The U.N. Agency For Palestinians Has Strengthened Palestinian Extremists, Created A Hostile Environment For Peace, And Has Become The Biggest Employer of Hamas Terror Members In Gaza.
In this newsletter, prepared by The American Jewish Congress, we argue that the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has breached the trust of the international community by allowing terrorists to use its platform to participate in an unprovoked war of aggression against Israel. UNRWA has no mechanism to screen its staff in Gaza for terror links despite growing evidence over the years that they used the agency’s schools and work to perpetuate conflict. This is a key argument in the wider push now to dissolve the agency and replace it with a solution that meets humanitarian needs while fostering peace through resettling refugees instead of trapping them in a cycle of hate and violence.
At least 18 major democracies, which together account for more than 80% of UNRWA’s funding, have suspended contributions pending results of an investigation to determine the extent of the rot inside the agency.
1️⃣ The Horror That Is UNRWA
See this clip of Palestinian children in UNRWA schools make the following disturbing statements. This clip in the hyperlink was filmed inside an UNRWA school during extracurricular student activities:
- “We have to make war”
- “The Zionists are our enemy”
- “Jews are terrorists”
- “I am ready to stab a Jew”
- “Stabbing and running over Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians”
The depravity and violence reflected in these lines taught to Palestinian children at schools subsidized by American and international aid money demonstrates how UNRWA is irredeemable. After Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA is the biggest employer in the Gaza Strip. Its staff are influenced by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the malaise goes far beyond the 12 staffers found to have participated in the Oct. 7 attack. As an Israeli government official has said, “UNRWA’s problem is not just ‘a few bad apples’ involved in the October 7 massacre. The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology.”
2️⃣ A Refugee Agency That Employs Terrorists
UNRWA’s rap sheet blurs the line between a refugee aid agency and a terror hotbed. Here’s a list based on a Wall Street Journal report, Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack and other sources cited below:
- “Since Oct. 7, Hamas has stolen more than $1 million worth of UNRWA supplies, including fuel and trucks”
- UNRWA creates schoolbooks that teach Gaza children to hate Jews and kill Israelis
- One UNRWA “elementary school teacher crossed into Israel along with Hamas terrorists and went to Reim, a district where music festival goers were attacked”
- An NGO, UN Watch, exposed a Telegram group of 3,000 UNRWA teachers in Gaza replete with praise of the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7
- One UNRWA employee “set up an operations room for Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Oct. 8, the day after the attack”
- UNRWA “math teacher belonging to Hamas was close enough to a female hostage in Gaza that he took a picture of her. Another teacher was carrying an antitank missile the night before the invasion”
- UNRWA employee, a social worker, “played a role in absconding with the body of a dead Israeli soldier, which was taken to Gaza. He also coordinated trucks and munitions distributions for Hamas before being killed”
- “The vast majority of UNRWA’s 30,000 staff across the Middle East are Palestinian, and Israel and some in the U.S. have long accused it of nurturing anti-Israeli sentiment in crowded refugee camps that have been important recruiting grounds for militant groups, including Hamas”
- “Nearly half of all UNRWA employees—an estimated 49%—also had close relatives who also had official ties to the militant groups, especially Hamas”
- “23% of UNRWA’s male employees had ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15% for adult males in Gaza, indicating a higher politicization of the agency than the population at large”
- “At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups”
- “Six UNRWA workers were part of the wave of Palestinian militants who” invaded Israel on Oct. 7
- “Of the 12 UNRWA employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic language teachers and one primary school teacher”
3️⃣ UNRWA’s Aid Propped Up Palestinian Extremists, Isolated Moderates
One of the key lessons from this scandal is that international aid passing through UNRWA failed to reach moderate Palestinians. This is an institutional fault, not an oversight. This should be a key argument for abolishing UNRWA in favor of a better mechanism. This aid organization is part of the problem and has failed to reform. Longtime watchers of UNRWA inside Gaza arrived at this conclusion years before the Oct. 7 terror attack. For example, researcher Asaf Romirowsky published a paper in August 2007 in the Jewish Policy Center that explored UNRWA’s role in propping up Hamas: “Supporting the status quo means that UNRWA can be counted on to support the new Hamas government, so long as Hamas enables UNRWA’s continued existence.”
4️⃣ Immediate UNRWA Replacement Exists. It’s Called UNHCR
Some pundits warn of a humanitarian crisis if UNRWA is abolished. But while the world ponders a permanent replacement for UNRWA, an immediate replacement exists. It is the UN refugee agency UNHCR, or United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Unlike UNRWA, which focuses on perpetuating conflict, the UNHCR is actually about resolving conflict by helping refugees resettle. In 2018, political scientist Emmanuel Navon published an excellent primer on how UNRWA became redundant when UNHCR was created a year later, in 1950, but for some reason UNRWA was never dismantled, as it should have been.
5️⃣ Growing Support For Abolishing UNRWA
- 18 major Western nations and Japan suspend aid to UNRWA
- Abolish the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency – Brett Stephens, Opinion columnist at New York Times
- Two subcommittees of the House Foreign Affairs Committee convene a hearing titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures”. Watch the full hearing here.
- International human rights lawyer Hillel Neuer delivers a sharp indictment of UNRWA and makes a convincing case for abolishing this organization. See Hillel’s video clip here and read his written statement here.
Read our president Daniel Rosen’s statement on UNRWA, released this week: PRESS RELEASE: UNRWA Is Part of the Problem. American Jewish Congress Joins Calls to Dissolving It to Create and Fund a New Humanitarian Solution.
