Hillel Neuer appeared on ABC Australia with Gemma Veness to discuss recent Israeli legislation limiting UNRWA’s operations and to discuss UNRWA’s well-established ties to terrorism.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Hillel Neuer is the Executive Director of UN Watch. It’s a Geneva-based NGO whose stated mission is to monitor the performance of the United Nations, and which has campaigned against UNRWA. He joins us now from Jerusalem. Thank you for your time. Israel has called this a wake up call. Can you outline the reasoning behind these bills and the evidence of terrorism links in UNRWA?
Hillel Neuer: Thank you for having me. I just want to add some nuance. You indicated that we campaign against UNRWA. The fact is that for 10 years, we submitted reports to the United Nations and to UNRWA about hundreds of UNRWA teachers who were systematically glorifying Adolf Hitler on social media, supporting terrorism, and some of them clearly themselves, members of terrorist groups.
And time and time again, UNRWA’s response was not to ask us for more information, but to attack us, to defame us, and to try to deny everything. We didn’t call for the end of UNRWA. But you know what, we should have because on October 7th, we realized and I think everyone woke up and understood what UNRWA really was— certainly everyone in Israel.
The spokesman that was just quoted in the report, Jonathan Fowler, said there were nine people involved. Look, Israel gave a list in July of a hundred UNRWA officials who were terrorists. One of them was Mohammad Marwan Abu Itiwi. I myself shared his name and ties to terrorism on Twitter in July and UNRWA did nothing.
And a few weeks ago, about two weeks ago, Israel eliminated this UNRWA truck driver because he was a Hamas Nukhba squad leader that on October 7th carried out the massacre next to the Re’im bomb shelter where dozens of youths were fleeing the Nova music festival, including a Hersh Goldberg-Polin. A number were massacred and also kidnapped into Gaza. This was an UNRWA worker and a Hamas terrorist leader. UNRWA was told this and they did nothing.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: When did you first raise those concerns about that teachers’ union leader in Lebanon?
Hillel Neuer: This was on July 4th when the letter was sent to UNRWA and around that time that we tweeted it out. So, his name was on my list, sent to UNRWA for four months. UNRWA did nothing. They were asked about it a few days ago, and they said, well, we didn’t have evidence. You know, did they ask people at UNRWA? This is not a one off.
The head of the teachers’ union in Lebanon, up until a few weeks ago, was Fathi al-Sharif. You’ll see dozens of my tweets in the past six months, telling UNRWA that the head of their teachers’ union, Fathi al-Sharif, is a Hamas leader, because he was inciting to terrorism regularly.
This was happening openly on Facebook, and they did nothing. And in the end, he was eliminated by Israel in a missile strike. And the day he was eliminated, Hamas said he wasn’t just a member of ours—he was our leader. Fathi al-Sharif was our leader, and they praised his jihadist education. So the head of the teachers’ union of UNRWA is being praised by Hamas as their leader and for his jihadist education, and you folks in Australia are paying for this.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Now, the U.S. State Department says that banning UNRWA will create a vacuum that Israel would then be responsible for filling. Does Israel have a plan to fill this void?
Hillel Neuer: Well, I’m not sure that it’s Israel’s responsibility.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Under international law, would it not be Israel’s responsibility?
Hillel Neuer: Well, it begins with the Palestinians. Why do we can keep treating Palestinians as juveniles that have to live in dependency? Why does the international community treat able-bodied Palestinians for 75 years on a cycle of dependency and nurturing grievance and revenge?
Those who were born in Gaza for generations are Palestinians. They live in Palestine and they’re not refugees. They should be told to govern themselves. The same Hamas that used hundreds of millions of dollars to build terror tunnels, and when asked on a television program in October, “Why didn’t you let Gazans go into your terror tunnels underground to take safety?”, a Hamas leader replied, “No, no, those tunnels are for our fighters. It’s the United Nations, and UNRWA which has to take care of the population.”
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Do you believe food, food aid, and healthcare will suffer as a result of this vote, if it is indeed not Israel’s responsibility?
Hillel Neuer: It shouldn’t. Look, obviously there has to be a transition—
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Aid will suffer as a result of this, do you believe?
Hillel Neuer: It shouldn’t suffer at all. You know, the UNHCR, which is next to my office in Geneva, knows how to give aid to hundreds of millions of people around the world when it’s necessary. In Sudan, in Syria, in Yemen, in Ukraine, they know how to do it. So the notion that UNHCR, the WHO, the World Food Program, and UNICEF, can’t fill in the blanks, is false.
And again, the Palestinians need to rule themselves. So, I agree with you in the transition, it has to be done properly, but the international community has to stop supporting an agency that has a pathological agenda educating Palestinians that they’re going to dismantle Israel. That’s what led to October 7th.
Ninety percent of Gazans, according to Johann Soufi, the former Gaza legal advisor of UNRWA, ninety percent of the terrorists are estimated to have been graduates of UNRWA schools. So, if we can keep paying for this, and we are, all we’re doing is perpetuating war and terrorism, instead of allowing for a real two-state solution and peace.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Expand on that transition underway on that aid that needs to be delivered.
Hillel Neuer: It’s up to the international community. They’re living in denial. The Australian government, the French government, the British government are funding UNRWA. They are not interested at all in the fact that terrorists lead the teachers’ union. Suhail al-Hindi was the leader of the Gaza teachers’ union. Eight thousand Gazan teachers rallied for him and thousands in Lebanon rallied for Fathi al-Sharif.
They are Hamas terrorists. Undisputed. Hamas claims them. We are paying for that. So if we want to keep up this perverse logic, to quote the Swiss Foreign Minister, Ignazio Cassis, “perpetuating UNRWA is a perverse logic.” It’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Foreign Ministers of many countries—and that includes Australia—they’ve expressed grave concerns of the implications of these bills. Is this a path to pariah status for Israel?
Hillel Neuer: Well, again, no country should be forced to cooperate with an agency that are bent on massacring, raping, slaughtering, and torturing, in the most sadistic way, families in front of other family members. UNRWA was a part of this. UNRWA enabled this again. An UNRWA worker was a commando squad leader doing this. We sent the name to UNRWA for four months, and they did nothing. They don’t care.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: They did sack staff members for perhaps being involved in that October 7th attack.
Hillel Neuer: UNRWA is in denial. They did nothing for Mohammad Marwan Abu Itiwi. Only in rare instances do they admit terrorism ties. And again, if they let go nine people, it’s because there was compelling evidence. But there are hundreds involved.
Anyone can go on our website, unwatch.org, to see hundreds of pages of screenshots of UNRWA teachers glorifying Hitler and celebrating jihad. In January, we released the Terrorgram report, providing evidence that there were three thousand UNRWA teachers in a chat group celebrating the October 7th massacre. It’s not a case of a few bad apples. UNRWA is rotten to the core. The foreign ministries know it, and they’re in denial.
Gemma Veness, ABC Australia: Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of UN Watch. Thank you for joining us.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you for having me.