The Moral Cowardice Award: Karen Abu Zayd

Yesterday, on Aljazeera's Bila Hudud, Karen Abu Zayd (the UNRWA's commissioner) was the guest. She was quite reprehensible: in what she said and what she did not say. Don't get me wrong. I was never a fan of this woman, and I know how appointment to the position of commissioner of UNRWA are made at the US Department of State. I knew Ambassador Eagleton (some) when he was appointed to that position, and he was less bad than Abu Zayd, for sure. The host, Ahmad Mansur, was livid with her: he kept telling her. This is the last day of your service in that position. What are you afraid of? Why are you so scared to speak against Israel? Why can't you say a word about the Egyptian wall around Gaza? And she was exactly that: cowardly in every sense of the word, but I was pleased for Arab viewers to watch this lousy leader--in theory--of an organization that in name speaks on behalf of the Palestinian refugees and cares for them. At one point, she was asked about taking Israel to an international court for war crimes. She said: there is no need for that, because Israel has already apologized for bombing UN buildings and expressed willingness to even pay for reconstruction. So according to this representative of the White Man among the natives, the only crime that can be pinned on Israel is that it bombed buildings of the UN in Gaza. Frustrated by her cowardice, Mansur repeated again, that she was scared and terrified to make the most basic and elementary form of criticisms of crimes against the refugees that UNRWA supposedly care for. Karen Abu Zayd is a disgrace to the position that she holds, and Joe Lieberman would not have been worse in that job than Karen Abu Zayd. When the history of the (victorious) Palestinian resistance movement will be written, her name should be added to the list of people who have been disgraceful in the history of the conflict.