The Blessing for Israel of a Democratic House

Nov. 8, 2018
 
David Bedein
Director
Israel Resource News Agency
Center for Near East Policy Research

A Democratic controlled House of Representatives can now play a crucial role in preventing the continuity of a Palestinian Arab regime which is devoid of peace education and which instead…

1. Places Palestinian Arabs under totalitarian rule

2. Runs schools based on indoctrination to liberate all of Palestine by force of arms.

3. Awards cash and honor for anyone who will murder a Jew.

4. Advocates the right of return by force of arms.

5. Continues to confine 1948 Arab refugees and their descendants to the indignity of refugee camps

6. Refuses to allow  UNRWA refugee camps to be rehabilitated.

7. Places the death penalty on any Arab who sells property  to Jew

8. Allows for an economy to exist without transparency for public funds

There is a groundswell of Palestinian public opinion which we can nurture as an alternative, with an UNRWA Reform Initiative which comprises the following operative principles:

• Cancel the UNRWA war curriculum, based on Jihad, martyrdom and the “right of return by force of arms”, which have no place in UN education, whose theme is “Peace Begins Here”.
• Cease paramilitary training in all UNRWA schools. It is an absurdity that UNRWA, a UN agency with a purported commitment to “peace education”, allows such arms training on its premises.
• Insist that UNRWA dismiss employees affiliated with Hamas in accordance with laws on the books in western nations that forbid aid to any agency that employs members of a terrorist organization.
• Introduce UNHCR standards to UNRWA to advance the resettlement of fourth and fifth generation refugees from the 1948 war. These people have spent some seven decades relegated to refugee status. Current UNRWA policy is that any refugee resettlement would interfere with the “right of return” to pre-1948 Arab localities. By adopting the political stance of Palestinian maximalists, UNRWA flouts its own commitment to the welfare and future of Palestinian refugees
• Demand an audit of donor funds that emanate from 68 nations. This would address widespread documented reports of wasted resources, duplication of services and an undesired flow of cash to the Gaza-based terror groups that have controlled UNRWA operations there for the past 18 years.

There is no doubt in my mind that the new Democratic Majority of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee will support such an initiative.

Now for the kicker.

The incoming chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, ranking Democratic congressman Rep. Eliot Engel, has a long history of standing up for Israel when a less than sensitive US State Department could care less.

In 2001, Rep. Eliot Engel was the only member of the US Congress to act upon evidence that our agency provided Congress which showed that the UNDP, an agency of the UN, was publishing maps for the Palestinian Authority which replaced the state of Israel with a map that featured only Palestine, where Israeli cities were replaced by Arab cities. In my presence, Congressman Engel called the department of the UN that had issued these maps and threatened UNDP that he would make sure that they would not receive a dime if they did not they did not rescind that map. The next day, UNDP rescinded the map. Thanks to Eliot Engel. The State Department could have cared less. Engel cared and acted…

In 2002, Rep. Eliot Engel was the only member of the US Congress to act upon evidence that our agency provided Congress which showed that the flagship of the PLO, an organization known as PASSIA, was using US AID funds to train PLO terrorists who were convicted of murder (an exchanged for Israeli POWS) to become PLO propagandists on the Hill, to lobby the US Congress. Engel took one look as the PASSIA advocacy booklet and acted. It was Eliot Engel who led the successful fight to remove US AID funds from PASSIA.

In 2003, Rep. Eliot Engel was the only member of the US Congress to act upon evidence that our agency provided Congress which showed
That the new curriculum used by UNRWA was actually war indoctrination. It was Eliot Engel who launched the process of welcoming experts on UNRWA education to come to Congress to present evidence of the UNRWA war curriculum and the domineering presence of terrorist cells inside UNRWA. That has resulted in US Congressional inquiries about UNRWA which continue to this day,

When Rep. Eliot Engel indeed becomes the all- powerful chairman of the US House Foreign Relations Committee, he will contend with a State Department decision to censor publication of a congressional GAO study of new school books used by the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.

There could be no better man for the task at hand. Judging by his record, Rep. Eliot Engel will show no hesitancy  to stand up to the US State Department and to ask why and how the State Department would have the chutzpah to censor a US Congressional study.