In wanting Mumsnet to help Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley

[GiantBranch]

Last week, Israel banned 37 international aid organisations from operating in the strip, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Medicine Sans Frontieres (MSF). MSF delivers one in three of Gaza’s babies, and experts warn that immediate action must be taken to prevent a catastrophe.

It has prompted more than 100 leading members of the arts, including Dames Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Joanna Lumley, Sienna Miller, Suranne Jones and singer Paloma Faith, to sign a letter urging popular online platform Mumsnet to join them in demanding urgent government action ensuring maternity care is accessible in Gaza.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-israel-baby-birth-judi-dench-letter-b2896981.html

Which agencies and where is the evidence?
Part of the statement from MSF reads:

MSF unequivocally refutes the allegations made by the Israeli authorities in recent days. MSF would never knowingly employ anyone involved in military activities, which contradicts our core values and ethics. If the descriptions of what our teams see with their own eyes in Gaza - death, destruction and the human consequences of genocidal violence – are unpalatable to some, the fault lies with those committing these atrocities, not with those who speak of them.
Full statement is in a link I previously posted re MSF

Evidence of that? Hamas require all NGOs operating in Gaza to have Hamas-approved operatives embedded within them at a senior level.

MSF would never knowingly employ anyone involved in military activities

Never knowingly - they might not know but others might.

‘Military activities’ - what about other activities supporting Hamas?

Likewise. Perhaps if Ricky Gervais had been one of the signatories, it would have been well received. Who knows?

https://www.foxnews.com/world/former-doctors-without-borders-leader-calls-group-accomplices-hamas-over-gaza-war-response

"Well, it would have been impossible at the time when I was secretary-general of MSF to be as biased as MSF — Doctors Without Borders — is now in Gaza. We were defining ourselves as a neutral, impartial and humanitarian organization[.] I think now MSF in Gaza is really taking the side [of] Hamas and against Israel."

Alain Destexhe, who worked as a doctor with MSF in the 1980s before serving as the group’s secretary-general in the 1990s

So a group of privileged people in the arts are asking a group of parents, many of whom are much less privileged, to lobby the government about this issue.

Why don't they lobby the government themselves?

But you don't care about maternal healthcare in Afghanistan and the fact that 97% of the foreign aid female HCPs have been banned from working at a centre there now (which presumably is representative), leaving women without care. This was handwaved away. Because the aid agencies can have 'access' to the country - only to treat men though - you're not bothered.

There are fewer aid workers who can access Afghanistan (given some of them are female, and banned from working) than there are aid workers banned from Gaza. Where only 15% of NGOs have not complied with Israel's demands to demonstrate they're not terrorists or terrorist enablers. Political neutrality should be the VERY FIRST thing you do if you're a genuine NGO and needs to be done IN ORDER to help Gazan civilians (some of whom don't support Hamas).

Presumably Afghan women don't even have access to cesarians now, and will just die in childbirth.

If it was about maternal care then the fact that all women in Afghanistan are now officially banned from having any such care would be at least equally important.

It's not, it's about taking a side and trying to get the UK government to take a side in a very complex war that no-one involved in this stupid letter, nor the women on this site, can possibly understand properly. Because all we get is propaganda of one kind or another.

Almost. They are asking Justine Robertson to lobby the government, on behalf of all the mothers that use her site. They haven't deigned to ask us directly, because, I presume, we are the hoi polloi.

Having read the very biased and not at all politically neutral website - which shocked me upthread - I'm not surprised by this.

The UN sacked 9 of their own staff working for UNWRA after investigations found they may have been involved in the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks against Israel.

The US withdrew funding and never started it again. The UK and several other countries paused funding. They reinstated it a few months later but only after UNRWA came up with an action plan setting out detailed reforms.

For some reason only Palestine is on these people's radar.

An independent enquiry found no evidence which is why funding was reinstated.

Exactly and their behaviour shows they're lying about caring about maternal care because they clearly don't give a shit about Afghani women who are left almost ENTIRELY without ANY maternal care at all.

They also don't care about the MN UK maternity care campaign (women and babies have died here too).

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2024/08/06/nine-unrwa-employees-fired-10-cleared-over-7-oct-attacks

Fox News - that paragon of journalistic impartiality?? Seriously - Infamous for the spread of misinformation and recently sued for falsehoods claiming the 2020 election was rigged? Falsehoods pushed by Bondi, also quoted in this piece. The other source appears to be a random who we are expected to believe because he worked for MSF 30 years ago and it thinks it isn’t any good any more.

From the UNs own news site:

Investigators made findings in relation to 19 UNRWA staff alleged to have been involved in the attacks, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told journalists in New York.

“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement, while in nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement,” he said.

Regarding these 10 cases, he said that appropriate measures will be taken in due course, in conformity with UNRWA Regulations and Rules.

With respect to the remaining nine cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the 7 October attacks.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini issued a statement acknowledging the completion of the probe.

“I have decided that in the case of these remaining nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA. All contracts of these staff members will be terminated in the interest of the Agency,” he said.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152841

Yes I do and I have said so and would happily support any campaign for Afghani women, I am also deeply concerned by the roll back of abortions rights in the US but this thread is about one specific campaign concerning healthcare for pregnant Palestinian women I cannot write about everything at once

Well quite. OP clearly isn’t bothered about medical care for women and babies…

Although some were sacked because they ‘may’ have been involved, there was no actual evidence. From your link:

The investigation, carried out by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the UN’s highest investigative body, found no evidence or insufficient evidence of involvement in 10 cases. In nine other cases it determined that “the UNRWA staff members may have been involved” in the attacks.
Announcing the findings on Monday, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq noted that because “information used by Israeli officials to support the allegations have remained in Israeli custody, OIOS was not able to independently authenticate most of the information provided to it”.
When Israel first made the allegations in January, more than a dozen donors suspended their funding to UNRWA, precipitating a major crisis for the agency.
The results of an independent review released in April found that UNRWA has the “most elaborate” mechanism and procedures forsafeguarding humanitarian neutrality of any UN agency and said Israel had not provided evidence to support broader allegations it made that a significant number of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas.
An UNRWA report, also released in April, alleged that UNRWA employees detained by the Israeli military in Gaza were subjected to ill-treatment and torture and were pressured into making false confessions about affiliations between the agency and Hamas and about UNRWA staff being involved in the 7 October attacks.

@Ellen2shoes funding was only reinstated by the UK and other countries after the UN came up with an action plan setting out detailed reforms, as I said above.

And of course the UN did also sack 9 members of staff from amongst the 19 alleged to have been involved in 7/10.

Just one of the bits missed out :

Announcing the findings on Monday, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq noted that because “information used by Israeli officials to support the allegations have remained in Israeli custody, OIOS was not able to independently authenticate most of the information provided to it”.
When Israel first made the allegations in January, more than a dozen donors suspended their funding to UNRWA, precipitating a major crisis for the agency.
The results of an independent review released in April found that UNRWA has the “most elaborate” mechanism and procedures forsafeguarding humanitarian neutrality of any UN agency and said Israel had not provided evidence to support broader allegations it made that a significant number of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas.
An UNRWA report, also released in April, alleged that UNRWA employees detained by the Israeli military in Gaza were subjected to ill-treatment and torture and were pressured into making false confessions about affiliations between the agency and Hamas and about UNRWA staff being involved in the 7 October attacks.

@Ellen2shoes you seem desperate to believe that there was no evidence against UNWRA staff. If this were the case it seems strange that 9 people got sacked don't you think? And strange that they had to complete a raft of reforms before European countries would reinstate their funding.

Have you read the colonna report do you know the percentage of staff that were judged as having probably participated

0.02%

Unwra had 35, 000 employees I have a staff of far less and couldn’t tell you what they all get up to at the weekend or what their political leanings are. Mossad probably could if it wanted to though

O yeah, where is your thread on supporting women in Afghanistan? I had asked you to post a link on what you were doing, or perhaps you haven't done anything at all on that?

Do you always just make things up?