According to the Palestine News and Info Agency, Wafa, the popular football club Real Madrid is taking initiative to support Palestinians despite some shady photographs of the team players with Israeli war criminals.
In a partnership with UNRWA, Real Madrid's support will apparently help 10,000 Palestinian refugee children. As the Real Madrid Foundation and UNRWA unite they outlined the following benefits to their endeavor as "a goal for peace:"
Meanwhile the Commissioner-General of UNRWA talked about how important education is when it comes to promoting peace.
Just earlier this year UNRWA announced it would be reforming its educational approach while Gaza UNRWA teachers protested the refugee agency for firing a union worker who sat down with Hamas. While UNRWA schools are responsible for the facilities of thousands if not millions of Palestinian refugees, it is difficult to determine the educational pedagogy of an institution that does not account for the political environment and governments of the schools and the children. To further extend this concern, UNRWA has maintained ties with the US for some of its programming, with the State Department determining the strategy of collaboration and setting its own political requirements and limitations.
But the most challenging aspect of this new endeavor is the reference to solidarity that Real Madrid's Perez made. Does solidarity to the Palestinian cause look like this?
Just in February 2011 the president of the Zionist nation hailed Real Madrid for "fighting for a better world" while he conveyed his envy for not being an integral part of Real Madrid. Shimon Peres went so far as to suggest an Israeli role in the football team.
If the team and coaches were just shaking hands with the very reason why there is a UNRWA and millions of Palestinian refugees around the world, what does this convey about these new institutions set up for Palestinian refugee children, who may just be manipulated by UNRWA to pull off a celebrity feat?
In 2008 the president or Real Madrid signed an agreement with Shimon Peres to host four "social integration academies" for Peres' supposed "peace center." Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, was recruited by the infamous Ben-Gurion during the establishment of the Zionist nation, served in the Haganah, and is widely celebrated as one of the forefathers of Israel's defense industries which has massacred not only thousands of Palestinians, but Arabs in general.
Regardless of the game being played on the field, there is one going on in the very places Palestinians have grown dependent on, from world aid institutions to schools. If this is considered "solidarity" by Perez, then what future does Real Madrid see but one in which Israel is ultimately wearing the jersey of captain?
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