Founded in 1949, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which serves to keep descendants of Palestinian refugees in a condition of permanent statelessness, receives about $1 billion a year in international support, and employs some 30,000 individuals. The majority work in the agency’s schools in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and those Arab states where Palestinians are denied citizenship. Shany Mor describes the education these schools provide in hating Jews.
UNRWA knows it has a problem, and its method of dealing with the problem not only doesn’t solve it, but it reveals how deep the rot is. In response to a previous report in 2022, UNRWA’s response was a brief suspension of six teachers and no subsequent action.
UNRWA routinely deflects criticism of anti-Semitism in its educational materials with the excuse that it is only using material from its “host countries,” specifically the approved textbooks of Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. It’s a wholly inadequate excuse for an organization that derives all its funding from donor countries like the United States, Canada, and the European Commission, and it’s not even true.
A 2021 study showed that UNRWA’s own material used during the coronavirus pandemic was rife with bigotry and glorification of terrorists, including the infamous Dalal Mughrabi who carried out the Coastal Road Massacre in 1978 that killed 38 Israelis. UNRWA’s response then was typical: denial followed by verifiably false claims that the problem had been rectified, peppered throughout with criticism for those organizations doing the hard work they refused to do and uncovering the problems in their curriculum and hiring practices.
Other UNRWA-created materials promote “armed struggle” against Israel and encourage “martyrdom.” Textbooks routinely demonize Israelis and Jews, and one even describes the firebombing of an Israeli bus as a “barbecue party.”
More about: Anti-Semitism, Palestinian refugees, U.S. Foreign policy, UNRWA