UN Watch: Exposed: UN Teachers Call to Murder Jews
As the U.S. and other Western states gather today at the United Nations in the presence of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to pledge funding for the UN agency that runs schools and social services for Palestinians, a watchdog group urged democracies to stop funding hundreds of UNRWA teachers and other employees who call to murder Jews.Report: UNRWA educators promote antisemitism online
UN Watch today exposed antisemitism and incitement to terrorism propagated recently by 10 UNRWA teachers and other employees. This is in addition to more than 100 UNRWA educators and staff previously exposed published by the non-governmental organization UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring group based in Geneva.
The latest 10 UNRWA teachers and other staffers to be exposed are:
1. Nihaya Awad, Computer Teacher at UNRWA West Bank, Praises Hamas
2. Abu Muhammad Fathi Bahar, UNRWA Lebanon Employee, Promotes Violence
3. Elham Mansour (Teacher, UNRWA Lebanon), Incites Killing Israelis and Jews
4. Hana’a Daoud (Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Advocates Killing Jews
5. Sameer Abo Ayyash (Social Worker, UNRWA Jordan), Admires Taliban
6. Majed Zaben (Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Incites Against Israel
7. Adel Torbani (Math Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Rejects Israel’s Right to Exist and Posts Antisemitism
8. Qusai Mansi (Employee, UNRWA Jordan), Equates Zionists with Nazis
9. Rula Om Mo’awia (Teacher, UNRWA Jordan), Incites Against Israel
10. Muneera Abu Hadeel (Midwife, UNRWA West Bank), Portrays Israel as Thieving Dog
As documented above, UN Watch has uncovered 20 new cases of virulent incitement committed by 10 UNRWA teachers and other staff, in violation of the agency’s own rules and stated values of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.
UN Watch submitted the findings today to EU foreign affairs commissioner Joseph Borell, and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, whose governments are among the top funders of UNRWA, and to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.
UN Watch is calling on the agency’s major funders—including the U.S., Germany, the UK and the European Union—to ensure that none of their combined $1.2 billion of donations to UNRWA will fund teachers of hate, and to hold the agency accountable to its own standards and commitments.
As revealed by UN Watch today, UNRWA staff stationed in the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan are publicly inciting antisemitism and terrorism.
Israel’s UN Envoy Demands Accountability After Report Exposes New Cases of Antisemitism at Palestinian Refugee Agency
Israel’s envoy to the United Nations launched a fresh attack on Thursday upon UNRWA, the refugee agency solely dedicated to the Palestinians that was charged in a recent independent report with inciting antisemitism.
“Not only does UNRWA not help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it causes enormous damage, incites hatred and terrorism and perpetuates the conflict, all under the auspices of the UN, which buries its head in the sand and refuses to see reality,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said in a statement on Thursday.
Erdan cited a report published by the UN Watch NGO, that documented over 120 UNRWA educators and staff promoting violence and antisemitism on social media. Titled “UNRWA’s Teachers of Hate,” the report also discovered 20 new cases of “virulent UNRWA staff incitement which violate the agency’s rules and stated values of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism.”
One May 2022 Facebook post by an UNRWA teacher in Lebanon, Elham Mansour, declared: “By Allah, anyone who can kill and slaughter any Zionist and Israeli criminal, and doesn’t do so, doesn’t deserve to live. Kill them and pursue them everywhere, they are the greatest enemy….All Israel deserves is death.” Another post by Mansour, addressed to “filthy Zionists,” urged Palestinians to “slaughter each and every one of you and toss you into the garbage heaps, because you are filthy, you contaminate any land you are in.”
According to UN Watch, UNRWA’s budget last year included $338 million from the United States, $177 million from Germany, $118 million from the European Commission.
#UN: Disgraced Human Rights Council in Geneva. Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 https://t.co/hCwhgnmQXY via @Audioboom #UN
— John Batchelor (@batchelorshow) June 24, 2022
Underfunding UNRWA will lead to its collapse, agency head warns
It's not enough to renew the mandate, Lazzarini said, UN nations must also provide the funds to execute it. Eventually, he said, failure to do so would "push the Agency towards financial collapse."
"For years, we managed the chronic underfunding through internal measures such as cost control, austerity and zero-growth budgets," Lazzarini said.
"Today, we have depleted our financial reserves and reached the limits of cost control and austerity measures," he explained, adding that, "austerity now affects the quality of the services."
"We are not in a position anymore to adopt austerity and cost control measures of the size of the funding gap," he said.
A funding failure now would put at risk the education of half-a-million girls and boys as well as the primary health care for close to 2 million people, Lazzarini explained.
"To illustrate austerity, think of 50 children in one classroom, double shifts within schools, or a medical visit where a doctor spends less than 3 minutes with a patient," Lazzarini said.
The pace of donations, he said, cannot keep up with the needs of a growing population.
This is not a new problem
UNRWA has long been in financial distress, but the situation has become more acute in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war.
"The situation in Ukraine has exacerbated the noticeable increase in food and commodity prices, seriously affecting the household economy of Palestine refugees," Lazzarini said.
Poverty rates have reached 80% in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza with "too many Palestine refugees report living with one meal a day," Lazzarini said.
"I have appealed to all donors to ensure that Palestine refugees are not a collateral of the events in Ukraine," he said.