twelve-thousand were sheltering there at the time, most of them women and children. Among the casualties, six aid workers with the UN Relief & Works Agency, UNRWA.

Founded in 1949, UNRWA provides humanitarian aid, protection and social services to millions of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and is mandated to do so until a “just and durable solution” to the plight of the Palestinian people is found.

In theory, that solution would involve fulfillment of the UN-mandated right of the Palestinian people to return to their homes inside present-day Israel, or be compensated for their losses.

Not surprisingly, Israel has had a hate-on for UNRWA since its inception.

Indeed, the Swedish diplomat responsible for the agency’s formation, Count Folke Bernadotte, was gunned down by Zionist militants shortly after his plan for Palestinian refugees driven from their homes in the course of Israel’s founding was tabled at the United Nations.

Bernadotte’s vision and plan lived on. So has Israel’s hatred for the agency he helped create.

Seventy-five years after Bernadotte’s brutal assassination, in the course of its seemingly genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has killed at least 220 UNRWA staff with US bombs and missiles.

For thoughts on Israel’s September 11 attack on the Nuseirat school, the GPM reached out to former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness, now the Executive Director of the Myanmar Accountability Project.

Listen to our conversation in today’s GPM podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Count Folke Bernadotte

According to Wikipedia, Zionism is “an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside Europe … a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel’s national or state ideology.”

In 1975, the UN General Assembly declared Zionism to be “a form of racism and racial discrimination.” In 1991, that resolution was revoked.

Anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, Israel’s allies and advocates insist.

Tell that to US-based Jewish Voice for Peace, “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.”

North of the border, Independent Jewish Voices Canada has just declared itself to be anti-Zionist. For thoughts on that stance, the GPM reached out to IJV founding member Sid Shniad.

Listen to our conversation in today’s GPM podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.