Over 100 teachers and staff of schools run by UNRWA have been explicitly and publicly promoting hateful content, particularly against Jews and Israelis, including celebrating deaths, according to a new report by the NGO UN Watch.
UNRWA, which operates several schools for Palestinians, is now coming under fire for the comments made by its educators and staff.
As documented in a UN Watch report titled “Beyond the Textbooks,” multiple cases are outlined showing instances of incitement. This, the report claims, flies in the face of UNRWA’s own rules and values, specifically a zero-tolerance rule for racism, discrimination and antisemitism.
A total of 113 instances were obtained by UN Watch solely from viewing the public social media pages of UNWRA employees, many of which celebrated and promoted violence, even among children. The Geneva-based NGO added that it only analyzed those who publicly identified as UNWRA employees, and estimated that the actual number of staff who incite violence may number far higher.
One notable example provided is of Nahed Sharawi, a math teacher at an UNRWA school in Gaza. On their social media page, Sharawi shared a video of Adolf Hitler and inspirational quotes to “enrich and enlighten your thoughts and minds.” Another teacher, Husni Masri of an UNRWA school in the West Bank, shared conspiracy theories that the Jews created COVID-19, seek to destroy Islam and control the world.
“Around the world, educators who incite hate and violence are removed, yet UNRWA, despite proclaiming zero tolerance for incitement, knowingly and systematically employs purveyors of terror and anti-Jewish hate,” UN Watch director Hillel Neuer said in a statement.
“We call on the governments that fund UNWRA to take action to stop the vicious cycle of generations being taught to hate and violently attack Jews. We demand that UNRWA address the core problem, and demonstrate its genuine commitment to basic norms of education in its schools, by publicly condemning UNWRA employees who incite terrorism and antisemitism, removing them from their positions, and creating an independent and impartial investigation of all of its staff.”
This is not the first time the organization has been under fire for controversy surrounding incitement.
In early 2021, a report by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School, or IMPACT-se, found that many of the textbooks issued by the organization were rife with examples of encouragement of violence and demonization of Israel and of Jews.
The report had said that the textbooks present “ambivalent – sometimes hostile – attitudes towards Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people…. Frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people… suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice, especially when embedded in the current political context.”
An exercise in one religious studies textbook asks students to discuss the “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the prophet” Muhammad and asks who are “other enemies of Islam.”
One Arabic grammar booklet features phrases like “Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise.” Another reads that “The Palestinians are lions in fighting the enemies.” One book has a poem about how “a raging fire awaits the Occupation,” while another states that “The motherland is worthy of any kind of sacrifice” and “the Enemy [committed] heinous offences against … the mujahideen,” Arabic for anyone fighting a jihad, or holy war.
In response, UNRWA claimed that the textbooks were “mistakenly included” and promised to take steps to investigate how it happened.
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
While on paper, sending funds to Gaza and the West Bank may sound like a “noble cause,” especially with the vast degree of propaganda presenting its residence as poor, war-torn, and downtrodden, but the reality is that these funds are spent promoting and conducting terrorist activity.
Just as children in the United States are constantly in the crosshairs of our society’s leftist and godless agenda, Arab children in Gaza and the West Bank are as well in the crosshairs. Not in the crosshairs by way of strikes from “big bad Israel,” as you may have been told, but from the nonstop propaganda being forced upon them.
Children are being taught to hate the Jewish State and people. They are taught that terrorism against the Jews (especially suicide attacks) will lead to “heavenly rewards” and financial benefits for their families.
This is one reason why the EU, the Netherlands, and previously under Trump, the United States cut the funding, which was being used to abuse and manipulate children via textbooks, etc.
Despite these serious concerns, the Biden Administration last April, restored aid to the Palestinians, including the highly controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees.
TV7 Israel News reported:
In a video statement posted on Twitter, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations Gilad Erdan also brought up the issue of documented incitement against Israel being taught in Palestinian schools funded and operated by UNRWA.
“Israel is strongly opposed to the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity happening in UNRWA’s facilities. We believe that this U.N. agency for so-called refugees should not exist in its current format. UNRWA schools regularly use materials that incite against Israel. And the twisted definition used by the agency to determine who is a refugee only perpetuates the conflict,” said Ambassador Erdan.
Erdan added, “In conversations with the US State Department, I have expressed my disappointment and objection to the decision to renew UNRWA’s funding without first ensuring that certain reforms, including stopping the incitement and removing anti-Semitic content from its educational curriculum, are carried out. UNRWA is an organization that engaged in political advocacy and enables incitement to violence. Therefore, it should not exist in its current form.”
In Genesis 12:3, God not only calls all the nations of the world to bless Israel, but He also presents a warning to those nations and people that choose to curse them: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” God will ultimately judge nations by how they treated the Jewish State of Israel (Joel 3:2).
Terry James in his recent article, “Acceleration Toward Tribulation,” wrote that the United States under this new administration is falling on the wrong side of Genesis 12:3:
America, under the new administration, looks to be genuinely beginning to curse Israel, in directly opposite manner to blessing that nation when Mr. Trump was in charge.
With that increasing curse has slithered from the darkest abyss the devilish, venomous serpent called anti-Semitism. Just in the past several weeks, a growing, gestating process of hatred of the Jewish race has grown into near 1939 levels in some parts of the world—including parts of the United States of America.
It is a sure sign that the Tribulation period, when God will begin pouring wrath on this rebellious world, must be near indeed. Jesus, Himself, prophesied that this hatred against His people will, in that future era, be far worse than at any time of human history.
With regard to this era—this pre-Rapture era—can we see this hatred for the Jews beginning to come to pass? Has the level of anti-Semitism hatred prophesied for the end of days begun to take place?
I believe so. I believe the hatred for the house of Israel has been gestating within the incubator of barely-contained satanic rage. I believe the restraining hand of the Holy Spirit is being lifted to a degree, letting the spiritually attuned see that end-times anti-Semitism as it begins to crawl from that abyss-incubator.
The profound uptick in anti-Semitism, in my view, indicates that there is a speeding up in the rage toward the Tribulation era. That should inspire us as believers in Jesus Christ to expect at any moment His shout, “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).
