Murder can be an all-too profitable endeavor for Palestinian terrorists. Despite pretensions to being a normal governmental organization, the Palestinian Authority doles out hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families. As Israel stares down another wave of terrorist violence, we cannot lose sight of the factors that fuel this escalation. The PA’s continued incentives to commit heinous crimes should not be ignored.
Ramallah keeps its prisoners and “martyrs” highly satisfied. The PA grants an allowance of as much as $3,500 a month to those held in Israel’s prisons for having murdered Jews. The allocation becomes a lifetime entitlement if the prison sentence runs more than five years. The PA celebrates the work of its “martyrs” by paying an allowance of around $500 a month to the family of a deceased terrorist. This comes on top of an initial lump-sum payment of $1,700. These are eye-popping amounts on the West Bank, where the annual GDP per capita sits at around $3,000. Terrorism can be a more lucrative profession than being a doctor or the head of a small business!
Notwithstanding the criticism the “pay-for-slay” program has drawn—and regular Palestinian promises of reform—the PA continues to cut hefty checks to those responsible for the most recent massacres of Jews. Khairi Alqam, who last week shot seven dead at a Jerusalem synagogue before he was neutralized, has secured his passage to heaven and his family’s ascent into the Palestinian upper class. He carried out his attack on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and took the lives of several children. The adolescent who opened fire on two random passersby the next day near Jerusalem’s City of David was taken alive—he will draw a monthly salary for the duration of his prison term. Those payments can add up: just ask Karim and Maher Younes, the murderers of Avraham Bromberg. The cousins, who were recently released, have received $1.2 million since the beginning of their incarceration in 1983. Surely, they will live out their golden years in great comfort.
The PA’s subsidies for terror are a moral outrage, spurring further violence and rewarding fanatics. The PA has attempted to defend the indefensible, claiming that Hamas would step in to provide the funds were the PA to ever turn off the tap. But this excuse is weak tea; funding murder is always wrong, no matter the reason. Nothing could do more to showcase the PA’s moral degeneracy and inaptitude as a partner for peace.
Recently, the international community has started to catch wise to the PA’s misdeeds. In 2018, the U.S. Congress passed the Taylor Force Act—named after an American veteran slain by a Palestinian terrorist—to compel the Palestinian Authority to stop funding this carnage. The law prevents direct U.S. foreign aid from going to the PA so long as the “pay-for-slay” program continues. The PA has lost out on hundreds of millions in funds from the American government.
America cannot lose its nerve on this issue. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited both Jerusalem and Ramallah on his trip to Israel this week. We can only pray that he raised the matter of the terrorist slush fund with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. We also hope that the Biden administration will not backslide on enforcement of the Taylor Force Act, which some falsely criticize as unduly hamstringing the PA. Since 2018, the PA has spent over $1 billion on payments to terrorists and their families. In parallel, as a direct result of its “pay-for-slay” policy, the PA has lost billions in foreign aid. The lives of millions of Palestinians would have been greatly improved had those monies been used for better purposes. Not a dime of American money—nor for that matter, those of our Western allies—should go to the PA until it discontinues this obscene program.
William Daroff became the Chief Executive Officer of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on February 1, 2020. In that capacity, he is the senior professional guiding the Conference’s agenda on behalf of the 53 national member organizations, which represent the wide mosaic of American Jewish life. Follow him at @Daroff.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is part of the State Department, has boasted of providing taxpayer funding to a Palestinian charity linked closely to the designated terrorist organization Hamas.
A USAID August 2022 “news update” celebrates the construction of a “USAID-funded Unlimited Friends Association [UFA] educational and community center in Gaza.” As noted by USAID, the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera), a prominent Washington D.C. charity with offices across the Middle East, “built” the center.
According to a previous study by the Middle East Forum, UFA is aligned with senior Hamas leaders, works to reward the “families of martyrs” in Gaza with cash handouts, and promotes violently anti-Semitic rhetoric across its social media pages.
UFA officials hand out checks to young Palestinian children of “martyrs.”
UFA’s cash handouts are part of the group’s “Orphan Sponsorship Program.” In since-deleted videos published by the group, the charity’s officials defined orphans to include the children of those killed while resisting “the ongoing slaughter against the Palestinian people.”
Such work is carried out in open collaboration with Hamas. UFA has organized events and invited to its offices prominent Hamas figures such as Mustafa Sawwaf, who calls “Israel’s disappearance … a necessity [according to] the Koran”; as well as Mohamed Abu-Shkian, a senior Hamas leader who praises the “strikes of the mujahideen” and leads events in Gaza lionizing slain terrorist operatives.
Mohamed Abu-Shkian, a senior Hamas official, visits UFA’s offices.
Collaboration with Hamas appears to continue today. In 2022, multiple Hamas-aligned media outlets, including the terrorist group’s own daily newspaper, Felesteen News, published details of job vacancies at UFA; not as advertisements, but as news stories.
Hatred for Jews permeates UFA’s efforts. In 2013, the charity published a social media post stating: “We ask God to drive away the anguish of the heroic prisoners in the Nazi Zionist jails and to free Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif from the filth of the most dirty Jews.”
UFA officials continue to promote such rhetoric. In April 2021, UFA director Jomaa Khadoura called on his own Facebook page for God to “cleanse Al-Aqsa from the impurity of the Jews.”
UFA appears not just to be an occasional partner of American Islamism, but an important outpost. UFA director Khadoura himself claims to have served as an employee of Baitulmaal USA, a wealthy Islamist 501c, and one of UFA’s major partners.
UFA director Jomaa Khadoura calls for the Al-Aqsa Mosque to be “cleansed” from the “impurity of the Jews.”
Recently, Islamic Relief appears to have taken over as the major sponsor of UFA’s “orphan sponsorship program,” with UFA fundraising videos indicating Islamic Relief’s Canadian branch is a leading donor.
A UFA photo showing Islamic Relief Canada’s funding of its work.
Another American Islamist charity, United Hands Relief, published a video just a few weeks ago, celebrating its involvement with the “UFA Education Center in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, UFA officials have recently visited the Jordanian offices of American terror-tied Jamaat-e-Islami charity Helping Hand for Relief and Development, to discuss future joint programs.
In 2017, Helping Hand partnered with designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan. USAID is currently the subject of a congressional investigation over its funding for Helping Hand for Relief and Development, as a result of FWI’s reporting.
The “USAID-funded Unlimited Friends Association educational and community center in Gaza” was, according to USAID itself, “built by Anera,” a major American charity founded in 1968, also known as American Near East Refugee Aid, which claims to provide humanitarian aid in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon.
On its website, Anera states that it ensures donations do not reach “parties like Hamas” because its “local staff evaluates our partners.”
FWI found that one of these local staff is Anera’s “Gaza project coordinator,” Ibrahim Najjar, who has shared propaganda videos of speeches by the late Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi (set to stirring music), expressed support for the “brave prisoners” in Israeli jails, and is an advocate for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
A leading activist with the Palestinian People’s Party, Najjar has also warmly posted images of the Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin, while expressing support for “national unity,” accompanied by a picture of a leading member of the Palestinian Peoples’ Party tending to the terrorist leader.
Anera staff member Ibrahim Najjar posts images of Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin, encouraging his own political party’s collaboration with the terrorist group.
When contacted for comment, Anera’s media spokesman Steve Fake told FWI: “Anera follows the highest standards in vetting all of our partners and beneficiaries, including UFA. They are put through US and international database security checks (OFAC and Sam.gov). Our vetting includes all key staff and board members of an organization to verify there is no known or suspected connection to terrorist designated organizations. And all Anera staff are subject to the same screening.”
Fake claimed that USAID had explicitly approved UFA as a suitable partner: “Anera and USAID will not fund anyone who does not pass those checks. Anera received UFA’s vetting clearance from USAID when we started working on the project you reference.”
Anera offered no comment on the evidence of antisemitism or Hamas connections presented by FWI. Instead, Fake threatened: “Please note that any link, claim or innuendo that suggests Anera is funding terrorists will ensure contact from our lawyers.”
Anera and Western Islamist charities are not UFA’s only partners. Other Western donors have begun to fund the group. UFA lists Belgium charity Culture Action Europe and French charity Humanity & Inclusion as supporting partners, all in collaboration with the German government.
Cliff Smith, director of the Middle East Forum’s Washington Project, explains “USAID’s due diligence, to the degree it does any due diligence, is simply to check groups against the terror designated list. Certainly, terror designated groups should not get money. But formal terror designation is slow and inconsistent, and merely not being designated should not be sufficient to receive USAID funds. Here, USAID ignored clear signs of radicalism and terror partnerships, and that’s a significant problem.”
Smith added: “That USAID is willing to fund a group that works closely with a designated terrorist organization certainly gives Islamist 501c organizations and other Western governments the confidence to do the same.”
Despite USAID’s claims to have funded UFA, the organization’s name does not seem to be present in data published by usaspending.gov, a government-run website responsible for tracking all monies handed out by the federal government.
Spending data does reveal USAID funding provided to Anera for a “Palestinian Community Infrastructure Development (PCID) program,” but those same federal records reveal no mention of any sub-grantee or partner.
The federal government’s spending database reveals over $168 million of funding for Anera since 2008.
Cliff Smith observes: “These federal bureaucratic practices hamper transparency efforts since the government does not consistently list the ultimate beneficiaries of American largesse. What are researchers and journalists missing when they look into these groups, all because of bureaucratic ineptness?”
FWI reached out to USAID for comment, but we received no response.
Israel – is easy to be proud of and for a variety of very good reasons.
While many of the countries that surround her would like to see her demise….in the long run it would be to their disadvantage – as well as for other countries around the world.
Countries such as Rwanda, India, Mexico, Congo, Chad, Sudan (Darfur) Malawi, and Haiti have benefitted from Israel’s expertise in most difficult times. Additionally, following the devastating earthquakes in Japan, Israel was one of the first countries to send aid.
The list continues…
Israel efforts also included relief to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and her first response aid in the wake of the 2004 tsunami with 60 tons of international aid to Indonesia saved many lives, and 82 tons of relief to Sri Lanka alone. So many countries have benefitted from Israel’s’ unwavering humanitarian assistance to assist others…politics aside.
No other country can dispatch search and rescue teams and field hospitals as fast and effectively as Israel!!!
The efficient, swift Israeli Rescue and Search Team (FIRST) is an Israeli NGO that sends search and rescue teams to disaster zones around the world-never
The media chooses to ignore Israel’s role in helping others, and chooses to pretend that her valuable talents and willingness to help others is discounted.
No other country dispatches search and rescue teams and field hospitals as fast and effectively as Israel. In spite of being ignored, she never wavers from putting humanitarianism first.
Israel is providing medical and search-and-rescue assistance to Turkey & Syria….humanitarian aid after they suffered earthquakes……….
IF quakes caused devastation in Israel…which countries would come to her aid
Sweeping embarrassing and painful occurrences under the proverbial carpet is a popular pastime for many.
There is always the possibility that some might throw a cold shower on current politically accepted thinking.
In most cases, this charade succeeds.
When someone comes along and explodes the myths or exposes the smoke and mirrors narrative, the general reaction is usually one of outraged moral indignation. This is subsequently followed by efforts to denigrate, censure or banish the whistleblower concerned.
Interestingly enough, but unsurprisingly, it is those who scream loudest about so-called fascist extremists and purport to represent liberal and progressive defenders of liberty who convulse most convincingly.
Recent events should demonstrate exactly how this reality plays out.
Many Australians have recently celebrated Australia Day, although it seems that a diminishing number are keen to rejoice in the fact that the country was colonized by a racist British Government. Ethnic cleansing of the British lower classes led to the establishment of the country as a penal colony and the decimation of the indigenous population.
New Zealand may not have been a penal colony, but it was also colonized by the same racist British establishment that claimed this far-flung territory for the Crown. A more enlightened Governor realized that it was impossible to defeat the native Maori tribes totally, and therefore a formal treaty was signed in 1840. In exchange for a pledge of loyalty to Queen Victoria, the British colonial authorities granted the Maoris equal civil rights. Whether this was a case of an enlightened policy or a realization that it was impossible to subdue the tribes totally remains a debatable point.
What both these examples, however, illustrate are similarities that should resonate with anybody cognizant of today’s realities.
The common fact is that a great power of the time decided to conquer territory at the other end of the globe and forcibly annex it. This was then followed by a sustained program of settlement with individuals who had no history with the countries concerned. Settlements were established on confiscated land, and thus the colonies developed. Like other empires, the colonial power had neither a historical or internationally legal right to the territories.
I understand that this was the way international affairs were conducted in those days, and Britain, of course, was not the sole guilty party.
Every 6 February, New Zealand celebrates its founding as a colony. Waitangi Day and Australia Day continue to attract controversy. This year a celebratory evening devoted to this anniversary was held in Jerusalem for expatriate Kiwis and others, where nationhood was toasted. Basically speaking, there is nothing wrong with such a get-together, but somehow, it has a somewhat jarring tinge associated with it, especially when the venue is in Israel’s unrecognized Capital.
Think about it for a moment.
Both NZ and Australia refuse to acknowledge our Capital’s status. In addition, New Zealand is the shameful co-sponsor of the notorious UN Resolution 2334, which negates any Jewish connection to our holy city and religious sites.
Just as galling is the assertion that Jews living in places their ancestors inhabited more than millennia ago are criminals and accessories to some sort of violation of “international law.” This is rich coming from countries that themselves are guilty of settling places with which they never had any legal or historical connection.
I am afraid that listening to speeches lauding undying friendship while ignoring inconvenient current policies is too much to take. Knowing that every time a resolution is put forward to condemn Israel at the corrupt UN, New Zealand will either vote with the immoral majority in favour or abstain. Celebrating a fake mateship is not on my agenda.
International hypocrisy may be the name of the game, but it is not one which I wish to embrace.
An example of inconvenient events which some would like to get covered up is the US responses to North Korea and China.
Recently the White House issued this remarkable statement: “We have no hostile intent towards North Korea. We seek serious and sustained diplomacy.” I can just imagine the convulsions of laughter in the North Korean Capital and also in Tehran at this display of American fortitude to defend its allies from the machinations of both rogue regimes. If anyone is looking for an answer as to how both of these tyrannies have managed to bully and lie their way to nuclear blackmail status, this remarkable admission by the US says it all.
If there are still South Koreans and Taiwanese deluded enough to believe that the US will ride to their rescue in time when North Korea and China decide to strike, they had better quickly wake up.
All they have to do is look at what happened when Chinese spy balloons hovered over the USA for several days. Instead of shooting these hot air balloons out of the sky the minute they were detected in US airspace, they were allowed to meander unmolested. The official excuse was that collateral damage might ensue. This guaranteed that whatever data was being recorded could be safely transmitted back to Beijing. By the time the balloons drifted over the ocean and were finally shot down, the evidence quickly sank to the bottom of the sea.
This dynamic display of self-defence over US airspace no doubt conveyed an important message to the Chinese authorities. If this was the best the Biden Administration could do just imagine how easy it will be when both Taiwan and South Korea become the targets of aggression. By the time the US State Department has exhausted its futile appeals to the United Nations and finished dithering, both countries will be overrun.
Unlike Hitler, who made hollow promises about his territorial ambitions in Europe, both North Korea and China have been upfront about their goals. With this latest farce of the balloons exposed for all to see, there can be no doubt as to the eventual scenarios.
Amazingly, there are still deluded Democrats who prefer to pretend that all is wonderful. It gives a whole new meaning to the expression “trial balloons.”
Diplomacy has its place, but when it demonstrably fails, it is time to praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
The lessons for Israel should be crystal clear.
We cannot rely on fickle friends who profess solidarity and then run for cover when the going gets tough
We must not remain silent in the face of double standards and blatant bias.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stands accused of whitewashing the world’s top state-sponsor of Jew-hatred and Holocaust denial, Iran’s regime, and Palestinian antisemitism, in the first signs of blowback against his national strategy report on combating the oldest hatred.
Amiram Ben Uliel (L), the suspect in the Duma arson murder in July 2015 where three members of the Dawabshe family were killed, arrives for a court hearing in Lod on June 9, 2020. Photo by TOMER APPELBAUM/HAARETZ/POOL ***POOL PICTURE, EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES, PLEASE CREDIT THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS WRITTEN - TOMER APPELBAUM/HAARETZ/POOL*** *** Local Caption *** ãåîà
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Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 9:51 Honenu reacted to the refusal of the Supreme Court to grant Amiram Ben Uliel an additional hearing: “Chief Justice Esther Hayut, like her friends the champions of human rights, makes a mockery out of the rights of the unfortunate and the despondent and supports the use of torture to elicit confessions from interrogatees, as is done in Third World countries.
“At a time when there is talk of the Supreme Court as a ‘protector of human rights,’ Esther Hayut reminded us how many lies stand behind this statement. When it comes to a Jew with payot and a beard, the court has contempt for him and his rights.
“This morning was a bad morning for the State of Israel, a morning that reminds us all of the low to which the court known as ‘supreme’ has sunk.”
In June 1992, with the defeat of Israel’s Likud government and the ascension of the Labor Party to power, the Palestine Liberation Organization, an outlawed terrorist organization in a state of total war against Israel, raised its profile and initiated illegal contacts with the Labor Party.
At the time, I worked as the Jerusalem correspondent for CNN radio, with access to high-level contacts in the Israeli and U.S. governments. Thus, I was in a position to confirm that the Bush administration and subsequently the new Clinton administration laid out policy directives mandating that Israel was required to follow up on these PLO contacts, described by the U.S. government as a PLO peace initiative.
In Aug. 1993, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was summoned to Washington to coordinate a shift in Israeli policy. It officially recognized the PLO as a partner for peace, despite continuing PLO terror attacks. That policy engendered the Oslo process and an accord that was signed on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, which was never ratified by the PLO.
Sources in the Israeli security establishment and the Likud opposition in the Knesset raised objections to the U.S. pressure. It was at exactly this time that Aharon Barak became chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court.
In 1992, Barak established a precedent that threw out all legal objections to what would become the Oslo peace process.
The Barak Court did not object to the accords even though these accords were never ratified by the PLO and the PLO never renounced its public incitement to violence or rewrote its charter to renounce the goal of destroying Israel. Nor did it object to the government’s decision to supply arms to the PLO-led Palestinian Authority.
The Court also did not object to the Israeli government’s decision to free hordes of PLO felons who had been convicted of murder or attempted murder. Over the previous 30 years, families of victims murdered by these felons had appealed to the Court to file motions against releasing them, citing the government’s failure to apply any system of recidivism verification to determine whether these felons were likely to repeat their crimes. All this was to no avail. Israel has thus far freed at least 9,000 of these felons.
Another central feature of U.S. Middle East policy beginning in 1992, adopted by the Israeli government and echoed by Israel’s courts, was the delegitimization of the civil liberties and property rights of Jews who live in Judea, Samaria and even Jerusalem—as well as, until 2005, Gaza.
For 30 years, the Israeli Supreme Court tossed out numerous cases in which Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem sued for these rights.
The most egregious decisions of the Barak Court concerned the plight of Jews expelled from their homes in Gush Katif and Samaria in 2005. The harsh reality was that the Israeli government was not prepared to provide for 1,700 families evicted from their homes in the 21 Jewish communities of Gush Katif. On the eve of the expulsions, attorney Yitzhak Meron provided sobering evidence of the failures of Ariel Sharon’s government in this regard.
Dr. Meron was a senior member of the Israel Legal Forum, an organization of 50 Israeli lawyers that worked pro bono during the period leading up to the expulsion to ameliorate the difficulties of the Gush Katif residents, presenting their case to the Knesset and the courts.
The government’s approach to the settlers, according to Dr. Meron, was “aggressive” from the very beginning, with a lack of direct communication.
The prime minister never went to “look in their eyes” and ministers in the government who voted for expulsion did so without having visited the communities whose fate they were deciding. When the defense minister finally traveled to Gush Katif to meet with residents there on April 19, 2005, he refused to answer questions. I witnessed that refusal.
Three days before the expulsion was to begin, the government announced that 1,000 rooms had been rented and everyone would have somewhere to stay. The reality was that 2,500 rooms were required due to large families. Officials had to scour Israel, seeking rooms at the last moment. The Forum assisted in this emergency action. People left their homes not knowing where they were going to go. No social workers were sent by the government to help people cope logistically or psychologists to help with trauma.
Because the government ordered thousands of people removed from their homes, it was obligated to provide satisfactory alternative housing. However, that took 10 to 15 years, without any objection from the courts.
I was present when Aharon Barak rejected the final appeal before the Gush Katif expulsions. Dr. Meron, speaking on behalf of the Gush Katif community, appealed to Barak to consider the justice of their case. These “settlers” were resigned to the expulsion and, in the end, only asked for a relocation process to be implemented.
Barak turned to the government attorney and asked whether the government had a plan to resettle the communities. When the attorney responded vaguely that the government would take care of everything, Barak smiled, thanked him and gave the order for bulldozers to begin demolition.
When the U.S. announced its policy of demanding the removal of Jews from Judea, Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem, a delegation of U.S. citizens who lived in those communities approached the U.S. Consul in Jerusalem Philip Wilcox and asked about the human rights of Jews in these communities. Wilcox responded with a single sentence that echoed around the world: “If you live there, you have no human rights.”
There was silence in the room. Wilcox then asked participants if they would like coffee or tea.
The legacy of Philip Wilcox lives on in the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which finances 40 organizations that support the PLO and advocate for the continuing expulsion of Jews from their homes.
Thus, the Israeli Supreme Court paved the way for the PLO to gain land and power in the heartland of Israel.
Yet the PLO openly refuses to endorse a two-state solution. In the words of retired MK Benny Begin, “The PLO wants a two-stage solution, not a two-state solution.”
Thanks to the Israeli Supreme Court, the PLO is getting away with it.
The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has once again requested international financial aid. This is the same organization whose workers have been promoting violence and antisemitism on social media.
UNRWA has since done absolutely nothing to help the “refugees” move on with their lives and seek a better future for themselves or their families.
“Almost all of [the incorrectly labeled Palestinians in Gaza] have been born in Gaza, their parents have been born in Gaza, their grandparents have been born in Gaza… they were never displaced an inch. Yet, every day they hear, they learn, and they get an official stamp from the UN agency that says: ‘That’s not your home. You might have lived here all your life, but your home is there, just across the fence. That’s your real home [Israel], and it was taken from you.” — Einat Wilf, former Israeli Member of Knesset, December 1, 2015.
The Geneva-based independent human rights group UN Watch has uncovered evidence of UNRWA staff incitement which clearly violate the agency’s own rules as well as its proclaimed values of intolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.
Meanwhile, in 2021, the US government confirmed its “failure to ensure that taxpayer aid dollars sent to the Palestinian government did not ultimately make their way to terrorists.”
Terrorist groups in Gaza, such as Hamas, have continued to build terror tunnels under UNRWA schools, to use the children as human shields if Israel retaliates after it is attacked — as Hamas member Abu Khaled, openly admitted in December 2021.
“UNRWA’s procurement contracts suggest that funds are already flowing to PFLP affiliates,” wrote foreign policy expert Julia Shulman.
“[T]he Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act (PATA)…. prohibits assistance to the PA unless the administration certifies that ‘no ministry, agency, or instrumentality of the Palestinian Authority is effectively controlled by Hamas'” — Matthew Zweig, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, June 2021.
Commenting on the Biden administration decision to restore the financial aid, UN Watch said that now is the time for the US to demand that “neutrality, accountability and transparency” Secretary Antony Blinken paraded.
It does not seem, however, that UNRWA has taken far-reaching and drastic measures to end the incitement to violence and antisemitism. In fact, it has not taken any at all.
It is clear that UNRWA, like many other UN agencies, has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Instead of seeking ways to solve the problem of the so-called refugees, UNRWA has perpetuated and inflated it…. Instead of promoting peace and non-violence, UNRWA employees have been doing the reverse…. UNRWA donors might consider these evasions before they sign the next check to one of the UN’s most incompetent and corrupt organizations.
The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has once again requested international financial aid. This is the same organization whose workers have been promoting violence and antisemitism on social media. Pictured: A still shot from the documentary film “Camp Jihad,” featuring a summer camp in Gaza sponsored and funded by UNWRA. (Image source: Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research)
The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has once again requested international financial aid. This is the same organization whose workers have been promoting violence and antisemitism on social media.
On January 24, the agency appealed for $1.6 billion “for programs and operations.” UNRWA said it “continues to play an indispensable role in the lives of millions of Palestine refugees,” and warned that “compounding challenges over the past year, including underfunding, competing global crises, inflation, disruption in the supply chain, geopolitical dynamics and skyrocketing levels of poverty and unemployment among Palestine refugees have put immense strain on UNRWA.”
Established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 with a mandate “to provide humanitarian assistance and projection to registered Palestine refugees pending a just and lasting solution to their plight,” UNRWA has since done absolutely nothing to help the “refugees” move on with their lives and seek a better future themselves or their families.
In reality, UNRWA continues to perpetuate the refugee problem by granting refugees status through the generations.
It also perpetuates the narrative of the so-called right of return, which envisions the elimination of Israel by flooding it with millions of Arabs and turning it into another Arab state where some Jews might be allowed to live as a minority as long as they are loyal to the Arab ruler.
As then Israeli Member of Knesset Einat Wilf correctly pointed out in 2015, most of the Palestinians living in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are incorrectly registered as refugees from Palestine:
“Almost all of them have been born in Gaza, their parents have been born in Gaza, their grandparents have been born in Gaza and lived there all their lives; they were never displaced an inch. Yet, every day they hear, they learn, and they get an official stamp from the UN agency that says: ‘That’s not your home. You might have lived here all your life, but your home is there, just across the fence. That’s your real home [Israel], and it was taken from you.”
The Geneva-based independent human rights group UN Watch has uncovered evidence of UNRWA staff incitement which clearly violate the agency’s own rules as well as its proclaimed values of intolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.
The report published by UN Watch highlights that more than 100 educators and staff members who work for UNRWA schools and social services have publicly promoted violence and antisemitism on social media platforms.
In 2021, the Biden administration decided to resume financial aid to UNRWA (which had been cut off by the Trump administration) on the grounds that the US was “deeply committed” to ensuring that its partnership with UNRWA “promotes neutrality, accountability, and transparency.”
In response to the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to end US contributions to UNRWA, Brett D. Schaefer, a Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center, and James Phillips, Visiting Fellow at the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, wrote:
“This decision is long overdue. UNRWA has existed for more than 60 years as a ‘temporary’ initiative to address the needs of Palestinian refugees and to facilitate their resettlement and/or repatriation. Despite receiving ongoing financial assistance from UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee problem has only grown larger. Many of the original refugees are deceased, but the refugee population has expanded to 5.3 million individuals because UNRWA redefined and expanded its definition of refugee. Today, the agency has made refugee status available to the ‘descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children.'”
Meanwhile, in 2021, the US government confirmed its “failure to ensure that taxpayer aid dollars sent to the Palestinian government did not ultimately make their way to terrorists.” (US Government Accountability Office, March 2021)
Terrorist groups in Gaza, such as Hamas, have continued to build terror tunnels under UNRWA schools, to use the children as human shields if Israel retaliates after it is attacked — as Hamas member Abu Khaled, openly admitted in December 2021.
“UNRWA’s procurement contracts suggest that funds are already flowing to PFLP affiliates,” wrote foreign policy expert Julia Shulman in June 2021.
“As recently as March, UNRWA was funding the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), a Gaza-based entity with extensive links to the PFLP. Earlier this month, Israel charged several staff members from UHWC’s partner organization with funneling funds to the PFLP.”
In a June 2021 policy brief for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Matthew Zweig wrote:
“[T]he Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act (PATA)…. prohibits assistance to the PA unless the administration certifies that ‘no ministry, agency, or instrumentality of the Palestinian Authority is effectively controlled by Hamas’
“Still, critical questions remain about the overall package, specifically the State Department’s oversight and vetting mechanisms. The congressional notification for the assistance package declares that USAID deploys ‘rigorous partner-anti-terrorism vetting and certification, auditing, and monitoring procedures to help ensure that its assistance does not go to Hamas or other terrorist organizations.'”
Commenting on the Biden administration decision to restore the financial aid, UN Watch said that now is the time for the US to demand that “neutrality, accountability and transparency” paraded by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“The US should demand that UNRWA adopt a zero-tolerance policy for employees who incite racism or murder by immediately terminating them,” UN Watch stressed. It also called on UNRWA to conduct a thorough investigation of its facilities and put an immediate stop to all antisemitic or terrorist-inciting activities and images found there.
It does not seem, however, that UNRWA has taken far-reaching and drastic measures to end the incitement to violence and antisemitism. In fact, it has not taken any at all.
In the Gaza Strip, UNRWA often takes great pains to avoid alienating the Palestinian terrorist groups, above all the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The two terror groups, whose declared goal is to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamist state, have long been receiving money and weapons from the mullahs in Tehran.
UNRWA has also turned a blind eye to the fact that Hamas, PIJ and other terror groups have, since 2001, been building tunnels for attacking Israel and storing weapons near the agency’s facilities, including schools, in the Gaza Strip.
On January 27, Israeli warplanes attacked a tunnel used by the terrorists to manufacture rockets. The attack came in response to the firing of a number of rockets at Israel earlier in the day. The terrorist target attacked by Israel was adjacent to an UNRWA installation in the Gaza Strip. It is not uncommon for terrorists to stockpile weapons or dig offensive tunnels near and beneath schools and hospitals.
What is particularly disturbing is the manner in which UNRWA and other international agencies relate to the serious threat posed by the terrorists.
In the past few years, UNRWA has published statements regarding the discovery of tunnels near and underneath its facilities. The agency, however, often employs ambiguous and indirect rhetoric when mentioning the tunnels. It also refrains from openly condemning Hamas or holding it directly responsible.
Take, for example, the statement issued by UNRWA in November 2022, in which it said that the agency “recently identified a man-made cavity underneath the grounds of an UNRWA school in Gaza.”
UNRWA condemned the construction under its facility, calling it a “serious violation of the Agency’s neutrality and a breach of international law.”
Needless to say, UNRWA did not dare to hold Hamas or other Palestinian terror groups fully and directly responsible for the “man-made cavity.”
The use of the word “cavity” instead of “tunnel” is laughable. What is stopping UNRWA from calling a tunnel a tunnel? Why do UNRWA and other UN agencies have no compunctions when it comes to condemning Israel but tiptoe around condemning Palestinian terrorist groups?
Is UNRWA afraid to use the word tunnel because it fears for the lives of its workers, or is it because UNRWA wants to downplay the actions of the terrorists? What are people supposed to understand by the use of the word “cavity?” That the terrorists are dentists?
The organization NGO Monitor has documented at least 7 additional incidents from the past 10 years, in which terror tunnels and weapon caches were discovered under UNRWA schools or in their close vicinity.
On June 4, 2021, UNRWA stated that an investigation, “revealed what appears to be a cavity and a possible tunnel” under the grounds of the UNRWA Zaitoun School in Gaza.
On June 9, 2017, UNRWA issued a statement, noting that “On 1 June UNRWA discovered part of a tunnel that passes under two adjacent Agency schools in Maghazi camp.”
On July 29, 2014, UNRWA stated: “A cache of rockets was found earlier today at an UNRWA school in central Gaza… We condemn the group or groups who endangered civilians by placing these munitions in our school.”
An additional four incidents in 2020, 2017and2014 have been documented as well.
It is clear that UNRWA, like many other UN agencies, has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Instead of seeking ways to solve the problem of the so-called refugees, UNRWA has protracted and inflated it by creating new generations of “refugees.” Instead of promoting peace and non-violence, UNRWA employees have been doing the reverse. Instead of taking a tough and clear stand against terrorism, UNRWA hides behind riddles. UNRWA donors might consider these evasions before they sign the next check to one of the UN’s most incompetent and corrupt organizations.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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