UNICEF: Why is this Halloween Different from Any Other Halloween?

This year, UNICEF treats you with a new trick against Israel.

We all remember UNICEF. That is the agency that provides little boxes for collection on Halloween in order that children around the world should not starve. UNICEF, to its credit, had kept its distance from the middle east conflict, unlike other agencies of the UN.

This year, UNICEF treats us with a new trick this Halloween.

Towards this year’s Halloween collections, Pierre Poupard, the UNICEF Special Representative to the Palestinian Authority, issued a scathing memo in which he accused Israel of preventing 226,000 Palestinian Arab children from going to school.The original release can be found on the UNICEF web site at: http://www.unicef.org/media/newsnotes/02nn34opt.htm.

Reached at the UNICEF office in Jerusalem, Mr. Poupard claimed not to know that PA schools are being used as a place of terror training or incitement of youth to war against Israel.

When I spoke with Mr. Poupard, he seemed to have no idea that current curfews are the direct result of continued Palestinian Authority sponsored terrorism, much of which takes place in the PA schools. Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know of the study published on August 26th conducted by Israel’s leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, which showed that military training had become an integral part of Palestinian Authority educational system, and that children learn the art of weaponry training in the PA schools and school yards.

Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to have ever read the widely circulated piece from the front page of the New York Times on August 3, 2000 in which the New York Times correspondent John Burns reported how the PA education ministry had recruited 25,000 children from ages 9 and 10 to train them in their school yards in the art of military confrontation with Israeli soldiers and civilians, In Burns detailed report, he noted how children learned the art of throwing molotov cocktails at passing Israeli vehicles. Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know that the PA¹s deputy minister of education, Naim Abu Humus, called on school administrators to dedicate the first class to praying for the souls of the suicide bombers killed during the uprising, saying, “Today we glorify Al-Aksa and Palestine, and remember the Palestinian martyrs”

Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know that Signs on the walls of the PA kindergartens proclaim their students as the ‘shaheeds’ [martyrs] of tomorrow.

Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to have ever seen the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority school system which is available for public scrutiny at www.edume.org

Pierre Poupard of UNICEF does have a trick to treat Israel with, and that is what he calls “Israel¹s obligation, according to the 4th Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to ensure education is accessible to every Palestinian child”.

What Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know, however, is the extent to which the Rights of the Child are routinely violated by Yasser Arafat¹s Palestinian Authority. All Mr. Poupard of UNICEF would have to do is to turn on PA educational TV, whose theme since its inception in 1994 has invoked the violation of the UN “rights of the child” by mandating children to become suicide bombers, by placing children in the front-lines of armed demonstrations against Israeli soldiers, and by delivering busloads of Palestinian school children to participate in riots everywhere, thus endangering the lives of the same children that are supposed to be defended and protected by the Palestinian Authority. Through its curriculum of war denies Palestinian children the fundamental right to peaceful, modern education.

The trick that UNICEF treats Israel with is that it ignores the significant steps taken by Israel to establish a modern educational system for Palestinians Arabs after the Israel Civil Administration took over in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1967, even in the absence of peace.

UNICEF could conduct its own trick or treat and ask any graduate of the Palestinian Authority educational system:

“What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine”?

The Jerusalem Post, September 9, 2002
UNICEF Goodwill Envoy: Bush is modern-day Hitler
by Michael Freund

Dourade Lahham, a Syrian actor who serves as an honorary ambassador of the United Nations Children¹s Fund (UNICEF), lashed out at US President George W. Bush on Friday, describing him as a ³modern-day Hitler², the Beirut Daily Star reported yesterday.

Lahhm, who toured Beaufort Castle and visited the Lebanese-Israel border at the invitation of Hezbollah, said that he was proud of his association with the terrorist group. Speaking with reporters, he expressed the hope that Bush, the modern-day Hitler, puts me on his black list. Lahham was re-appointed in February to serve as a UNICEF goodwill envoy through May, 2003.

USA National Office
United States Fund for UNICEF

Mail Address
Charles Lyons President
333 East 38th Street – GC-6
New York, New York 10016

Telephone: 1 (212) 686.5522

Fax: 1 (212) 779.1679

Email: claporte@unicefusa.org

UNICEF International Office
Mail Address
Executive Director Carol Bellamy
UNICEF House
3 United Nations Plaza
New York, New York 10017
U.S.A.

Telephone: 1 (212) 326.7000 – Switchboard UNICEF House

Fax
1 (212) 887.7465 – Primary
1 (212) 887.7454 – Secondary

Email: cdier@unicef.org