JERUSALEM, Israel – A new report issued by two non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) in Israel charges that the United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is promoting hatred, anti-Semitism and the murder of Jews through its teachers and teaching materials.
The 100-page report, called UNRWA Education: Reform or Regression?, cites dozens of examples of hatred for Israel and Jews.
One of the most blatant was a reference last December to a reading comprehension drill for 9th-graders at the Al-Maghazi Middle School for Boys in the Gaza Strip. The firebombing of a Jewish bus near the West Bank city of Ramallah was heralded as a “barbecue party.”
At the Tel Al-Hawa Middle School in Gaza City, 9th-graders learned through UNRWA social studies material that “armed struggle” against the Jewish state is a “divine right.”
Supplementary material for 6th-graders at Asma Middle School for Girls B, uploaded last September, included teaching that students should sacrifice “their blood” for the homeland. Grammar exercises included the following sentences:
– “I will commit jihad to liberate the homeland.”
– “We Palestinians resisted the Occupation.”
– “I will not give up a centimeter of my land.”
The report was produced by U.N. Watch and IMPACT-se. It stated, “This report reveals compelling evidence of UNRWA’s gross and systematic violations of neutrality and other UN rules in their hiring of teachers and in their use of curricula inside UNRWA schools that constitute incitement to hatred, antisemitism and terrorism.”
It went on to criticize western nations that fund the programs for promoting the incitement. “If Palestinian children matter, and they do, then donor countries should not be enabling the poisoning of their minds with hate, something they would never allow at home for their own children,” the authors commented in the introduction.
The report also zeroed in on the agency’s hiring practices, claiming, “These UNRWA teachers prepare teaching materials for their students that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israel and deny its very existence, and spread antisemitism.”
Much of the material that incites or glorifies terrorists appears on social media as part of learning programs or teacher profiles, and according to the report, such material is taken down quickly if it is discovered.
UNRWA is largely funded through the United Nations by the U.S., Germany, the European Union and Sweden, which provided nearly 60 percent of the agency’s budget in 2021-22. The U.K. and Canada also contribute.
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