“The UK is appalled by allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned,” the UK Foreign Office said in a statement.
“The UK is temporarily pausing any future funding of UNWRA whilst we review these concerning allegations,” it added.
Of course, this is all based on nebulous “information from” a government hell bent on as many Palestinians as possible dying with an officially stated policy of lying to achieve their goals.
Add the timing right after the preliminary findings of the ICJ, the fact that perhaps thousands of Palestinians are only alive today because of UN aid, as well as all the other unconfirmed pro-Israel stories all over in just a few hours and the whole thing stinks to high heaven of a coordinated propaganda push.
It’s war. Both sides constantly use propaganda to their advantage. Propaganda is just story-telling. The best propaganda is fact-based, but framed in a particular way that is favorable to the propagandist. I would suggest that Hamas is particularly good at propaganda nowadays.
Israel, on the other hand, relies primarily on established sympathy among older people who formed their positive opinions about Israel back in 70s, 80s, and 90s. Israel was the “little engine that could”: a tiny country surrounded by genocidal autocratic countries determined to exterminate it. Israel was like the Athenians successfully battling the Persian Empire with their small but plucky citizen militia. Believe it or not, Israel was seen as the underdog in those days.
Young people today only know Israel as the right-wing, corrupt shithole is has become under Netanyahu. And Israel isn’t trying very hard to convince them otherwise. The sooner Netanyahu and his religious zealots are gone, the better for everyone.