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From what I have seen most times over the last year when he was attacked or brought into a new trial his supporters send him more money. I understand that from this one event thousands of supporters are sending him small donations left and right. Just saying. You see one day you all will wake up and understand how you benefit this person getting re-elected but hatred has blinded you all to this fact.
Courts do not decide who gets onto a ballot, the American citizens do. In the America I live in people make these decisions and we do not need a wayward Court to dictate who gets on our ballot to vote for. In your America obviously it is different for some reason but again its probably because you hate this person blindly once again.
I will gladly fall on my sword and get crucified over believing American citizens actually decide who is on their ballots, not any Court. Whether I dislike this person or not it does not matter I do not want the Courts to do this to any candidate for public office NEVER.................... It is up to our citizens to make these choices, not four people on some Court who by the way also hate this person. Again he will be favored more so going forward because of this Court's decision. Supreme Court will shoot this done quicky. Minnesota's court would not take this up at all and will not rule on this same subject in their State, they have actual scruples.
To this point the amount of folks entering the Capital for their own reasons is not anything that would come close to an insurrection episode. More like a small riot of folks than anything else. To have a real insurrection millions of his supporters would have to have been there not hundreds. Sorry does not rise to this word of our language being used in this episode. Does not fit the description fully. Sedition does rise to it.
Ok using your twisted logic Judges snd Courts decide whose on the ballot in every State not its citizens. Great world you live in here!!!! Not sure what Country you live in but those rules are not American. But then again you live rulings that favor your party, U expect no less from this board snd you. Guess you will all have to wait and see if America still exists or not. Tempest fugit.
Ok using your twisted logic Judges snd Courts decide whose on the ballot in every State not its citizens. Great world you live in here!!!! Not sure what Country you live in but those rules are not American. But then again you live rulings that favor your party, U expect no less from this board snd you. Guess you will all have to wait and see if America still exists or not. Tempest fugit.
Trumpaholics coming out of the woodwork to make merry the Colorado Court’s ruling of a person not being allowed on the States Election ballot. Little do these same smartie pants Libersl know us that all of their actions help this person be elected. They just cannot comprehend that even today. Again one cannot grow more brains. So keep up the great work this orange man does not have to say a thing and that grand Liberal machine in place will get him elected once again. Great work folks. No one in your beloved understands this even today. So funny watch go down. My vote goes to Anyone but Trump or Biden. ANYONE ELSE. Trust me.
Glad to see you said “The State of Colorado” not the Courts in Colorado. Thanks. Citizens rule!!!! Let the People of Colorado speak then!!!! Thanks.
Sorry I have no clue what that means. I belong to no group think fools. I am my own person. I need no one party to sway my mind like others here do. Yes believe it or not no one thinks or acts for me, I do all for myself. Such is the life of a Libertarian, using one’s own God given mind to think with. You should all try it once instead of being sheeple.
I am sure folks had Trump’s ear on some of the questionable teachings that had been going on and convinced him to defund such efforts. As President you have to depend on a litany of folks you should be able to trust. We know how that all turned out. As the U.S. was the major contributor here seemed an easy target for Trump to defund I gather. Glad to know they are eliminating some of the former hate in said teachings now. Children all deserve a good education but I do go back to why does the U.S. have to be the founder of everyone in our world, when we are broke. Seems someone out there really either knows we are not or we hold a massive amount of I.O.U. From every Country on Earth ver soon money will not matter much at all. The way to get rid of the curl Trent system to put us all on digital currency is to simply destroy the one we have now. Then forcible action will require we all follow suit or be broke.
https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/
https://bigthink.com/business/chestertons-fence/
https://themindcollection.com/chestertons-fence/
When the younger generation of today see something they do not understand such as a tradition or statue, or monument or a fence or wall it does not really matter. If they meet someone at the location upon their arrival and maybe ask the question what is this all about or why does this exist, I do not like it and think it should be torn down. If a person could intercept this person’s comments and let them know that you need to go and learn the wisdom behind this creation of this or that first before you decide to simply destroy it or damage it or remove it from this place. Seek out the wisdom behind this tradition, statue, monument or fence/wall as it may be. Unless that person seeks out assistance to learn more about these items instead of running off in a rage of hatred over it then they have refused to learn the wisdom of the creation and fail to ever reach any kind of proper understanding of our world and its contents. This does a disservice to those with more wisdom as to why these things exist in our world. They are not simply there to place hatred on others or to harm them in any way, there is a message in all of them of which if one does not seek out that wisdom they will end up and are ignorant of any facts on the basis of its creation. They must learn wisdom first but wish to skip it because that takes work and destruction takes but minutes and is easy.
Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking
A core component of making great decisions is understanding the rationale behind previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.
***
When we seek to intervene in any system created by someone, it’s not enough to view their decisions and choices simply as the consequences of first-order thinking because we can inadvertently create serious problems. Before changing anything, we should wonder whether they were using second-order thinking. Their reasons for making certain choices might be more complex than they seem at first. It’s best to assume they knew things we don’t or had experience we can’t fathom, so we don’t go for quick fixes and end up making things worse.
Second-order thinking is the practice of not just considering the consequences of our decisions but also the consequences of those consequences. Everyone can manage first-order thinking, which is just considering the immediate anticipated result of an action. It’s simple and quick, usually requiring little effort. By comparison, second-order thinking is more complex and time-consuming. The fact that it is difficult and unusual is what makes the ability to do it such a powerful advantage.
Second-order thinking will get you extraordinary results, and so will learning to recognize when other people are using second-order thinking. To understand exactly why this is the case, let’s consider Chesterton’s Fence, described by G. K. Chesterton himself as follows:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
***
Chesterton’s Fence is a heuristic inspired by a quote from the writer and polymath G. K. Chesterton’s 1929 book, The Thing. It’s best known as being one of John F. Kennedy’s favored sayings, as well as a principle Wikipedia encourages its editors to follow. In the book, Chesterton describes the classic case of the reformer who notices something, such as a fence, and fails to see the reason for its existence. However, before they decide to remove it, they must figure out why it exists in the first place. If they do not do this, they are likely to do more harm than good with its removal. In its most concise version, Chesterton’s Fence states the following:
Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.
Chesterton went on to explain why this principle holds true, writing that fences don’t grow out of the ground, nor do people build them in their sleep or during a fit of madness. He explained that fences are built by people who carefully planned them out and “had some reason for thinking [the fence] would be a good thing for somebody.” Until we establish that reason, we have no business taking an ax to it. The reason might not be a good or relevant one; we just need to be aware of what the reason is. Otherwise, we may end up with unintended consequences: second- and third-order effects we don’t want, spreading like ripples on a pond and causing damage for years.
Elsewhere, in his essay collection Heretics, Chesterton makes a similar point, detailed here:
Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good—” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their un-mediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.
As simple as Chesterton’s Fence is as a principle, it teaches us an important lesson. Many of the problems we face in life occur when we intervene with systems without an awareness of what the consequences could be. We can easily forget that this applies to subtraction as much as to addition. If a fence exists, there is likely a reason for it. It may be an illogical or inconsequential reason, but it is a reason nonetheless.
“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.”
— Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”
Chesterton also alluded to the all-too-common belief that previous generations were bumbling fools, stumbling around, constructing fences wherever they fancied. Should we fail to respect their judgement and not try to understand it, we run the risk of creating new, unexpected problems. By and large, people do not do things for no reason. We’re all lazy at heart. We don’t like to waste time and resources on useless fences. Not understanding something does not mean it must be pointless.
Take the case of supposedly hierarchy-free companies. Someone came along and figured that having management and an overall hierarchy is an imperfect system. It places additional stress on those at the bottom and can even be damaging to their health. It leaves room for abuse of power and manipulative company politics. It makes it unlikely that good ideas from those at the bottom will get listened to.
However, despite the numerous problems inherent in hierarchical companies, doing away with this structure altogether belies a lack of awareness of the reasons why it is so ubiquitous. Someone needs to make decisions and be held responsible for their consequences. During times of stress or disorganization, people naturally tend to look to leaders for direction. Without a formal hierarchy, people often form an invisible one, which is far more complex to navigate and can lead to the most charismatic or domineering individual taking control, rather than the most qualified.
It is certainly admirable that hierarchy-free companies are taking the enormous risk inherent in breaking the mold and trying something new. However, their approach ignores Chesterton’s Fence and doesn’t address why hierarchies exist within companies in the first place. Removing them does not necessarily lead to a fairer, more productive system.
Yes, doing things the way they’ve always been done means getting what we’ve always got. There’s certainly nothing positive about being resistant to any change. Things become out of date and redundant with time. Sometimes an outside perspective is ideal for shaking things up and finding new ways. Even so, we can’t let ourselves be too overconfident about the redundancy of things we see as pointless.
Or, to paraphrase Rory Sutherland, the peacock’s tail is not about efficiency. In fact, its whole value lies in its inefficiency. It signals a bird is healthy enough to waste energy growing it and has the strength to carry it around. Peahens use the tails of peacocks as guidance for choosing which mates are likely to have the best genes to pass on to their offspring. If an outside observer were to somehow swoop in and give peacocks regular, functional tails, it would be more energy efficient and practical, but it would deprive them of the ability to advertise their genetic potential.
***
All of us, at one point or another, make some attempt to change a habit to improve our lives. If you’re engaging in a bad habit, it’s admirable to try to eliminate it—except part of why many attempts to do so fail is that bad habits do not appear out of nowhere. No one wakes up one day and decides they want to start smoking or drinking every night or watching television until the early hours of the morning. Bad habits generally evolve to serve an unfulfilled need: connection, comfort, distraction, take your pick.
Attempting to remove the habit and leave everything else untouched does not eliminate the need and can simply lead to a replacement habit that might be just as harmful or even worse. Because of this, more successful approaches often involve replacing a bad habit with a good, benign, or less harmful one—or dealing with the underlying need. In other words, that fence went up for a reason, and it can’t come down without something either taking its place or removing the need for it to be there in the first place.
To give a further example, in a classic post from 2009 on his website, serial entrepreneur Steve Blank gives an example of a decision he has repeatedly seen in startups. They grow to the point where it makes sense to hire a Chief Financial Officer. Eager to make an immediate difference, the new CFO starts looking for ways to cut costs so they can point to how they’re saving the company money. They take a look at the free snacks and sodas offered to employees and calculate how much they cost per year—perhaps a few thousand dollars. It seems like a waste of money, so they decide to do away with free sodas or start charging a few cents for them. After all, they’re paying people enough. They can buy their own sodas.
Blank writes that, in his experience, the outcome is always the same. The original employees who helped the company grow initially notice the change and realize things are not how they were before. Of course they can afford to buy their own sodas. But suddenly having to is just an unmissable sign that the company’s culture is changing, which can be enough to prompt the most talented people to jump ship. Attempting to save a relatively small amount of money ends up costing far more in employee turnover. The new CFO didn’t consider why that fence was up in the first place.
***
Chesterton’s Fence is not an admonishment of anyone who tries to make improvements; it is a call to be aware of second-order thinking before intervening. It reminds us that we don’t always know better than those who made decisions before us, and we can’t see all the nuances to a situation until we’re intimate with it. Unless we know why someone made a decision, we can’t safely change it or conclude that they were wrong.
The first step before modifying an aspect of a system is to understand it. Observe it in full. Note how it interconnects with other aspects, including ones that might not be linked to you personally. Learn how it works, and then propose your change.
The United States is one of the largest contributors to the education of these children and it has been discovered that their teachings to the youths in Palestine are not being done in line with the UN directions. But again there is no punishment in the Liberal Progressive world only hatred and hiding behind the curtain that we are doing right by these methods, ask Israel that question.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/05/unrwa-palestine-israel-refugees-united-states-funding-corruption-education/
Palestinian Schools Have a Problem—and Are Running Out of Time
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has failed to fulfill demands for reform—and may soon face the consequences.
NOVEMBER 5, 2021, 4:03 PM
By Yardena Schwartz, a journalist and producer based in Tel Aviv.
When former U.S. President Donald Trump cut off U.S. funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 2018, he was widely criticized for eliminating a crucial source of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in need. Even critics of the embattled U.N. agency called the decision a mistake, arguing that working with UNRWA, not against it, was the best way to facilitate long-needed reform.
It came as little surprise when U.S. President Joe Biden renewed funding to UNRWA in April. According to the U.S. State Department, the United States is now providing UNRWA with close to its pre-Trump level of funding—$318 million in 2021—making the United States once again the agency’s top donor.
Yet this renewed aid comes with an unprecedented push for change—something the Trump administration, for all its criticism of UNRWA, never endeavored.
According to the Framework for Cooperation signed by the U.S. State Department and UNRWA on July 14, continued U.S. financing will require UNRWA to implement various reforms, including combating incitement and antisemitism in its educational curriculum, requiring the neutrality of its staff, and ensuring UNRWA facilities are not used by terrorist organizations and its staff are not affiliated with them. The framework—along with recently introduced bipartisan legislation—follow numerous reports on the problematic nature of UNRWA’s education system.
Speaking at the U.N. Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East on Oct. 19, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told member nations, “we need to see UNRWA undertake the necessary reforms to ensure its financial sustainability. And we will work with UNRWA to strengthen the agency’s accountability, transparency, and consistency with humanitarian principles, including neutrality.”
Eliminating antisemitism, incitement, and links to terrorism might sound like obvious conditions for a U.N. agency whose slogan is “Peace Starts Here.” But it’s far from clear whether these are conditions—especially as applied to UNRWA’s educational programs—the organization will be able to fulfill.
A UNRWA camp for refugees near Damascus, Syria in 1967.
A UNRWA camp for refugees is seen near Damascus, Syria, in 1967. HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
The United Nations established UNRWA in 1949 to aid the more than 700,000 Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes during the establishment of the state of Israel.
Nearly 73 years later, UNRWA operates 58 refugee camps and 715 schools for more than half a million boys and girls in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Originally designed as a temporary agency, UNRWA is now one of the largest U.N. organizations, employing some 30,000 people and serving around 5.7 million Palestinian refugees, nearly all of them descendants of the original refugees. “UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees,” its website says. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, meanwhile, oversees all the world’s other refugees, employs more than 18,000 people, and aids a population of nearly 59 million.
Nearly 60 percent of UNRWA’s roughly $1 billion annual budget is allocated to education programs which claim to teach children values of peace, tolerance, and nonviolent conflict resolution. Yet according to various studies of the Palestinian curriculum, which is taught by UNRWA in the Palestinian territories, the agency is falling far short of that goal. Textbooks depict Jews as enemies of Islam, glorify so-called martyrs who have died while committing terror attacks, and promote jihad for the liberation of historic Palestine, including areas firmly within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, such as Jaffa and Haifa. Maps of the region do not include the state of Israel, which throughout the curriculum is referred to as “the Zionist Occupation.”
A comprehensive report released in June, financed by the European Union and conducted by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, examined 172 Palestinian textbooks used in UNRWA schools. It found “ambivalent—sometimes hostile—attitudes toward Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people,” noting “frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people in, for example, textbook exercises [that] suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice, especially when embedded within the current political context.”
The only mention of peace with Israel was in one 10th grade history book, which quotes a speech delivered by late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and letters of mutual recognition exchanged between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1993. “The recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace and security documented in the letters by [former Palestinian leader] Yasser Arafat to [former Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin stands in contrast to the questioning of the legitimacy of the State of Israel expressed in other passages and textbooks,” the report states. It also determined that although textbooks focus heavily on human rights, they “do not apply these notions to Israel” or “to the rights of Israelis.”
A 5th grade Islamic education lesson “asks students to discuss the ‘repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the Prophet’ and then asks them to think of ‘other enemies of Islam.’” The report goes on: “It is not so much the sufferings of the Prophet or the actions of the companions that appear to be the focus of this teaching unit but, rather, the alleged perniciousness of the Jews.”
Another troubling example is a 5th grade lesson about Dalal Mughrabi. A perpetrator of the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, she carried out one of the worst terror attacks in Israeli history, killing 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children. The lesson about her reads, “our Palestinian history is full of many names of shuhada (martyrs) who sacrificed their lives for the homeland, including the shahida (martyr) Dalal Mughrabi whose struggle took the form of defiance and heroism, which made her memory immortal in our hearts and minds.” The report found that “no further portraits of significant female figures in Palestinian history are presented,” so “the path of violence implicitly appears to be the only option for women to demonstrate an outstanding commitment to their people and country.”
A 7th grade social studies textbook propagates the conspiracy theory that Israel removed stones from ancient sites in Jerusalem and “replaced them with stones bearing ‘Zionist drawings and shapes.’” A 9th grade Islamic education textbook features passages on jihad and “the wisdom behind fighting the infidels.”
In addition to criticism of its education system, UNRWA has also been roiled by other scandals. During the 2014 Gaza War, the agency discovered rockets stored in its schools and, on at least one occasion, returned them to Hamas. In 2019, the head of UNRWa resigned amid allegations of corruption and mismanagement, including abuse of power and suppression of dissent within the organization. Long accused of lacking transparency, a leaked ethics report that year led several European countries to suspend their funding.
In early September, I spoke with UNRWA’s chief spokesperson, Tamara Alrifai. Asked if and how the UNRWA curriculum would be modified to address the concerns contained within the new U.S. framework, Alrifai told me: “We do not change the curriculum because these are not our curriculums.” UNRWA uses host government textbooks everywhere they operate, she said.
“We acknowledge that sometimes there are parts in the PA [Palestinian Authority] textbooks that are not fully in line with U.N. standards and values, and that is where we interfere,” she explained. “With passages that are not gender sensitive or carry discrimination and incitement, we interfere there to make sure that either they are not being taught or that they are approached critically.” For example, she told me, “We stopped teaching the Dalal Mughrabi lesson in UNRWA schools.” Even before that lesson was removed last year, she said, “we instructed our teachers to approach this critically with the kids.”
Alrifai acknowledged that the issue of neutrality is a challenge, as the vast majority of UNRWA employees are themselves Palestinian refugees. However, she said, “there is zero tolerance for incitement, antisemitism, and discrimination.”
Numerous UNRWA staff have been found to be affiliated with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip. Many others have posted violent, antisemitic content on social media, with some praising Adolf Hitler. Seven teachers have been suspended while investigations into these incidents take place, Alrifai said. “If the allegations are proven, there will be disciplinary action that can amount to being dismissed,” she said.
Regarding accusations that UNRWA employees have ties to Hamas, Alrifai assured me: “For sure they’re not allowed to have a formal political position in Hamas and be UNRWA employees. But after that, I don’t know where the line is drawn. If they can be members of Hamas, they would be subject to disciplinary action by UNRWA.”
Although UNRWA primarily teaches the PA curriculum, it also produces some of its own material. For example, Alrifai noted, UNRWA schools teach their own human rights, conflict resolution, and tolerance curriculum on top of host country material. Yet that curriculum does not reference peace with Israel or tolerance toward Jewish people—in fact, it does not mention Israel or Jewish people at all.
During the pandemic, UNRWA published its own learning material online to support at-home schooling. A study of that content by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found the curriculum to be filled with violent language and glorification of militants. A 6th grade grammar lesson, for example, includes the phrase, “we shall defend the motherland with blood.” An 8th grade lesson teaches students that “Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise,” and “Palestinians have become an example of sacrifice.”
In response to the IMPACT-se report, UNRWA acknowledged that some of the curriculum was “not in line with U.N. values” and the agency “took steps to ensure that only approved material was used going forward.”
In late September, I visited a UNRWA school in Shuafat, East Jerusalem, at UNRWA’s invitation, to see how the new school year was beginning in the wake of renewed U.S. funding and the push for reform that came with it. The visit was cut short by UNRWA administrators, however, when I tried to speak with students about their curriculum inside the school.
I then caught up with several of them as they were beginning to walk home. My interpreter and I introduced ourselves and asked students if they could tell us a bit about their lessons at school. The children were eager to speak.
Asked what they are taught about the martyrs of Palestine, a 5th grade student replied that her class had just learned about Dalal Mughrabi (the perpetrator of the Coastal Road massacre who I had been told was no longer a part of the UNRWA curriculum).
“They taught us that she is a hero,” she said, showing us the page in her textbook. “We are taught that martyrs go to a very high level of heaven,” said another girl. Asked what they have learned regarding peace at school, the second girl replied: “We haven’t learned about peace. This is for older students.”
When we met a 9th grade student, we asked her what she had learned at school about the two-state solution. “We are taught to defend Palestine, so there can be no two-state solution.”
All of these interviews were conducted in the streets of Shuafat and not inside the school. When we passed the gates of the school several hours after we had left, one of the guards came to the entrance to remind us we were not welcome there.
Leaving Shuafat late that afternoon, I hailed a taxi from within the camp. The driver, Muhammad Taha, asked me what I was doing there. I told him I was writing about the renewal of U.S. funding to UNRWA. “The U.S. is giving millions of dollars to UNRWA, and where does it go?” Taha asked, gesturing to the streets we passed. “UNRWA isn’t helping anyone. Look around, and you can see it. The streets are filled with drugs and crime.”
In his introduction to the camp before we met with students, an UNRWA officer also mentioned to me that crime, drugs, and family disputes were rampant there. Taha, the taxi driver, was born in the camp and had spent 30 years of his life there. He was also educated by UNRWA. He left Shuafat when he became a father, he told me, “to give my children a better life.”
Responding to questions for this story, an official at the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration wrote, “the United States condemns in the strongest terms any manifestations of anti-Semitism, hate, or incitement. The Department has been very explicit about the reforms we expect to see to ensure UNRWA’s operations, including staff activities, facilities, and education materials, are conducted consistent with U.N. principles, such as neutrality, tolerance, respect for human rights, and non-discrimination. The Department has made it clear to UNRWA as part of our resumption of funding that acting in accordance with U.N. principles is non-negotiable. … We can—and will—hold UNRWA accountable to these commitments now that we are back at the table.”
While the framework signed in July ensures funding will continue for the next two years, “it sets clear benchmarks that UNRWA will need to follow moving forward,” said Joel Braunold, managing director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. “If they don’t meet these requirements, there will be huge political pressure on the Biden administration to cease or limit funding.”
That political pressure is beginning to mount. When Biden restored funding to the Palestinians in April, a bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced the Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act. First introduced by Rep. Brad Sherman in late 2019, the bill made it out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee without opposition but failed to reach the House floor before the end of session. The legislation, which now has nine Democratic and 19 Republican sponsors, would mandate annual State Department reports to Congress for 10 years on whether educational material produced by the PA and UNRWA contain “content and passages encouraging violence or intolerance toward other nations or ethnic groups” and what steps are being taken to reform the curriculum.
Shortly after the State Department’s framework with UNRWA was signed in July, a group of Republicans introduced the UNRWA Accountability and Transparency Act. With 13 sponsors in the Senate and 34 in the House, the bill would freeze UNRWA aid if the State Department cannot meet certain criteria, including confirmation that no UNRWA employees are members of or affiliated with terror organizations, that no UNRWA resources are being used by terror groups, and that the U.N. agency’s schools do not provide educational materials containing antisemitic content.
“I don’t think there is any question that UNRWA is an impediment to peace,” Sen. James Risch, who introduced the legislation, told Foreign Policy. If the Biden administration is serious about reforming UNRWA, Risch said, it should ensure these reforms are made before providing aid. “Until we see those reforms, they shouldn’t get any money from us. It’s that simple. In addition, we should be pressing our allies to cut their funding until we see those reforms.”
While some advocates of UNRWA reform applaud the Biden administration’s resumption of aid and its push for improvements, many say the framework does not go far enough. Although it encourages increased oversight, for example, that oversight would largely be carried out by UNRWA itself. Many say the agency has proven itself incapable of internal oversight.
According to a 2019 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, although UNRWA vowed to confront problematic material in Palestinian textbooks by providing alternative teaching materials and guidance for teachers, “UNRWA did not train teachers or distribute the complementary teaching materials to classrooms.”
Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, a nonprofit organization that has been analyzing the Palestinian curriculum for 20 years and published a critical report of UNRWA’s online material earlier this year, said, “the opacity of UNRWA’s operations does not befit a U.N. or humanitarian organization. There has to be transparency, actual oversight, and accountability to ensure compliance. This is the only thing which will restore confidence in UNRWA.”
In addition, Sheff said, UNRWA should not be able to make the excuse that “‘the PA curriculum is problematic, but we have mechanisms to redress it.’ This was never something that could be ascertained one way or the other. UNRWA claims that it has to use the host country’s teaching materials, yet this is not something they have to do. It’s not something the donor countries insist they do.” If UNRWA is going to teach the PA curriculum, he added, that curriculum must change. “It can no longer teach jihad and martyrdom and that young people should wish to sacrifice themselves.”
IMPACT-se also analyzes Israeli textbooks, and although Sheff acknowledges the Israeli curriculum “is not perfect,” references to the occupation, the suffering of Palestinians, and the Palestinian narrative of the conflict are prevalent. Israeli students are taught, for example, about the Israeli appropriation of Palestinian lands, the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin in 1948, and the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. This, Sheff wrote in a recent op-ed, would be “considered a left-wing curriculum by many Israeli parents.”
Advocates of UNRWA reform believe an organization of its size and budget should be more than capable of producing material that excludes violent or antisemitic material and includes lessons on peace and tolerance as it pertains to Israel.
“There should be a realistic approach to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would mean two states for two peoples and not something in which Israel’s Jewish character is called into question,” said Daniel Shapiro, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under the Obama administration and, at the time of our conversation, was a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies. He is now an advisor to the State Department.
Those pushing for reforming the Palestinian curriculum and UNWRA’s use of it believe the indoctrination of generations of Palestinians against peace is one of the reasons this conflict has remained so intractable. Referring to the PA’s refusal of Israel’s offer to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza during the Camp David summit in 2000 and a similar proposal for the creation of a Palestinian state in 2008, Risch said, “I don’t think you can point to another conflict in the world where there is so much resistance to reaching a settlement. The Palestinians have passed up every opportunity they have had to end this conflict.”
Palestinians, for their part, have been protesting the new terms of U.S. financing for UNRWA for months. At a demonstration outside UNRWA’s Gaza office in September, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced all Palestinian factions would work to “bring down the framework,” which he said “targets a large segment of Palestinian refugees, including members or those who have received military training in the Palestine Liberation Army or any other Palestinian organization.”
Education, Sheff said, is one of the most overlooked and obvious factors in this conflict, which could have more impact than perhaps any other effort. “If Palestinian children have no idea that peacemaking is the way to resolve this conflict and that there should be Israel and Palestine living side by side, if there is no chance that the next generation of Palestinian children will be educated toward the possibility of peace, there will be no peace,” he said. “This is not a complicated idea.”
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Yardena Schwartz is an award-winning freelance journalist and Emmy-nominated producer based in Tel Aviv.
Its America now but we have millions of illegals here we are all supporting being here illegally which all should be fined for this crime. Then they use all of our services which take away from poorer Americans who depend on these services. These new illegals have no clues what our laws or rules are and do not care hence the increases in crime all over this Country. Tax dollars we pay used to support Americans in need now it supports the world in need. If you do not wish to have a Country any longer Biden has created a good start in that path. If that is you're guy they you have issues pal. America is a lawful Country in which its REAL citizens follow the its laws, but others here illegally do not as they have no clue what they are, all they know is everything is free here for them. This places an undue burden on those Americans who most need that help but our services now are over strained due to this illegal activity and support by law abiding citizens whom are the only ones following our laws. Once illegals have the right to violate our laws due to their ignorance of them we no longer have a Country other than those Americans who still follow laws they think hold our Country together. Those days are long gone.
Related to folks who work in D.C. pick your party either way George Carlin said it best “it’s one big club and you ain’t in it”.
Yes for certain topics as he stated also here. The border wall and drilling once again for oil/gas so America, you know that Country we all live in can be independent from other tyrants on earth who overcharge America for their fuels. Sounds reasonable to me if one sticks with the facts of the statement.
Unless you wish him to follow in Obama’s and Biden’s DOJ and FBI who attack and go after their opponents. Gosh if Irange man did that you would all be up in arms instead of just thinking it, your two groupies did it. Talk about dictators. Too funny. But U forgot facts do not matter here when it comes to orange man. But hey he leads in all the polls even though you all spout your hatred for him every day. I guess all of his supporters should be actually thanking you for pointing out all the BS hatred being spewed for years about this one person.
Biden equals two wars and an Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. Free crime sprees across America snd who knows how many terrorists have crossed our totally Liberal open borders over this past two years. Oh well it’s how the Democrats plan to lose our Country. It’s all part of their plans. Abortion up to the day of birth. Sick. Money flowing yo support one of the most corrupt Countries on the earth. And now money for Israel to kill its neighbors.
We must stop giving away money we do not have. But if there’s a buck to be made in it all the Biden family will be front and center with their greedy little hands outstretched to handle it via another LLC.
Keep up the good work here and you will all get your wish.
By the way have a great holiday time.
So funny for a woman who hasn’t any clue what party she belongs to.
Here is to hoping that all the children that went back home or the parents who traveled to their children’s homes openly thanked those same parents for giving birth and life to them. Happy Thanksgiving belated as it may be here.
Libertarian's believe in the rights for all American's even the unborn ones. So I remain the same here rights for all American's. You feel or think the unborn babies have zero rights here. Sad as that may be think of these decisions in this way might make more sense to you. The more Democrats who get abortions are lowering your voting public hence the eventual end of your party this is why you all allow illegals to come here freely, the offset in numbers the smartie pants Dem.'s have done this math and they know how many more votes they need based on abortion numbers to get those votes back into the fold. And what illegal would not vote for them? None they all will as you brought them all here. But again illegals have zero rights in my mind and must return home not be given free rides on the taxpayers dime and voting and driving rights here. They need to be returned home. Many go back after they start earning all this public money to that homelands they had fled from due to persecution in their nation, so they go there and live like kings so much for their persecution reasoning.
I have posted the meanings and differences here before. No one cares about the real meaning about such facts. It is rather funny though that this guy leads most all polls in the U.S. yet he is such a dope. Now that is funny. Folks here need to learn that being smarter than everyone else is not a great trait to tout around. But again no teaching moments happening here that is for certain.
Thanks but not sure the unpaid workers is a part of this case. But you are correct many contractors who hire their folks did not get their fair value for the work the performed.
I agree but Zab nailed it for me thank you.
Zab you are correct the lost revenues for NY State is tge harmed party here I agree totally. Sorry I must have thought there were other parties harmed directly. Thanks appreciate it.
Anyone know who was harmed her in Trumps NY lawsuit about fraud and assets value? Who was the harmed party bringing this suit? Did someone not get paid? I have not seen who the harmed party of this suit is. Seems most cases has some entity or person who was harmed by the actions of another.
Some history information for your use here Hitler loved these guys to do his dirty work for him, used them to a tee. Oh well we all get used once in awhile so be it.
https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mufti-and-the-f-uuml-hrer
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/hajj-amin-al-husayni-meets-hitler
https://www.dw.com/en/how-nazis-courted-the-islamic-world-during-wwii/a-41358387
Foreign affairs cost our taxpayers plenty, we should make all these Countries our States of the United States as well as Ukraine here God knows we have paid enough to own them all. Why not hey.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-in-afghanistan-cost-america-300-million-per-day-for-20-years-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022
https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/usaid.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Congressional%20Research%20Service%2C%20as%20of,obligated%20from%201946-2023%20is%20an%20estimated%20%24260%20billion
I care about the safety of allies that we have created over the years. My little bit of small words on this board have no affect on anything especially in the minority of any Party you folks belong to. As a minority amongst you I thought you may like to view the interview from the other day with the former Ambassador which to me shed better light on some history that he lived and was a part of. I do not shut my life off to the world and care about the safety of all humans. I just disagree with how we decide who gets free money from us as I do not think it is a part of our Constitution. Be that as it may it is the reality I have to live with every day even though I disagree with it. We do not need nutjobs like Hamas coming here to kill American's either.
Let me ask you a question if I may. How many Hamas terrorists have crossed our Southern Border over the past three years? You don't know do you? Neither does our Government. I hope this helps you sleep well tonight pal.
I do support the elimination of those who would do such atrocities as these seen in Israel against innocent citizens of all Countries by these Stone Age Barbarians. Those who protest around the world calling for more bloodshed are misguided. They should be taken care of and I think there is not better group to do so than those that are about that business right now.
Again, these simple words mean nothing in the world or on this board and nor does anyone else's comments here for that matter. We are a very miniscule bit in the scheme of things and hold zero weight in changes that are needed to occur. Too far gone!!!!!!!!!!!!! I pray for those on the front lines here and in doing the work necessary to eliminate this group of haters of humanity. I pray also for those missing and those who have lost loved ones in this tragedy. There is a lot I am sure we do not know of the recent events and of the total history of these factions. Again unless one was there living it in totality then we know next to nothing of it.
Good interview done yesterday worth a look see.
Interview with Ari Melber of MSNBC 10/11/2023 former Ambassador Dennis Ross
PART1
Hamas relentlessly attacks peace process for its own agenda, says U.S. Envoy from PLO-Israel deal
Ambassador Dennis Ross, a top peace negotiator for the Clinton administration and diplomatic veteran for the Bush and Obama administrations, discusses past breakthroughs in the peace process — and Hamas’s attacks on efforts to build a two-state solution. Ross spoke with MSNBC’s Ari Melber about Hamas’s new terror attacks and the wider history in the region.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/hamas-relentlessly-attacks-peace-process-for-its-own-agenda-says-u-s-envoy-from-plo-israel-deal-194943045676
PART II
Hamas aims to kill Saudi deal that would help Palestinians, says U.S. Peace Envoy Dennis Ross
Ambassador and veteran U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross explains how Hamas's long-standing aim to scuttle peace deals is linked to recent attacks and its fear of a viable Israel-Saudi deal. This is an excerpt from a longer, two-part report from "The Beat with Ari Melber."
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/hamas-aims-to-kill-saudi-deal-that-would-help-palestinians-says-u-s-peace-envoy-dennis-ross-194942533719
No comments on this story. Not sure why I would have. Another politician wasting money belonging to others typical here and in D.C. no difference.
At least some Democrats have a conscience, good to know. Anyone who condones this terrorism against humanity is themselves to answer for their own actions. This was a massacre on innocents not any Army against an Army here. Sad. Where are the Academic leader's voices speaking out against this atrocity in Israel? Silence, while their indoctrinated students protest in favor of the terrorists and for more bloodshed.. Sad day for the World.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/furious-dem-slams-squad-members-011555909.html
Sorry for not being an all knowing internet guru about who owns what I simply saw an article and informed the board about it is all. I did not know the information you have stated here. Gee something I did not know, go figure??? Sorry I was not aware of those intricate details which means as I have stated before all news from here on out is suspect aka A.I. idiocy now to be concerned with for all of us. Good evening…
Sane man to you tells us slot about you here. So sad. He may have been a good man at the start of his career but he’s never looked back after taking his first buck in D.C.
You are a very sick person, I do not favor Iran, for crying out loud you keep putting words in my mouth here. You should be banned from here if anyone is!!!!
Totally agree here, this is why I believe more money and weaponry supplied by us does nothing but prolong this hatred and killings. Be done with it. By that I mean the U.S. funding any of this tragedy of all tragedies. Let them deal with it on their level. Which is real low….. IMHO. We have armed Israel for years that should end now. They have enough already and do not need any more. We have given them a plenty.
No Zi would not vote for RFK but right now of all the candidates he is the least phony running. Nice try again of putting your words in my mouth. As unaffiliated voters go and some dumb Dem.’s and Rep.’s who have no one of any good purpose running he will rob votes away from everyone running if he does run independently. Just the way I see it. But please I do not wish to put words in your mouth as you have your own opinions I think unless you are directed by others what to say like your party does all of the time. Hey you over there follow me off this cliff we are all doing it. Oh ok sir coming right up where do we jump?
You folks can support these foreign payments with our tax monies till your all blue in the face leave my share out of it. You folks just cannot stand to have someone with another opinion than yours.
Like Hillary the other day saying that the MAGA folks all need to be deprogrammed because they are in a cult. Too funny using this logic then every Democratic Representative who always votes in lock step with Jeffries and Pelosi are all in a cult too as they have no minds of their own to really vote how they really think. Nope like you folks here always tow the line whether you agree or not as you all cannot think for yourselves either unless Biden farts it out to you all to swallow up. That to me is the real cult. Lock step, and there used to be a name for it but it fails me now. I am sure you can figure it out though.
This is why this two party system does not work anymore for America. You all do know or realize tgat today the majority of voters who are registered are unaffiliated right? What does tgat tell you? Maybe nothing but to me simply put no one likes the two parties that you folks love. You are now in the minority of all American registered voting citizens.
Hey I have an idea let’s start a cult of unaffiliated voters and take this next election like RFK is about to do here.
Too funny!!!!
They do it anyway just because you think they don’t does not make it so China and Russia are big in Africa and South America snd we fund those nations too. Wtong to do so but we do it all the same.
Your perception of things is not mine. Sorry.
I understand about the $6Billion dollars it’s the perception snd action of our fearless leader to allow this give back of their funds like they are going to become good little boys now is what is at issue here. Appeasement and lack of strength to a mortal enemy of our Country’s. Do not do them any favors here at all. Hamas therefore feels emboldened to take this action they have long been supported by Joes friends I our enemy of Iran. Either way it is very bad politics got Gim nowhere based on these recent attacks. Hence why I am against giving any money to foreign nations. You break international law you ought not be given money whether it’s yours or not. Some simple reasoning need be applied here.
If others bring a fight to us we should defend ourselves but policing the world is a bad idea and policy. Israel has enough money and weapons to defend itself against intruders and has the best military and intelligence in the world. They will be just fine.
Do not care if my money is going to support killing I am against it no matter where it is. Unless with a conflict brought you shores I am not interested in supporting foreign nations killing each other off.
Yes I was, no foreign country should get aid from us until such time as we have no debt here. Supporting blood thirsty killers on either side is madness.
On and on we go for another thousand years to come. I guess you are all blood thirsty idiots like these two tribes are. Why don’t you go over there and join them in your hate. You all seem to live to hate so much put your money where your foolish mouths are then go pick up a rifle!!!!! I for one am done with hearing about it and assisting each side to kill each other. Be fine with it all drop a big one there snd finish it all. They hate each other so let them get it done with we can pick up the pieces and take ownership of it all as we have surely paid for this crap by now. This by the way is not news it’s been this way for hundreds of years. Time for them both snd all to bring it to its ugly head. Grow a pair and be done with it.
Rex, you writing your memoirs on every post?? I thought I was bad. Bottom line these folks in the Middle East hate each other it will not end until they are Al dead so let’s get on with it over there and let them Duke it out completely. Whomever is left standing owns tgat little piece of sand over there. Or, put the leaders of both of these idiotic maniacs on a deserted island with two hand knives and some rope. Whoever comes out alive wins that little piece of sand over there. Simply put end the madness over there one way or another and quit taking our tax dollars over there to annihilate one another. Total waste of our time here. Take care of America only. Get rid of this waste like going to the recycling bin each day.