The debate is important because Germany today is the largest government donor to UNRWA, providing over $118 million in direct funding to the agency in 2025 alone, more than double the amount of the next closest state donor. Berlin gives even more to UNRWA via the EU’s own additional grants.

The new report, which accuses UN Watch of undue influence in Germany, says that UN Watch’s reports on UNRWA terror ties achieved “rapid resonance in politics and the media,” entered mainstream media “almost without delay,” and were “widely taken up” in parliamentary debate.

For example, the report complains that UN Watch’s UNRWA Terror Network “is treated by Die Welt as an important reference point.”

Other findings in the report, which mentions UN Watch over 60 times:

• “For more than a decade, UN Watch has portrayed UNRWA as a structurally compromised institution that has been systematically infiltrated by Hamas, while simultaneously leveling accusations of politicized education and the misuse of humanitarian aid.”

• “Following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, UN Watch intensified its activities and rapidly spread allegations that UNRWA staff members had been involved in both the violence and subsequent public celebrations.”

• “UN Watch published corresponding reports and briefed members of the German Bundestag… These allegations were widely picked up in the German media and in parliamentary debate.”

• “UN Watch published an interactive database, the UNRWA Terror Network, a  tool which transformed the collected allegations into a continuously updatable infrastructure that could be specifically used for repeated interventions in the media and politics.”

• “Following the publication of UN Watch’s “UNRWA Terrorgram,” nine countries, including Germany, temporarily suspended their payments to UNRWA… Soon, 18 countries had suspended their funding.”

• “Through reports, policy briefs, parliamentary interventions, and media outreach, the UNRWA issue remained permanently on the political agenda.”

UN WATCH’S WORK AND IMPACT IN GERMANY

UNRWA’s apologists in Germany have good reason to be afraid of UN Watch. Here is what we have accomplished in the country in just the last year:

• Parliamentary Testimony: In September 2025, Hillel Neuer traveled to Berlin to testify against UNRWA in the Bundestag. He presented UN Watch’s latest report, Schools in the Grip of Terror, uncovering how for decades Hamas terror chiefs controlled UNRWA’s school system.

• Major Media Coverage of Bundestag Briefing: The briefing at the German Bundestag and UN Watch’s new report were reported in major articles in leading media, including the Berliner Morgenpost, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and numerous other newspapers across the country.

• Die Welt Reports on UNRWA Terror Network: In November 2025, UN Watch launched its new UNRWA Terror Network, an investigative platform that compiles documented evidence involving nearly 500 UNRWA employees engaged in terrorism, incitement, or membership in extremist organizations. The launch of the platform was covered in a major article in Germany’s Die Welt.

• “Remarkable Political Shift”—Germany Changes UNRWA Vote: In December 2025, for the first time ever, Germany and five other EU countries withheld support in a UN vote on renewing UNRWA’s mandate. Der Spiegeldescribed the vote as a “remarkable political shift.”

• Chancellor Merz’s Party Votes to Defund UNRWA: In February 2026, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, unanimously adopted a motion at its congress calling for an end to UNRWA funding.

UN WATCH ACCUSED OF “WILD UNRWA DEFAMATION”

The report by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation was picked up in Germany by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted an anonymous German parliamentary staffer describing Hillel Neuer’s September 2025 testimony there as “an hour of the wildest UNRWA defamation.”

UN Watch responded by showing that Neuer’s entire testimony was video recorded, showing there was not a single word of defamation. On the contrary, UN Watch’s evidence-based presentation shows proof of UNRWA’s infestation by terrorists.

UNRWA Chief Philippe Lazzarini Commends German Report — After UN Watch Called for His Indictment for War Crimes

The report accusing UN Watch of undue influence was amplified in a social media post by former UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who was exposed by UN Watch for his ties with Hamas officials.

In a formal letter to the Secretary-General, UN Watch recently called on the United Nations to waive Lazzarini’s UN immunity so that competent national authorities may investigate and prosecute him for complicity in terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

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This comes amid confusion about Germany’s exact position vis-a-vis funding UNRWA in the wake of the October 7th massacre by Hamas and evidence that UNRWA teachers celebrated the attack and propagated hate.

On November 28, reports spread on X (Twitter) that Germany was cutting aid from UNRWA with many interpreting this as a halting of aid altogether. This prompted the German Foreign Ministry to reply on X that “This is not true. UNRWA plays an essential and important role in delivering assistance to Palestinians.”

While it is correct that Germany is not cutting aid from UNRWA as a whole, through its own official communications Germany has since confirmed that there will be a “readjustment” of aid away from “longer-term development policy measures via UNRWA in the Gaza Strip” into other agencies such as the UNDP and the German Red Cross.

On November 7th, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) announced that it “is currently reviewing its involvement in the Palestinian territories,” and that “as long as the review has not been completed, no new contractual obligations will be entered into and, in principle, no new payments will be made.” Germany is UNRWA’s second-largest donor. In 2022, it contributed over 190 million euros.

On the same day, the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze met with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini in Amman and vouched to “not abandon the agency” and announced a “91 million euro package of support, including planned commitments and new funding.”

The official BMZ website explains that “as a constitutional state, we fulfill existing contractual obligations, such as paying invoices for work carried out in projects that have already begun.” They also confirmed that they released 71 million euros of previously planned commitments and 20 million euros of new funding to UNRWA in Jordan and the Gaza Strip “intended to finance measures that maintain basic services” given the acute needs.

On November 23rd the BMZ provided an update on the review stating that as a “partial result of the review, the BMZ decided on November 22, 2023, that UNRWA can use the funds made available by the BMZ in all of its areas of operation, i.e. in Jordan, in the West Bank as well as in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and, in isolated cases, Syria.”

However, the statement includes the caveat that “due to the current situation, longer-term development policy measures via UNRWA in the Gaza Strip are excluded.”

The BMZ website goes on to say that “transitional aid projects should be continued and readjusted” to other agencies such as the UNDP, the German Red Cross, the Palestinian Red Crescent Movement, and the WFP. It is also important to note that the review is not yet completed.

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 Click here for video of UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer’s i24 interview on UNESCO

GENEVA, July 12, 2016 — The UK, France and Germany are helping Israel to oppose a Palestinian-Jordanian draft resolution at UNESCO that effectively denies ancient Jewish and Christian history in the holy city, according to a report by the Jerusalem Post citing Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon.

While neither France, Germany or the UK are on the committee, the more countries that announce their opposition to the text, the less likely it will be that the Palestinians will try and pass it, Nachshon said.
France backed a similar resolution at UNESCO’s executive board in April, but after an outcry several of its leaders expressed regret. President Hollande pledged to be “vigilant” in the next resolution, to affirm the shared significance of the holy sites. Now is an opportunity for Mr. Hollande to fulfill his pledge. Brazil, which also expressed regret, should likewise play a positive role this week in Istanbul.
According to analysis by the Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon, the Arab states can expect support from 11 of the 21 committee members. Six of them—Cuba, Indonesia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Tunisia and Zimbabwe—are almost certain to back the Palestinians, while another five, the Philippines, Jamaica, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, are likely to do the same.
On the other hand, Croatia, Finland, Poland, Portugal, South Korea and Tanzania are likely to oppose or abstain. Angola and Burkina Faso might abstain, as possibly could Peru and Vietnam.

 ___________

After UNESCO Vote in April, French Leaders Criticized Own Position

Above: Prime Minister Manuel Valls, President Francois Hollande, and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve 

• After the April resolution at UNESCO that effectively denied Jewish ties to Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reprimanded French President Francois Hollande for his country’s support of the resolution, citing it as a stumbling block to Israel endorsing a French-led international conference on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

• Prime Minister Manuel Valls more sharply criticized the resolution, saying: “This UNESCO resolution contains unfortunate, clumsy wording that offends and unquestionably should have been avoided, as should have the vote.”

• Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve also criticized France’s vote, telling an event organized by CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, that he does “not take a supportive view of the text.” The resolution “should not have been adopted,” Cazeneuve said at the event in Paris, adding that the resolution passed “was not written as it should have been,” the Le Figaro daily reported.

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“Shame on Britain, France and Germany for encouraging this hijacking of the annual world health assembly, and diverting precious time, money, and resources from global health priorities, in order to wage a political prosecution of Israel, especially when, in reality, anyone who has ever walked into an Israeli hospital or clinic knows that they are providing world-class health care to thousands of Palestinian Arabs, as well as to Syrians fleeing Assad,” Neuer added.
“At the same time,” said Neuer, “UN Watch commends the principled stand taken by the U.S., Canada, Australia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea in joining Israel to oppose perpetuating a politicized agenda item.” The U.S. and Canada both took the floor today to strongly object to the anti-Israel exercise.

The vote was 107 to 8 for the resolution, with 8 abstentions and 58 absent.  The resolution calls for reports on a series of alleged Israeli violations, including on “the impact of prolonged occupation and human rights violations on mental,
physical and environmental health” in “the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The text also adopted three reports mandated by last year’s Arab-sponsored resolution: a “field assessment” on “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory”, a similar report by the WHO director-general, and a related report by the WHO secretariat.

UN’s 2016 World Health Assembly voting on anti-Israel resolution, May 25, 2016

Palestinian and Syrian Submissions
By backing the measure, EU states joined in the political targeting of Israel—in the form of a special debate, three lopsided reports, the resolution, and the publication of country submissions, including an inflammatory 59-page Palestinian submission which complains of a “racist separation barrier” while blaming increased Palestinian traffic accidents on the fear of “being pursued by settlers”; and a Syrian submission laced with anti-Semitic conspiracy tropes, yet circulated as an official UN document on the conference agenda, which alleges that “the Israeli occupation authorities” continue “to experiment on Syrian and Arab prisoners with medicines and drugs and to inject them with pathogenic viruses.” 
Unable to deny Israel’s medical treatment of thousands of wounded Syrians, the regime accuses Israel of a plot: healing “armed terrorists from Jabhah al-Nusrah” so that they can “resume their subversive terrorist activities directed against the country’s peaceful citizens and its infrastructure.”
Iran and Syria Take the Floor
Several countries took the floor ahead of the vote. Iran said Gaza was under “an inhuman blockade.” Syria said “the occupying Israeli forces continue their immoral practice, which punish our people in the Golan.”
Egypt accused Israel of “disregard for basic human rights.” Pakistan spoke of Israel’s “devastation of the health system in the occupied territories” and of a “wave of terror against the Palestinian civilian population.”
Venezuela’s Maduro regime said there was a need to “bring in medicines, but this is being inhibited by the occupying power, Israel.”
UNRWA, which received more than $400 million from the U.S. last year, said the root causes of Palestinian medical problems include “interference with basic human rights as a result of numerous policies of the Israeli authorities.”
The whole was met with delight in the overflow room for media and NGO representatives, who snickered and scoffed when the Israeli delegate took the floor to denounce the politicized resolution.
EU Joined the Jackals

Had the EU wanted, they could have set the record straight, and taken a stand against such base demonization of the Jewish state. Disgracefully, however, Britain, France, Germany and all other EU states joined the jackals by voting for today’s resolution.
The EU states could have introduced their own resolution about how Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of its own people, destroying the health rights of the Syrian people.
Yet the EU was silent. Instead, it justified its vote by claiming in its speech that today’s resolution was “technical.” This is the old Brussels-Ramallah wink-and-nod game: the PLO submits a more inflammatory text at the beginning, knowing it will be revised later to allow the Europeans to pretend they achieved a “balanced” text. Israel is then expected to celebrate that it has been lynched with a lighter rope.

Last month, France and Spain voted for an Arab-sponsored UNESCO resolution that contained the wild conspiracy accusation that Israel was “planting fake Jewish graves” in Jerusalem.
With today’s vote, which robs the world health assembly of limited time and resources in order to portray Israel as the world’s only violator of health rights—when in fact Israel is the beacon of the entire region on promoting and respecting the health rights of all people—the entire EU now descends into irrationalism.
By scapegoating the Jewish state for all the world’s health problems, just as medieval Europe once accused the Jews of poisoning the wells, the EU aids and abets the UN and its World Health Organization to betray the cause of humanity and the very principles upon which they were founded.

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GENEVA, March 3, 2013 – UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights group that was first to expose and criticize the Turkish prime minister’s UN speech calling Zionism a “crime against humanity,” welcomed the latest statement by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemning Mr. Erdogan’s remarks as “hurtful and unacceptable.”

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer urged European Union leaders to speak out as well, noting that many EU representatives were present at the Vienna speech yet stayed silent.

“We call on EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, EU Commission President Barroso, EU Council President Hermann Van Rompuy, and European Parliament president Shulz to issue strong and unequivocal statements condemning the repugnant speech of the Turkish prime minister. If the UN, Germany and the US have done so, the EU should do the right thing as well,” said Neuer.

“For Mr. Erdogan to attack a fellow UN member state’s right to self-determination, and its historical and cultural underpinnings, is inconsistent with Turkey’s international obligations under UN conventions against incitement to racism,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

Other world leaders have also condemned Mr. Erdogan:
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu: “This is a dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world.” Source
White House: “We reject Prime Minister Erdogan’s characterization of Zionism as a crime against humanity, which is offensive and wrong… We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times.”  Source
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon: Mr. Erdogan’s comment was “not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based… The Secretary-General believes is it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership.”  Source
US Secretary of State John Kerry: “We not only disagree with it. We found it objectionable.” Source
Senior US State Dept. Official:  “This was particularly offensive, frankly, to call Zionism a crime against humanity”… The pattern of Turkish denunciations of Israel is having a “corrosive effect” on American-Turkish relations. Full transcript

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Each candidate requires a minimum of 97 affirmative votes in tomorrow’s U.N. General Assembly ballot; the three with the most votes win.  See full details in UN Watch’s new report.

Because there are so many non-democracies and tyrannies among the 193 voting nations, candidates like Germany are effectively promising to give gross violators a free pass, perpetuate the Council’s dysfunctional functioning as a toothless talk shop, and proclaim that Western democracies are no better than anyone else.

Here’s what we learn from AFP:

The Geneva-based council’s new importance could be seen by the stepped up lobbying for spots. Germany sent foreign minister Guido Westerwelle to New York this week to press his country’s case.

Ah, a “bridge-builder.” An expression in Geneva that means appeasing dictators. With this same logic the EU justified Libya’s election as chair of the old discredited Commission on Human Rights. As reported in 2003, Europe didn’t want to “alienate Africa and other developing countries” and “undermine the commission’s work.” Gaddafi’s spokesman duly thanked Libya’s supporters, including “European countries, and particularly France, Italy and Britain.”

So much for any hope that the European Union will even attempt any serious reform of the U.N. ‘s highest human rights body, or try to make it systematically address the world’s worst violators of human rights.

Helping Westerwelle is Deutschwelle. In this report, Germany’s state-funded radio quotes Germany state-funded German Institute for Human Rights for the proposition that Germany is qualified for a seat.

Fine. But note what they emphasize:

“Germany also promotes fundamental rights, including the right to adequate housing and the right to water and sanitation.” This track record, [director] Beate Rudolf believes, makes a good case for Germany’s election to the UN Human Rights Council.

Housing and water are real issues for millions. But there are dozens of other U.N. agencies which have this responsibility, and the budgets to go with it.

Yet other than the Human Rights Council, the U.N. has no special agencies mandated to uphold the individual freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly, and so forth.

The dictators want to limit the discussion to how the West must keep sending their kleptocracies millions in aid.

And, in order to get elected, it seems that Germany — and Sweden, Ireland, Greece, and the U.S.? — are willing to play along.

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