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Iraq's Sadr Threatens to Quit Parliament to Pressure his Opponents

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a speech in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf on June 3, 2022. (AFP)
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a speech in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf on June 3, 2022. (AFP)
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Iraq's Sadr Threatens to Quit Parliament to Pressure his Opponents

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a speech in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf on June 3, 2022. (AFP)
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr delivers a speech in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf on June 3, 2022. (AFP)

Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr warned on Thursday that members of his bloc will quit parliament if he is thwarted from forming a national majority government.

He made his remarks days before the deadline he set to his rival Shiite pro-Iran Coordination Framework to reach a solution to the country's political impasse.

In a televised speech, Sadr said he was ready to join the country's opposition if the deadlock were to continue.

The deadlock is "deliberate," he charged, saying his MPs should prepare their resignation letters because the Framework was continuing to impede the government formation efforts.

Sadr's latest warning is the starkest since the eruption of the crisis erupted in wake of the parliamentary elections that saw the influential cleric emerge as the clear winner with 75 MPs. The Framework has challenged the results, dismissing them as a sham.

Sadr has since formed a coalition with Sunni and Kurdish MPs to form a comfortable majority bloc in parliament.

As the Framework demonstrated it was unwilling to help form the government, Sadr announced he would grant them three months to form one and yet, no progress has been made. The deadline ends soon.

"If the Sadrist bloc is seen as an obstacle in the formation of a government, then they are ready to quit," Sadr declared on Thursday.

Parliament went into recess on Thursday and will convene again in July. It seems unlikely that that will be enough time for the deadlock to be resolved.

Observers have expressed alarm at Sadr's latest announcement, with some viewing it as a sign that he has no solution to ending the impasse.

It will also leave his Sunni and Kurdish allies at a loss over what position they will make in wake of his dramatic announcement.

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In Reverse of a Longtime Stance, US Says UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Isn't Immune from Lawsuits

FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
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In Reverse of a Longtime Stance, US Says UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Isn't Immune from Lawsuits

FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa

The Trump administration has decided that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is not immune from being sued, reversing the US government's longstanding position that the organization was protected from civil liability.
The Justice Department revealed its new stance in a letter it filed in federal court in New York on Thursday as part of a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency, known as UNRWA, accountable for the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on Israel by Hamas. The change in position underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration following allegations by Israel that some of the agency staff was involved in the Hamas rampage.
The lawsuit, filed by families of some of the victims of the massacre, alleges that UNRWA had aided Hamas by, among other things, permitting weapons storage and deployment centers in its schools and medical clinics and by employing Hamas members. Lawyers for UNRWA have called the lawsuit “absurd” and have said in court filings that the agency was immune from liability as a “subsidiary organ” of the United Nations.
The previous US stance protected the agency
In a statement Friday, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said the Justice Department filing reversed the US government's “longstanding recognition that UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and an integral part of the United Nations, entitled to immunity from legal process.” She said the agency would continue to make its case before the court and "will consider whether any other action is appropriate with respect to the letter.”
The Justice Department acknowledged in its 10-page letter that though its position had been that UNRWA was shielded from litigation, “the Government has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation.”
“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers. Of course, such allegations are only the first step on a long road, where plaintiffs will be required to prove what they have alleged. But UNRWA is not above that process — nor are the bulk of the remaining defendants,” the letter states. “The Government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts. The prior Administration’s view that they do not was wrong.”
The letter was signed by Jay Clayton, the new US attorney in Manhattan, and another lawyer in the office, as well as Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's civil division.
The agency has assisted Palestinians since the 1940s
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which followed the establishment of Israel, as well as their descendants, until there is a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The agency provides aid and services — including health and education — to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Since the Israel-Hamas war, it has been the main lifeline for a population reliant on humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Israel alleged that 19 out of UNRWA’s approximately 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in Hamas’ attack in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and set off the war in Gaza.
UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal UN investigation concluded that they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated or corroborated. Israel later alleged that about 100 other Palestinians in Gaza were Hamas members, but never provided any evidence to the United Nations.