By: Jože Biščak
January 2024. The jaws of the leading men of the United Nations (UN) dropped to the floor; they could not believe this was happening to them.
A group of Western countries, led by the United States, announced that UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) would no longer receive funding from their taxpayers. The financial hole that instantly opened up was enormous – nearly half a billion euros. The reason? It was revealed that at least a dozen people on UNRWA’s payroll had taken part in the barbaric atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. Videos also surfaced showing hundreds of UNRWA teachers celebrating the massacre, praising Hamas “holy warriors,” and praying for Allah to tear their enemies apart one by one.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini declared at the time that it was “only a few individuals” and that their aid was a lifeline for Palestinians. UN Secretary-General António Guterres also chimed in, insisting that the daily survival of people in Gaza depended on international financial support. The UN leadership was shocked; not because they discovered that UNRWA employed terrorists and their accomplices, but because they were about to lose three-quarters of their funding. Left-leaning media predictably attacked the decision of Western states. But the real bombshell followed: beneath UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza, a Hamas intelligence centre was discovered. Lazzarini rushed to apologise, claiming UNRWA had not known, an outright lie. It was not a matter of not knowing; they simply did not want to know, despite repeated warnings.
Eighteen months later, Lazzarini appeared at the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF), telling national television that they had run out of money and that he did not know if UNRWA would even exist by the end of the year. He could not have chosen a friendlier stage for his lament – he had come among Hamas sympathisers, as Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar and Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon unmistakably confirmed with their speeches. The fact that hardly any foreign guests applauded them said it all. Just as telling was the calibre of the forum itself: not even enough heads of state or government to count on one hand showed up, and those who did quickly regretted it. Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, by his facial expression, all but shouted: “What the hell am I doing here?” He soon vanished from his front-row seat.
Lazzarini, however, left delighted, signing a €4 million agreement with Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon to support UNRWA’s work for the next four years (2025–2028). “Slovenia’s support is crucial,” he grinned while counting the coins that Golob’s government had taken from Slovenian children’s mouths to hand over to proven terrorists. The ultimate disgrace at Bled came with the BSF award ceremony for journalists killed while reporting from war zones. Among these “journalists” were individuals proven to have aided in the massacre of Israelis and even harboured hostages in their homes. And Slovenia honoured them. BSF thus lost the last shred of credibility it had built over two decades of effort. The stain will be hard to erase; in the diplomatic cables sent from Slovenia, it will surely read: “Slovenia unequivocally supports terrorists.”
Meanwhile, as Slovenia’s (radical) leftist leadership pledged loyalty to Palestinians and Hamas at Bled, Guterres declared a famine in Gaza, supposedly caused by Israel. Another deception. There has never been famine in Gaza. For two years, the world has been bombarded with claims of (total) famine, yet time and again international organisations were forced to retract. This time, they resorted to manipulation: the UN World Food Programme (WFP), working with UNRWA, quietly lowered the famine threshold. Whereas famine used to be declared when 30 percent of children were malnourished, the bar now sits at only 15 percent.
Yes, it is all Hamas propaganda. And under Golob’s government, Slovenia has become its loudspeaker. Sadly. And shamefully.