Chris Gunness, UNRWA and mental meltdowns

Daniel Greenfield tells a fascinating story of the public self-humiliation by the UNRWA Spokesman in Gaza, Chris Gunness.

During the Hamas attacks on Israel, in which the UNRWA whose local staff is dominated by Hamas supporters was complicit, Chris Gunness had become its public face, appearing everywhere and even breaking down during one broadcast.

The breakdown mentioned above is well documented, becoming a popular item in Gaza-related articles:



Whether the breakdown was real of fake is not for me to say, besides I prefer to see the good in all people, unless the opposite is proved beyond any doubt.

Be it as it may, another breakdown by Mr Gunness, that one on Twitter, is documented very well. But there is no need to repeat what is described in the linked above article, so enjoy it. I shall just copypaste the tweet #13 from the sequence described:

There are a lot of good reasons for Chris Gunness to be so protective of his mothership. According to this article, about 1,2 billion good reasons (per year). UNRWA, an organization whose purpose is to enshrine and perpetuate the status of Palestinians as refugees, keeping them forever in temporary hovels they call refugee camps, instead of resettling them in permanent housing and taking care of their employment.

This at the time when UN declares that it has run out of funds for a million-and-a-half Syrian refugees?

Instead, UNRWA does its best to promote the belief of eventual return to the refugees' "ancestral" homes, in effect fueling the enmity and violence, which is probably not the goal the donors of all that money had in mind. Or, at least, I hope so.

And what happens when a Palestinian, Bassam Eid, a prominent human rights activist, dares to raise his voice and criticize the sacred cow Chris Gunness is so protective of? Saying, among other things:

“First, UNRWA needs to apologize for six decades of false promises,” Eid said. “Then it needs to concentrate on building permanent neighborhoods for the refugees, to remove them from the miserable situation that prevails in the refugee camps.”

What happens is simple and gruesome: Chris Gunness totally loses it, calling Bassam Eid "Jewish terror supporting staff" and creating the sorry picture of mental meltdown described in the Daniel Greenfield's article.

So what does it make of Chris Gunness - besides him being a pathetic Hamas' mouthpiece?