Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand claims Prime Minister Anthony Albanese finally “understands” the antisemitism threat in Australia following the synagogue attack. “I think Anthony Albanese is getting the message, I think he understands now how serious; he certainly would’ve after his visit to the synagogue,” Mr Hildebrand said. “I think he understands how seriously threatened and genuinely scared Jews in Australia feel.”
To his students, Ahmad al-Khatib was a deputy principal at an elementary school in Gaza run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. To Hamas’s military wing, documents say, he was something else entirely: an infantryman operating out of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
The military wing, known as the Qassam Brigades, kept meticulous records of its fighters, tracking the weapons they were issued and regularly evaluating everything from their fitness to their loyalty.
Mr. al-Khatib, an employee of the U.N. agency since 2013, was among them: Secret internal Hamas documents shared with The New York Times by the Israeli government say that he held the rank of squad commander, was an expert in ground combat and had been given at least a dozen weapons, including a Kalashnikov and hand grenades.
The refugee agency, known as UNRWA, operated schools across Gaza before they were shuttered in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war. The agency, which employs roughly 13,000 people, including thousands in the schools, has a duty to maintain the neutrality of its facilities in the conflict zones in which it operates, including by keeping militants off its premises and payrolls.
But interviews and an analysis of the records shared with The Times by the Israeli military and foreign ministry indicate that Mr. al-Khatib was one of at least 24 people employed by UNRWA — in 24 different schools — who were members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, another militant group. Before the war, the agency was responsible for a total of 288 schools, housed in 200 different building compounds, in Gaza.
A majority were top administrators at the schools — principals or deputy principals — and the rest were school counselors and teachers, the documents say. Almost all of the Hamas-linked educators, according to the records, were fighters in the Qassam Brigades.
The Israeli military said it had obtained the trove of documents during its campaign in Gaza. While The Times had no way to independently authenticate the records, they bear similarities with other Hamas records that The Times has examined. Beyond that, names and identification numbers listed on the seized documents match those in a separate UNRWA database.
UNRWA officials say Israel is pursuing a campaign to discredit the agency and ultimately shut it down. The agency has long provided education, health care and other services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and has turned many of its schools into shelters during the current conflict. It is difficult, U.N. officials say, to guarantee that there are no militants among the agency’s workers in Gaza, where it is one of the largest employers, and where Hamas has exercised ironclad control for nearly two decades.
The agency’s schools in Gaza have become a flashpoint in the current conflict. Close to 200 UNRWA facilities have been struck since the war began, many of them schools.
Israel claims that Hamas has used the buildings for military purposes and to hide its fighters, making them legitimate targets under international law. But the United Nations says that Israeli strikes on schools have likely violated the law by causing disproportionate harm to noncombatants.
Among the seized records are secret Hamas military plans that show that the Qassam Brigades regarded schools and other civilian facilities as “the best obstacles to protect the resistance” in the group’s asymmetric war with Israel. The documents also list two schools in particular that were to be used as redoubts where fighters could hide and stash weapons in a conflict.
The Israeli government shared the documents at The Times’s request, after Israeli officials had circulated a list of 100 UNRWA workers it alleged were militants. The Times asked for documents specifically related to school employees, who, as a sizable subset of the agency’s employees, offer a window into the evidence behind Israel’s claims.
The seized records — coupled with interviews of current and former UNRWA employees, residents and former students in Gaza — offer the most detailed evidence yet of the extent of Hamas’s presence inside UNRWA schools. In several cases, educators remained employed by UNRWA even after Israel provided written warnings that they were militants.
The group’s presence in education appears to have extended beyond Gaza’s borders: In September, Hamas announced the death of its leader in Lebanon — a school principal and a former head of UNRWA’s teachers’ union in that country.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of doing too little to prevent infiltration by Hamas. Earlier this year, Israel alleged that 18 of the agency’s workers participated in the Oct. 7 attack, and several countries that fund UNRWA suspended donations.
In October, the Israeli Parliament passed legislation aimed at shutting down UNRWA’s Gaza and West Bank operations, and it has recently briefed diplomats from countries that fund UNRWA on the documents shared with The Times.
While Israel asserts that other aid agencies could perform UNRWA’s functions, humanitarian officials worry that the abrupt transition Israel seeks could be catastrophic.
UNRWA has said it takes allegations that staff members were militants seriously. In response to the Times inquiry into the documents, UNRWA officials said that the agency had put one employee on administrative leave and that the United Nations had requested more information from Israel on about 10 others.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said the agency had struggled to get information from Israel that would allow it to act on the allegations. He added pointedly that it was “extraordinarily interesting” that the Israeli government had not chosen to share the materials with the agency itself.
But he also acknowledged that UNRWA lacked the resources to independently investigate such allegations.
“We have always been clear that we are not an intelligence or security type of organization,” Mr. Lazzarini said in an interview.
Israeli officials, for their part, said that the United Nations had tried to minimize the problem. They have expressed frustration about how the United Nations responded when Israel shared detailed intelligence earlier this year about the 18 UNRWA workers it accused of participating in Oct. 7.
“The U.N. seems intent on portraying this problem as a few bad apples, rather than acknowledging that the tree is rotten,” said Amir Weissbrod, the foreign ministry’s deputy director for international organizations.
Basem Naim, a spokesman for Hamas, declined to comment.
The Times could not reach most of the educators named in the documents because their phone numbers were not working, they did not respond to messages on social media, and it is difficult to track down people in a war zone where Israel largely bars reporters from entering.
Residents of Gaza said in interviews that the idea that Hamas had operatives in UNRWA schools was an open secret. One educator on Israel’s list of 100 was regularly seen after hours in Hamas fatigues carrying a Kalashnikov.
The documents do not indicate whether all of the 24 educators participated in active combat. But the records, along with interviews, do indicate that at least one-third of them were given the tools to do so.
Take, for instance, Mustafa al-Farra and Ayman al-Alami, who are listed as UNRWA teachers in Jabalia and Khan Younis. Multiple Qassam Brigades personnel documents seized by Israel separately list them as fighters. In addition, records bearing the military wing’s letterhead show that Mr. al-Farra was issued an AK-47, while Mr. al-Alami participated in a Hamas rocket-launching training course in 2023.
Before Oct. 7, Israel did not consider uncovering Hamas ties to UNRWA an intelligence priority. Still, intelligence analysts would occasionally uncover evidence of Hamas’s infiltration and pass it along.
In 2011, the foreign ministry alerted UNRWA that one of its educators, Naji Abu Aziz, was a Hamas operative, and urged the agency to conduct an investigation. UNRWA did launch an inquiry, but in a letter sent to the foreign ministry at the time, it said that it needed more evidence. The ministry responded that revealing such information could endanger intelligence sources.
Records since seized by the Israeli military list Mr. Abu Aziz as a member of the chemistry unit of Hamas’s military manufacturing department. Mr. Abu Aziz’s potential link with Hamas also surfaced in 2020 on a Telegram account. A seized Hamas communiqué noted the disclosure, confirmed Mr. Aziz’s membership in the chemistry unit of Hamas’s military manufacturing department and recommended that the Telegram account be hacked and shut down.
Mr. Abu Aziz is listed in the UNRWA database as the principal of the Khuza’a Prep Boys School.
In other instances, the agency did not fire Hamas operatives after tunnels were discovered under or adjacent to its schools.
In 2017, UNRWA discovered a tunnel that passed under the Maghazi Prep B Boys School in central Gaza. The agency said at the time that it had lodged a protest with Hamas over the tunnel and had moved to seal entrances.
Seized records say that the principal of the school, Khaled al-Masri, is a Hamas member who was issued an assault rifle and a handgun, and he is pictured standing in front of a Hamas banner on Facebook.
He remains on UNRWA’s staff, the agency says, but is under investigation for a social media violation.
This February, Israeli officials said, their forces conducted a raid on a tunnel shaft next to another UNRWA school, which led underneath the school to a nearly half-mile-long tunnel equipped with weapons. Seized Hamas records list that principal, Mohammed Shuwaideh, as a deputy squad commander with engineering expertise.
Mr. Lazzarini, the UNRWA official, said that the mere existence of an adjacent shaft did not necessarily implicate the principal. Nevertheless, on Nov. 13, the same day that The Times questioned UNRWA about Mr. Shuwaideh, he was put on administrative leave.
The United Nations has no way to verify that its employees are not members of Hamas or other militant groups, said James Lindsay, who served as UNRWA’s general counsel until 2007.
“The U.N. has been unable and or unwilling to eliminate Hamas militants and their supporters, as well as those from other terrorist groups, from their ranks,” Mr. Lindsay said. “UNRWA hiring practices and the makeup of the labor pool from which UNRWA draws its employees suggests to me that the numbers the Israelis are talking about are probably pretty close to the truth.”
Even for criminal background checks, UNRWA relies on employees to self-report and provide confirmation of a clean record by way of a letter from the “de facto authorities.” In Gaza, that means Hamas, and before Hamas took over in 2007, it meant the Palestinian Authority.
The most serious effort to investigate potential Hamas members within the agency’s employees came after Israel accused the 18 UNRWA workers of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack. In those cases, Israeli officials said they provided video and sensitive intelligence that they say backed up their claims. (A 19th name was dropped after officials said he was misidentified.)
For nine of the workers, the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services said there was insufficient evidence to take action. But a copy of its report, which was never made public, says it did not consider evidence that Israel provided about their “alleged membership of the armed wing of Hamas or other militant groups.”
U.N. investigators ultimately only found that the other nine “may have” been involved. (In one case, investigators were shown video of the worker throwing a dead Israeli into an S.U.V.)
Still, an UNRWA spokesman said that almost all of the employees were terminated or put on leave.
Khalil al-Halabi, a former UNRWA official in Gaza, argued that punishing the entire agency and everyone it serves over the misdeeds of some employees was unfair. But he said that the actions of militant-linked workers were causing enormous damage to the agency.
“It’s a disaster,” said Mr. al-Halabi, who has been critical of the Oct. 7 attack. “They’re essentially giving Israel a pretext to shut UNRWA down.”
Jo Becker is a reporter in the investigative unit at The Times.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
The New York Times has confirmed that UNRWA employees in Gaza were also terrorists affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups and were provided with weapons.
According to the report, at least 24 people employed in 24 different UNRWA schools were members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or another terror group. Most of the two dozen served as principals, vice principals, school counselors, and teachers.
Among the trove of documents Israel seized are secret Hamas plans showing that the terror group believes that schools and other civilian sites are “the best obstacles to protect the resistance.”
In several cases, these educators remained in their positions even after UNRWA was informed that they were terrorists. The dual terrorist-UNRWA employee profile is not unique to Gaza: In September, a Hamas terrorist serving as a school principal in Lebanon was eliminated. That terrorist formerly headed UNWRA’s teachers’ union in Lebanon as well.
UNRWA has claimed that it takes the “allegations” seriously, and told the Times that one employee had been placed on administrative leave and the UN had requested additional information on ten others.
Gaza residents said in interviews that the matter was an “open secret” and that one educator was regularly seen after hours in Hamas fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov rifle.
At least one-third of the 24 were given the tools to participate in active combat, the Times added. At least one of the employees participated in a rocket-launching training course in 2023.
Khaled al-Masri, principal of an UNRWA school in Gaza under which a terror tunnel passed, is a Hamas member who was provided with an assault rifle and a handgun. On Facebook, he is pictured standing in front of a Hamas banner. Upon the tunnel’s discovery, UNRWA claimed that it lodged a protest with Hamas and moved to seal entrances to the tunnel.
James Lindsay, who served as UNRWA’s general counsel until 2007, told the Times that the UN has no way to ensure its employees are not affiliated with terror groups. He added that the UN has been “unable and/ or unwilling to eliminate Hamas militants and their supporters, as well as those from other terrorist groups, from their rank.”
“UNRWA hiring practices and the makeup of the labor pool from which UNRWA draws its employees suggests to me that the numbers the Israelis are talking about are probably pretty close to the truth.”
In January, quoting intelligence groups, the Wall Street Journal reported that around 10% of UNRWA employees in Gaza have ties to terror groups.
According to the report, “around 1,200 of UNRWA’s roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives” who belong to the terror groups.
Syria’s pro-Iranian Alawite minority has fallen. Syria’s ancient capital of Damascus was captured by the most formidable element of the anti-Assad coalition, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The group is led by the Sunni Islamic fundamentalist Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. The opposition rebel coalition is a patchwork of several political, ethnic, and religious groups, including jihadist and pro-West factions.
HTS, which staunchly rejected any negotiations with the Assad government, remains the likely kingmaker in any post-Assad-ruled Syria. Despite Western media re-broadcasts of Jolani’s recent messages “We come in peace,” Julani is suspected of remaining a committed Islamist who has vowed to establish an Islamic Republic in Syria. Historically, he has been an avowed enemy of the West and Israel. Julani was formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda and its spinoff, the al-Nusra Front. Western countries are testing if HTS has moderated. It would be prudent for the West to remember that HTS stands for the liberation of the entire Levant, which, in its contemporary context, includes not only Syria, but Lebanon, Israel (including Judea and Samaria), and Jordan as well.
But will Syria look the same on maps drawn up by the UN in 1946 when the country was declared an independent republic? How much of today’s Syria will remain following its having been picked apart by regional contending powers? Some of these powers are winners, others losers, in this sudden and surprising turn of events. Turkey, a major supporter of HTS appears the one nation-state most committed and equipped to feed on the Syrian carcass.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared in a troubling November 26, 2024, speech in Ankara that the West’s progress is built on “blood, tears, massacres, genocide, and exploitation.” Despite his alliance with NATO, Erdoğan’s remarks could have been written by Turkey’s jihadi proxy in Syria. “The West progress…is to the exclusion of the East’s civilization of divine and humane love.” The day will come when Western civilization “collapses with a great clamor, and Eastern civilization will flourish and rise up.”1
Turkey has hosted at least three million Syrian refugees during the 12-year Syrian civil war. Moreover, Istanbul has been the site of several assemblies of Syrian opposition groups. Significantly, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has dispatched several pro-Turkish Kurdish militia units to seize several stretches of Syrian territory along Turkey’s southern border. Such jingoist projects serve Erdogan’s desire to be elected to another term despite his Justice and Development Party’s decline in popularity.
Russia and Iran, the former regime’s erstwhile supporters, are the losers in the fall of the Assad dictatorship. Russia’s failure to attack rebel forces or provide air support to the fleeing ranks of Assad’s troops is emphatic proof that the Kremlin sees the handwriting on the wall. The Russians will need to negotiate with the new sheriff in town, presumably to oversee Russia’s withdrawal from its Syrian air bases and naval facility. Moscow’s other option might be to support a Syrian mini-state on the Mediterranean Coast. The Alawites hold a majority in the coastal region of Latakia.
Iran withdrew its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force’s special advisors from Syria in still another setback for its strategy to light a circle of fire around Israel. The loss of Syria, combined with the Israeli evisceration of Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, has knocked the Islamic Republic even further back on its heels.
Israel should leverage the regional chaos and confusion to bolster its own interests. It should not permit Turkey alone, to make territorial acquisitions and political gains. Israel should seize the UN-administered buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon opposite the Golan Heights. In fact, Israel should consider annexing any areas adjacent to its current Golan Heights territory, including Mt. Hermon peaks not under Israeli control now. These additional lands will be useful in defending against a prospective Islamization of Syria, which was a relatively secular country under Assad. Israel is in contact with the Syrian Druze community, which is close to the Israeli Druze community. The Syrian Druze recently occupied Syria’s southwestern region of Daara.
Syria’s large population of anti-Turkish Kurds might also serve as valuable allies to prevent, or at least impede, any determined imperial effort by Ankara to transform large portions of Syrian territory into Turkish fiefdoms. Kurdish areas in northern Syria have been under rebel attacks. Israel maintains good relations with the Kurds in northern Syria.
Of course, the incoming Trump administration will set its own policy in a post-Assad Syria. The United States has several mini-bases in northeastern Syria. American servicemen stationed in the area work with Kurdish militias and the Free Syrian Army. The Kurds help the U.S. forces to keep a lid on any revival attempts by Islamic State (ISIS) remnants.
U.S. President-elect Trump has already intimated that he is reluctant to get enmeshed in the Syrian imbroglio. Trump’s instincts also reflect the American people’s reluctance to get dragged into another forever war. However, President Trump, in consultation with Israeli allies, might devise a strategy that encourages American and Israeli enemies in crisis to struggle against one another while the forces of freedom remain vigilant and poised to exploit opportunities.
* * *
Notes
1 https://www.memri.org/tv/turkish-president-erdogan-western-civilization-will-collapse-we-will-flourish
The cacophony of harsh and disagreeable rhetoric about Israel and Jews has increased to an alarming crescendo.
The media waits expectantly for each and every vile pronouncement. Within several seconds it has circled the globe and has been embellished by social media. Any denials fall on barren ground if, as is usually the case, the subject garnering headlines is inaccurate, tendentious and malicious. Rebuttals of falsehoods are lost in the frenetic frenzy whipped up by the original demonization.
Making this toxic mix even more lethal are the pontifications of self-loathing groups and individuals who, in many cases, cloak themselves in self-righteousness and fake Jewish/Zionist identities. These voices are promoted as authentic representatives of Jewish communities. In actual fact they are a miniscule minority on the far fringes of mainstream communities. This is seemingly irrelevant as far as the media is concerned.
The battle for the hearts and minds of a public bombarded with daily negative news and opinions is an almost losing proposition. Unless one actually visits Israel and experiences reality here it is impossible to adequately convey the truths needed to demolish media myths.
Genuine friends and allies such as indigenous groups and faith-based communities are striving valiantly to counter the fog of lies, but they face serious obstacles. Indigenous groups in many countries have been seduced by jihadist extremists. An increasing secular generation has no idea about the Biblical historical connection of Jews to Israel. Many Christian denominations are reverting to the age old dogma of disconnecting Jews and Judaism from their promised homeland.
Add in political parties and politicians who eagerly jump on the wagon of appeasement of terror and blind bias against the Jewish State and you have a lethal concoction brewing.
This past week provides a sampling of the latest offerings.
The nascent pretender to the Ottoman Sultan’s throne loses no opportunity to advertise his animosity and real agenda as far as Israel is concerned. In one of his latest outbursts he proclaimed that “we will stand by the Palestinians until Palestine is liberated.” In plain English this means the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the river to the sea. Ordinarily, the gobbling of this Turkish President could be conveniently ignored. However, as his nation is a member of NATO one should imagine that some consequences might follow. Symbolic of today’s shambolic situation means there is no chance that his rhetoric will attract any sort of censure.
Amsterdam’s mayor was back in the news.
She cancelled permission for a protest against Jew hate in the centre of the city which forced the organizers to relocate it somewhere more isolated. Her excuse was that police resources were tied up elsewhere dealing with “black Friday specials.” It certainly is a black day in Holland when supporters of Israel and Jews are deemed expendable because commercial bargains have taken priority.
The ICC scandal rumbles on from one insanity to another.
Anyone who dares to challenge the court’s arrest warrants of Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defence Minister is deemed guilty of undermining its legitimacy. According to the best legal opinions,
the fact that Israel has an independent judiciary and is not a signatory to the ICC should have been taken into account. Instead, the prosecutor with obvious ill intent issued patently biased political rulings.
An ICC spokesperson stated that the accused should promptly turn themselves in to the authorities at The Hague where no doubt the lynching mob are waiting to hold a show trial worthy of the best days of Stalinist Russia.
Leaders of democratic nations supinely endorse the ICC farce joining the runaway train crash of hypocritical opportunists and morally defective politicians. The latest groupie to piously declare his total blind allegiance to the perversion of the ICC’s warped targeting of Israel is New Zealand’s Prime Minister. He added his discordant voice to the chorus of hate by affirming that should Netanyahu dare to step onto the soil of Aotearoa/NZ he would be arrested. Welcome to Chelm where common sense and actual facts are thrown out the window.
The UN special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, is well known for her obsessive hatred of Israel. It seems to be a requirement for UN employment and one which she seems perfectly qualified for if her pontifications are taken into account. Her latest diatribe, one in a long series of such venomous vitriol, should be grounds for dismissal. Unfortunately, given the irredeemable corrupt state of the UN she is more likely to be promoted than demoted.
She declared that “Israel did NOT have the right to wage a war after 7 October.” This exemplifies why the UN and all its associated groups feel emboldened to pillory and condemn Israel on an almost daily basis.
Did you manage to watch the Oxford Union “debate” where Israel was put in the dock and accused of genocide, ethnic cleansing and every other sin known to humanity?
It was always going to be a gang ambush and the result was always going to be a forgone conclusion. The four speakers defending the Jewish State must have known in advance that their advocacy of the truth and facts would be a forlorn exercise in futility. If you get a chance watch the debate on YouTube because it will show you exactly how toxic universities have become for Jewish students and faculty.
The event resembled a night at the Roman Coliseum where participants were thrown to the mobs. Braying hordes of students demonstrated their hatred of Zionists, Jews and Israel and any notion of a fair debate was thrown out the window. The chairperson instead of being a neutral referee sided with the deniers and denunciators. You can get a sense of the poisonous atmosphere when you hear the son of Hamas’s founder being howled down for daring to expose the murderous agenda of the terrorist group. One of Israel’s staunchest Arab advocates was ejected from the debate and had to be protected by security because he had the audacity to expose the lies and slanders being screamed by the terror-supporting students.
The end result was a lopsided vote which found Israel guilty. It more than adequately demonstrated that gross prejudice, ignorance and hate is alive and flourishing in British academia. The Oxford Union is treading the same blind end path that it did in the 1930’s when it voted overwhelmingly not to fight for King and country against the Nazi terror against Jews and democracy.
Of course Oxford is not an isolated case. The same malaise and endemic maladies have already spread and infected universities throughout the world.
Proving that idiocy is not confined to universities, the British Government has decided to throw millions more of taxpayers’ money at UNRWA. Given the parlous state of the UK economy and the new taxes being imposed on its long-suffering citizens, one has to wonder what sort of make-believe world Downing Street inhabits.
In yet another successful ploy to fool the international community, President for life, 89-year-old Abbas, was named “an interim” successor in case a vacancy occurs. His designated nominee, Rouhi Fattouh, is aged 75 and has a well-worn track record as far as Israel is concerned. Last year he announced that “Jerusalem belongs exclusively to the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.” This certainly qualifies him as a possible successor to the current terror-facilitating incumbent.
Everyone knows that when Abbas eventually permanently departs, there will be a no-holds-barred battle among those who want to succeed him. Various terror factions will strive for supremacy, and therefore, this currently nominated successor will vanish.
The US State Department, however, demonstrated its continuing hallucinatory fantasies. Its spokesperson issued a starry-eyed statement that “this step provides valuable clarity and strengthens governance.” This further example of the Biden Administration’s total detachment from reality explains why Iran and the evil axis can threaten peace and stability in so many parts of the world.
Hamas and Hezbollah have as their core aims the destruction and elimination of Israel. Any ceasefire will be merely a pause in their current campaign and an opportunity to rearm and reorganize for the next round. Iran as their patron will provide the necessary backup.
Israel is determined to prevent this. The response from Biden, Harris and Blinken is “de-escalate.” This one word is applied equally to terrorists and victims. It has become the mantra of an Administration bereft of the will to face up to terror patrons.
How refreshing, therefore, to hear the words of incoming President Trump.
He has declared that unless Hamas releases the hostages by 20 January “there will be all hell to pay.”
Finally, a clear voice of determined action is heard as opposed to the current discordant voices of appeasing surrender and moral equivalency.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on February 10, 2019. - Nudged by rightwing political rivals after a deadly Palestinian attack on a young Israeli woman, Netanyahu who seeks re-election pledged today to freeze money transfers to the Palestinian Authority. (Photo by GALI TIBBON / POOL / AFP) (Photo credit should read GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Friday, 6 December 2024) [translated from Hebrew]:
“The burning of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne is an abhorrent act of antisemitism. I expect the state authorities to use their full weight to prevent such antisemitic acts in the future.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia, including the scandalous decision to support the UN resolution calling on Israel “to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as rapidly as possible”, and preventing a former Israeli minister from entering the country.
Anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitism.”
In 2017, David Bedein brought this PA/UNRWA textbook of murder endorsement to the personal attention of António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations after which Guterres ordered UNRWA to remove the book.
Since UNRWA has returned the book to the UNRWA schools. Bedein brought a copy of the text to Israel Ambassador to the UN to present from the rostrum of the UN.
YOU can change UNRWA and the policies of UNRWA donors. Come learn how at Nitzanim, December 21 at 8PM. David Bedein, founder and bureau chief of IsraelBehindtheNews.com, will give us actionable intel so we can be part of the solution
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