UN Watch sends PM Trudeau links to UNRWA staffers’ praise of Hitler, urges commission of inquiry into “pervasive incitement to antisemitism”
Above: one of numerous antisemitic Facebook posts by UNRWA teachers, newly revealed by UN Watch, which sent the links to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau after UNRWA refused repeated requests to investigate.
GENEVA, Nov. 16, 2016 — A Geneva-based watchdog group today called on Canada to use its newly announced status as a $25 million donor to support a commission of inquiry into UNRWA teachers’ pervasive incitement to antisemitism and terrorist attacks in their Facebook posts. See images below.
The names of the UNRWA staffers and links to their Facebook pages were sent today to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
While the Trudeau government pre-emptively promised to fund training for UNRWA staff “on the proper and neutral use of social media,” UN Watch said that this approach misses the point.
“The core issue is not what UNRWA teachers reveal online, but the fact that racists are being hired in the first place to teach children,” said Hillel Neuer, the Canadian-born lawyer who heads UN Watch, an independent non-governmental monitoring organization accredited to the UN in Geneva.
“We’re not calling merely for hateful posts to be removed—we’re calling for every antisemitic teacher to be fired, and for the senior UNRWA officials who keep recruiting them to be fired too.”
“Because UNRWA is turning a blind eye to incitement that is pervasive and systematic, and which abuses the hearts and minds of vulnerable Palestinian children, we call on Prime Minister Trudeau to support an independent and international commission of inquiry, to investigate the culture of impunity for perpetrators of racism and incitement that pervades UNRWA,” said Neuer.
Above: “Top 10 sayings by Hitler,” posted by an UNRWA teacher; link
and name of UNRWA staffer has been sent to the office of PM Justin
Trudeau for action.
UN Watch in the past year sent UNRWA three reports documenting how their teachers and school principals incite to racial hatred, anti-Semitism and terrorism on social media. UN Watch had identified more than 30 separate perpetrators. UNRWA has never contacted UN Watch in response.
“UNRWA’s policy of impunity, denial and deflection only enables more incitement and violence. It’s time to put an end to the pattern and practice of UNRWA school principals, teachers and staff members posting antisemitic and terror-inciting images, a recurring theme that suggests a pathology of racism and violence within UNRWA, one that must be rooted out,” said Neuer.
“We call on Prime Minister Trudeau to declare unequivocally that these despicable posts, published on Facebook accounts run by people who openly identify themselves as UNRWA officials, constitute a gross violation of UNRWA Staff Regulations, and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence,” said Neuer.
Neuer said the teachers’ incitement to racism and violence constitutes a “gross violation” of UNRWA Regulation 1.4 which requires staff members to conduct themselves “at all times in a manner befitting their status as international civil servants,” and not to engage “in any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge of their duties with the Agency.”
Specifically, they “shall avoid any action and in particular any kind of public pronouncement which may adversely reflect on their status or integrity, independence or impartiality which are required by that status,” and “shall at all times bear in mind the reserve and tact incumbent upon them by reason of their international status.”
