UN commissioner-general says Israeli attacks on UNRWA politically motivated

The Israeli attacks on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are politically motivated said Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, at a press briefing in New York on Wednesday.

Lazzarini said the institute is facing the most serious crisis since its establishment in 1949, adding that Israel's cutting its relations with UNRWA and banning UNRWA from operating in the country and eastern Jerusalem are direct attacks on the institute and are completely politically motivated.

He said so far 234 staff of UNRWA have been killed in conflicts and a great number of its facilities have been destroyed. The institute is also facing a worldwide disinformation campaign aiming at undermining its legitimacy in the international community.

Lazzarini stressed that if UNRWA stops operating, the responsibility of providing education and medical services will be left to the occupying power.

"If UNRWA cannot operate, that means the UN will not be able to operate and to provide these critical services. And in that case, the only alternative and option is that the owners and the responsibility goes back to the occupying power, meaning that Israel will be responsible to provide these critical services," he said.

On Wednesday at the UN general assembly forth committee, Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the UN, called for Lazzarini to resign in shame.

Lazzarini responded that Danon's remarks are not a personal attack but an attack on the function of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, which will not come to an end even if he resigns.

"I did not have a bilateral meeting with ambassador Danon. He made a call this morning at the fourth committee asking me to resign in shame. And basically, my answer to this is that if my person would really make a difference, this is certainly something I should envisage. But I don't think it is my person which is attacked. It is my function. It is a Commissioner-General which is primarily targeted today, and it is a part of this broader campaign to delegitimize the agency and UNRWA," he said. 

Lazzarini said the goal of Israel is to deprive Palestinians of their refugee status and make it impossible for them to return to the land that are now used as illegal settlements.

"The objective is to strip the Palestinian from the refugee status and also to unilaterally change the parameters for a political solution. It's a way to undermine the future aspiration of the Palestinian for self-determination. It's a way to undermine and to bury once for all the two-state solution. We have also seen that it's not just UNRWA which has been targeted. Any voices in the region supporting the Palestinian authorities supporting the pathway of a two-state solution started to be phased out," he said.

The Commissioner-General called on the member states of the UN to take emergency actions, preventing Israel from implementing relevant laws and clarifying the roles of UNRWA. 

He also urged the international community not to delay or stop their donation to the institute. He warned that the attacks on UNRWA are not only weakening the function of the UN but also destabilizing the international order established since the end of the WWII.

UN commissioner-general says Israeli attacks on UNRWA politically motivated

The universal "reciprocal tariffs" imposed by the United States signals a decline in the U.S. economic dominance and dollar hegemony, as the country is attempting to extract excessive financial benefits from its trading partners, according to economists, who warn the Trump administration is playing a "dangerous game".

U.S. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order on the so-called "reciprocal tariffs," imposing a 10-percent "minimum baseline tariff" before unveiling higher rates on certain trading partners. The policy sent shockwaves throughout the global economy and triggered panic on financial markets, with analysts warning of significant risks and dire economic consequences.

In an interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN), Hong Hao, chief economist of the GROW Investment Group, a Shanghai-based hedge fund, said the tariffs reflect Trump's strategy to extract economic benefits from trading partners, particularly viewing China as a significant competitor. "Trump really believes that the trade terms with the trading partners have been unfair to the U.S., and as a result, the U.S. manufacturing sector has been hollowed out. Therefore, the U.S. is paying an excessive price for globalization, and now, it's time to pay back. I think, from this angle, he is trying to extract economic rent from its trading partners, and also he is trying to see China as one of the major U.S. rivals at this juncture. So, I think, as a result, he is playing a very dangerous game. And, as you can see, it's political theater in the sense that he is trying to dramatize the extreme pressure, so that he can get excessive rent from the opponent," he said

Trump's unilateral imposition of tariffs has eroded global confidence in the U.S. and its dollar's status, leading many to state that the American hegemony may not persist, according to Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University.

"The U.S. economy is at an inflection point. There is a moment where the previous strategies being used to sustain American hegemony were no longer working. And, it's only a matter of time before the U.S. position erodes, given the fact that it's been a house of cards built on the dollar supremacy. And a lot of people don't see that as having a brighter future. This has moved past the theater stage and has moved really directly into one in which no one really has confidence in the U.S. anymore. No one has confidence in the dollar. No one has confidence in the U.S. being committed to the multilateral system, to global trade and so forth and so on," he said.

Trump playing "dangerous game" as tariff measures signal decline in U.S. dollar hegemony: economists