Skip to content
  • Image
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Podcasts
  • Email
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
  • Contact
The Arab Daily News

The Arab Daily News

Original news, features, opinions from Chicago to Jerusalem

  • About
    • About
    • Our Writers
    • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
    • Book Store
    • Contact
    • Submit Book Reviews, Press Releases
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Corrections Policy
    • Profile on Ray Hanania
    • Submit Press Release
  • Features
    • Food
    • Book Review
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Travel
  • Arab Stores Targeted
  • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Heritage America resources
    • Directory
      • Groups & Organizations
      • Mosques, Churches
      • Restaurants
      • 2008 & 2014 Arab Media Directories
    • National Arab Heritage Month
    • Video: Chicago Arab History
    • Video: Photo Array of Chicago Arabs
    • Overview of Arabs in America
    • Hanania standup comedy
    • Arabs on the Titanic
    • Obituaries
  • Podcasts
    • Ray Hanania on Politics Podcast
    • Arab News Ray Hanania Radio
    • Arab Radio Podcast intro
    • Radio Baladi Detroit
  • Hanania on Tiktok
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
  • Toggle search form
  • photo credit author Nehemia Gershuni-Aylho www.NGPhoto.biz and Wikipedia
    Emergency Court Motions to Stop Elbit Drone Parts Shipment via Frankfurt Airport  Activism
  • American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh murdered by Israeli soldiers May 11, 2022
    Documentary names soldier it says killed Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 American Arabs
  • Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ
    Jordan bans 12 news sites for ‘spreading media poison’ following corruption report Arab World
  • CAIR Logo. Council on American Islamic Relations
    CAIR Condemns MIT for banning Class President from Graduation Ceremony over Anti-Genocide speech Activism
  • ADC creates emergency fund to defend people who are being punished for expressing views on the American-sanction violence by Israel in the Gaza Strip. Photo courtesy of ADC
    ADC Condemns ADL, Rep. Torres’ Defamation of Dr. Lara Sheehi Activism
  • UN Special Committee on Israeli practices in occupied territories warns of a second Nakba  Arab World
  • Arab American community liaison Hassan Nijem, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Basta at the Arab American Heritage Month event hosted by Pappas’s office.
    Pappas honors Arab American business and community leaders for Heritage Month Activism
  • 04-28-25 Pappas Arab Heritage Month
    Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recognizes Arab American Heritage Month by honoring business and community leaders American Arabs
  • Stuffed Grape Leaves. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    A recipe on how to make Stuffed Grape Leaves with lamb, ox tail and rice American Arabs
  • Andrew Boutros, interim US Attorney Northern District of Illinois. Photo courtesy of the US Attorney's Office
    Andrew S. Boutros Takes Oath of Office as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois American Arabs
  • Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians March 18 2025
    Palestinians demand investigation of Israeli war crimes in Gaza Strip Arab World
  • Illinois Muslim Action Day April 9 2025
    Illinois Muslim Action Day Policies at April 9 Statehouse News Conference American Arabs
  • Investigation demanded in March 23 massacre of 15 first responders by Israel's military in Rafah
    Investigation demanded into Israel slaughter of First Responder in Rafah on March 23, 2025 Arab World
  • More than a dozen candidates running for various local offices in the Chicagoland suburbs attended an Ifatr dinner Thursday, March 13, 2025 hosted by the Arab American Chamber of Commerce at the Jerusalem Banquet Hall in Bridgeview.
    Candidates promise fairness and engagement at Arab Chamber Iftar event March 13 Activism
  • Orland Fire Protection District, Fiscal Voices, receive endorsement of the Arab American Democracy Coaliton
    Independent candidates for Orland Fire receive Arab and Muslim American endorsement Activism
Palestinian refugees forced to flee their homes at gunpoint by Jewish terrorist groups operating in Palestine in the 1930s, 1940s and after Israel was created on May 14, 1948. Photo courtesy of the United Nations

Unresolved status of Palestinian rights makes UNRWA essential

Posted on May 7, 2022May 7, 2022 By rayhanania No Comments on Unresolved status of Palestinian rights makes UNRWA essential
SHARE ...
          
 
  

  • Tweet

Unresolved status of Palestinian rights makes UNRWA essential

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was set up to help refugees forced out of Palestine by the Israeli war in 1947 and again by the Israeli war in 1967. Until the war is resolved and Palestinian rights are recognized by Israel, the UNRWA has a major and important role to play and must be sustained.

By Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania

Time is not the factor that determines justice. The Rule of Law does. And until the Rule of Law is applied to the Question of Palestine, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is a mandatory necessity to help the Palestinian refugees, who have lived in a violent limbo caused by Israel, to survive.

The Israelis have tried everything to erase the Palestinians including using violence and causing death. Israel has turned to expulsions, home demolitions, and the denial of fundamental civil rights.

As Israel approaches it 75th year of contentious existence without agreeing to a genuine or fair peace, UNRWA is needed to hep the Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were forcibly evicted in 1948 and again in 1967 by Israeli forces.

You can’t steal someone’s lands and then hope that people will forget. They won’t forget. In fact, as we have seen, the memory of the original crime, the Naqba, only continues to grow.

Palestinian refugees forced to flee their homes at gunpoint by Jewish terrorist groups operating in Palestine in the 1930s, 1940s and after Israel was created on May 14, 1948. Photo courtesy of the United Nations
Palestinian refugees forced to flee their homes at gunpoint by Jewish terrorist groups operating in Palestine in the 1930s, 1940s and after Israel was created on May 14, 1948. Photo courtesy of the United Nations

 

The biased and racist media of the 1940s did everything it could to suppress and squash the story of the Palestinians, asserting that the responsibility for the refugees rests with the Arab countries rather than with Israel, which took their homes, lands and possessions in their military war against justice and civil rights.

Israel wrapped itself in the Holocaust, which was caused not by the Arab World but by the White Europeans, in particular Germany and the Axis powers, but empowered by the blind and uncaring eye of the West, like the United States.

 

There were more than enough signs to know what the Nazis were doing to the Jews and millions of other non-Aryans during World War II, but the West was more anti-Semitic than anyone and they did nothing until they couldn’t avoid it. Israel’s creation allowed them to turn the virulent anti-Semitism of the West into a “moral” alternative that had Jewish refugees from the War go to Israel rather than to American and Western shores where they were not wanted.

And the price the West was willing to pay was to abandon the rights of the Palestinians, who lived in a country called “Palestine” that was governed by the Ottomans and then the British and then by. Israeli and Jordan.

The Arab World certainly contributed to the Palestinian refugee suffering through its constant turmoil and emotional outbursts. The Arabs did as much to fail the Palestinians as anyone. They fought for Palestine in 1948 after Israel declared its creation — that’s an important point to remember, that the Arab attack took place after the pre-Israel forces grabbed far more of the land than was proposed for them in the United Nations partition.

The pre-Israel forces were brutal and used terrorism, the first acts of terrorism to visit the Middle East, destroying whole towns of Christians and Muslims, murdering women and children, blowing up hotels and killing hostages.

That was the Jewish extremism and terrorism that Western history plays down. Several of the Jewish terrorist leaders, the most violent including Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, became prime ministers of Israel.

During the administration of former President Donald Trump, his ultra-religious son-in-law Jared Kushner sought to extinguish the flame of Palestinian rights in a more blunt way than any other political person has tried. But he failed. Kushner wasn’t the first. Every American president since Ronald Reagan has sought to undermine Palestinian rights, Democrats and Republicans, each in a different way. As if when it comes to Palestinian rights, there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans in America.

Stop fooling yourself. The Republicans are more open about their hostility towards Palestine, the reminder of Israel’s atrocities, while the Democrats do it in a less aggressive way with “happy talk” and often empty promises of peace for all when it is really about peace for Israel.

UNRWA is the glue that holds the Palestinian cause together. The administration of President Joe Biden has helped keep UNRWA alive by restoring funding. And while his words of justice and two-states are moving, he is against a brick wall in the Democratic Party which talks the talk but never walks the real walk.

Even with President Bill Clinton, who tried to force a flawed agreement on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat that needed more Israeli concessions, the peace process swiftly leaned towards Israel’s needs rather than to the needs of justice. Oslo was only a start and it needed more work, but Israel and Clinton wanted to make it the end result, placing Palestinians in Bantustans with their own local governance.

UNRWA is the price of deception and lies from governments that believe that tossing money on problems will make them go away and disappear. But the rights of Palestinians will never evaporate.

Palestine is stronger today in the memories of millions who have never been able to step foot on the land, something Palestinians learned from the Jewish people themselves.

Jews who had never visited the Holy Land lived their lives embraces the belief of Jewish freedom. And they would have had it had they done it in a Democratic way rather than partitioning Palestine into an impossible checkerboard of seven land areas that overlapped and intertwined, with one area encapsuling Jerusalem.

The radicals and extremists on both sides long ago undermined the idea of a Two-State solution, or another word for “partition.” More and more the only answer is One State where Jews, Christians and Muslims, including all of the refugees including Jewish Refugees and Palestinians refugees, can live together as equals.

As long as they are not equal and there is no peace, UNRWA is a mandatory moral necessity, the price the world must pay for an injustice they helped cause.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter. A political analyst and CEO of Urban Strategies Group, Hanania’s opinion columns on mainstream issues are published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers. His Middle East columns are published in the Arab News. For more information on Ray Hanania visit www.Hanania.com or email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)

 

SUBSCRIBE BELOW

Subscribe to Ray's columns

Subscribe to Ray Hanania’s Columns

* indicates required field.

 

Select Email Format


Two Guys on Politics podcast with Former Congressman Bill Lipinski and former Chicago City Hall reporter Ray Hanania www.TwoGuysonPolitics.com

PS … Follow me on Gettr the Uncensored Twitter. Gettr.com/user/rayhanania Fight back against #SocialMediaBigBrother

newswire info
  • About
  • Latest Posts
rayhanania
rayhanania
Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News
Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.  

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.

Follow RayHanania at Twitter
rayhanania
Latest posts by rayhanania (see all)
  • Israelisnipers shooting and killing hospital workers in Gaza - December 11, 2023
  • CAIR Condemns Israeli Executions of Wounded, Unarmed Palestinian in West Bank   - December 11, 2023
  • Arab and Muslim American voters face a “simple choice” between Biden’s inhumanity and Trump’s edgy politics - December 9, 2023

  • Tweet

SHARE ...
          
 
  
 
          
 
 Tweet 
Arab World, Bloggers, Christian & Muslim, Civil Rights, Commentary, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine & Jordan, Politics, racism, Spotlight, war Tags:1947, 1967, Israeli wars, Naqba, Palestinians, refugees, support for refugees, Two-State Solution, UN, United Nations, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA

Post navigation

Previous Post: Chicago aldermen to host “forum” to explore Mayor Lightfoot’s racist crackdown on Arab stores
Next Post: Arabs and Muslim blast Mayor lightfoot for racist store closings

Related Posts

  • Israeli journalists, IDF twist facts on social media videos Arab World
  • Arab News Editor-in-Chief Faisal J, Abbas (L) and FII Institute CEO Richard Attias.
    Arab News, FII Institute partner to shed light on the future of regional media industry Arab World
  • Holy Land Principles Push Cisco On Fair Employment American Arabs
  • Attorney Stanley Cohen defends his fight for Arab Americans American Arabs
  • USS Liberty Ship's Patch
    JerusalemU Lies About the USS Liberty Bloggers
  • RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia and Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart - http://www.uwants.com/viewthread.php?tid=3817223&extra=page%3D1
    Arabs on Titanic: Arabs share the pain but not the glory in ship’s tragic tale American Arabs

More Related Articles

Image from Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's "A Compendium of Chronicles. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Why allow religious extremists to re-define Islam in the West? American Arabs
Saudi business women in Jeddah. Photo courtesy of the Saudi Embassy Saudi Arabia Issues Sweeping Changes to Enhance Role of Women in Society Arab World
President Barack Obama meets with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the State Dining Room of the White House, March 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) President Trump’s Audacity for Action Abdennour Toumi
2022 World Cup sparks labour reform, just not in Qatar Arab World
Potatoes recipe with Zahtar (Za'atar). Photo courtesy of Pereg Four reasons why you need Zahtar in your life American Arabs
Samar Khalaf, ADC President, 2013-2020 Khalaf announces his retirement as ADC president American Arabs

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Ray Hanania's 4 times a week columns at https://RayHanania.com at Substack

Enter Your Email to Subscribe to Ray Hanania’s Columns

  • OPINION COLUMNS
  • Photo courtesy of Journalist Abdennour Toumi
    France: Political Compromise vs Political Instability
    August 28, 2024
  • Zakia Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia
    Arabs eat Middle East food like they are making love
    June 27, 2024
  • Zwar lamb kabob and kufta with white and yellow rice
    Zwar ranked the Best Middle East restaurant in Chicagoland suburbs
    June 8, 2024
  • Pictured: Rahm Emanuel, Afghan activist Salman Aftab who was co-chair of the Iftar dinner, and several non-Arab Muslim leaders. Also pictured is Ald. Joe Moore. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania for Arab News
    Comprehensive look at the failings of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
    January 18, 2024
  • NEWSWIRE
  • CAIR Logo. Council on American Islamic Relations
    CAIR Condemns MIT for banning Class President from Graduation Ceremony over Anti-Genocide speech
    June 1, 2025
  • Arab American community liaison Hassan Nijem, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Basta at the Arab American Heritage Month event hosted by Pappas’s office.
    Pappas honors Arab American business and community leaders for Heritage Month
    April 29, 2025
  • 04-28-25 Pappas Arab Heritage Month
    Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recognizes Arab American Heritage Month by honoring business and community leaders
    April 27, 2025
  • Mike Ghouse
    Celebration of 500th Interfaith Marriage Ceremony
    February 14, 2025

Creative Commons License
All work on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

  • NEWS
  • photo credit author Nehemia Gershuni-Aylho www.NGPhoto.biz and Wikipedia
    Emergency Court Motions to Stop Elbit Drone Parts Shipment via Frankfurt Airport 
    June 7, 2025
  • American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh murdered by Israeli soldiers May 11, 2022
    Documentary names soldier it says killed Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022
    June 1, 2025
  • BOOK REVIEWS
  • Faisal Abbas Book Anecdotes
    Book Review: Arab author shares his anecdotes living in the United Kingdom
    October 22, 2024
  • Columnist Ray Hanania at the ADC Convention in Dearborn with the author Susan Abulhawa
    Book Review: Mornings in Jenin bySusan Abulhawa
    September 14, 2024
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • Television set and remote. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
    MBC GROUP unveils MBCNOW, its brand-new groundbreaking entertainment service aggregator
    February 24, 2025
  • ArabCon 2024 Gala Program features Dr. Cornel West, Macklemore, and more
    September 6, 2024
  • New-iTunes-1400-x-1400-The-Ray-Hanania-Show-Podcast-Icon-300-x-300.jpg
  • terroristbookcover-300-x-300.jpg
  • powerpr300x300ad.jpg
  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png
  • Podcast-iTunes-Logo-Chi-City-Hall-1985.jpg
Arab News Newspaper Logo
Read the Arab News, the leading English language newspaper in the MIddle East

Follow Ray Hanania at
Twitter
Facebook
TitkTok
BlueSky
RayHanania Columns

Click here to get information on The Ray Hanania Radio Show and its podcasts

Copyright © 2025 The Arab Daily News.

Powered by PressBook Premium theme