...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
chief António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...
announced Monday the creation of an independent panel to assess UNRWA, its embattled agency tasked with helping Paleostinian refugees.
The new independent panel will be led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, who will work with three European research organizations, the UN said in a statement.
The goal of the probe is to "assess whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made."
The panel is due to submit an interim report to Guterres, the UN secretary-general, in late March, and then a final one in late April, with, if necessary, recommendations for "improvement and strengthening" of the agency’s mechanisms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz congratulated the UN for forming this panel.
"We will submit all evidence highlighting @UNRWA’s ties to terrorism and its harmful effects on regional stability," Katz wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"It is imperative that this committee brings the truth to light," he added.
However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened...
this new panel is not charged with probing the specific allegations Israel has made against the UNRWA employees it says were involved in the Hamas
...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...attack.
Rather, this is being done in an internal probe that the United Nations itself launched last month after the accusations were first made against them.
"We hope that donors have taken clear notice of the swift action taken by the secretary general... to address head on issues that may exist," UN front man Stephane Dujarric said.
The European groups helping in this independent assessment of UNRWA are the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.