There is nothing ordinary about this advocacy campaign for a large UN institution. The lights dim before a packed audience and a slideshow begins: images of Gaza in conflict, people fleeing their homes, buildings on fire.
Then stands Chris Gunness, the chief spokesman of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization responsible for the support and welfare of Palestinian refugees.
“I am a warehouse,” he says. “I am a dying warehouse, the victim of an excruciatingly painful fire that burned me down.”
It is the start of a remarkable 20-minute, one-man play intended for Israeli audiences but so far unwelcome in Israeli theaters. It tells the story of the main UN warehouse in Gaza, a storage point for food and aid for a million Palestinians, and how it was hit repeatedly by Israeli artillery shells, some loaded with white phosphorous, during the Gaza war — how it was set ablaze and burnt to the ground.
“This is a story that “until now has remained buried, untold,” Gunness said at the debut performance of his show at the French Cultural Center, east Jerusalem, on Wednesday night.
His play, Building Understanding: Epitaph for a Warehouse, is a challenge to the criticism the UN has faced within Israel. Many aid organizations and human rights groups highlighting the Palestinian cause have faced increasing opposition since the war, as has Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who authored a highly critical UN report accusing Israel and Palestinian militant groups of war crimes.
Some critics, among them the Israeli right and US neo-conservatives, regard UNRWA in particular as unfairly and unnecessarily perpetuating the Palestinian refugee issue and their claim to a right of return. The organization insists it was established by a UN resolution and that it offers vital food, shelter and education to millions of people who would otherwise go without. It says the refugee issue should be resolved as part of a final-status Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Nonetheless, this is an unusual approach for the UN. It began because Gunness, a British former BBC correspondent, was frequently on air during the war highlighting the damage to life and property. That led to an invitation by an Israeli artist to take part in a project about storage space. He offered the story of his warehouse.
There were heckles from the Tel Aviv crowd at the first show, of what was an earlier version of the play. About 20 people, out of an audience of around 100, walked out. The script was refined and the play then booked at two Israeli theatres, in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Both later canceled before the first performance.
“This is about as far away from propaganda as I think you can get,” he said. “It is a genuine attempt to tell a story in an apolitical way. We were overly meticulous in making quite sure there was no politics on both sides.”
They chose not to include clips of UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon talking about the war and the warehouse.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese