UNRWA: OBSTACLe
TO PEACE

UN Schools use Western taxpayers’ money to teach 

Palestinian children to hate Jews 

Report: U.N. Teachers Celebrated Hamas Massacre

As war wages on between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, UN Watch has released a new report that reveals how UNRWA teachers in the enclave, funded largely by the U.S. and EU, indoctrinate Palestinian children and promote terrorism and antisemitism.

Entitled “UNRWA: Hate Starts Here,” the report uncovers 20 UNRWA teachers and other staff members who celebrated the October 7th Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on their social media accounts. 

The new cases are in addition to 133 UNRWA educators and staff who were exposed for promoting hate and violence in UN Watch’s last report, released in March 2023.

Background on UNRWA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, commonly known as UNRWA, is a UN agency devoted exclusively to the provision of services to Palestinians displaced as a result of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and their descendants. Although originally intended to be a temporary aid agency, its mandate has been repeatedly renewed. UNRWA’s main areas of operation include education, health care and social services. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by donations, mostly from governments, which account for over 92% of financial contributions to the Agency. 

Today, UNRWA provides benefits to approximately 5.9 million people designated as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. According to UNRWA, the organization operates 702 schools with over 526,000 students and 19,877 educational staff, out of approximately 30,000 total staff.

One of UNRWA’s main stated objectives is to provide basic education to Palestinian youth, to enable them to obtain necessary skills and to impart key values such as dignity and tolerance. However, teachers and staff employed by UNRWA have systematically promoted terrorism and radical antisemitic ideology running counter to any prospect of peace.

We urge donor states to demand that UNRWA implement its stated “Zero Tolerance” policy for employees who incite racism or murder, by immediately terminating such employees. UNRWA must further conduct a thorough investigation into its facilities and put an immediate stop to all antisemitic and terrorist-inciting activities.


UN Watch reports reach policymakers worldwide

UN Watch reports exposing antisemitism and incitement to violence by UNRWA teachers have been presented and discussed in policy circles from Washington, D.C. to Berlin. They have led governments to conduct rigorous reviews of their aid to UNRWA and have provoked decisions to divert funding to other agencies and cut future contracts with UNRWA altogether. 

On November 8th, 2023 Hillel Neuer testified before U.S. Congress at the Committee on Foreign Affairs to launch UN Watch’s latest report on UNRWA teachers and to speak about antisemitism within the U.N. system.

Perpetuating violence and inciting hatred

UN Watch has published several reports exposing the systemic promotion of racial hatred and violence by UNRWA staff. Such practices constitute a gross breach of UNRWA employees’ neutrality obligations as enshrined in the UN Charter and in UN and UNRWA Staff Rules and Regulations. UN Watch has reported on several UNRWA employees celebrating terrorism, glorifying nazism and publicly calling for the extermination of Jews on Facebook.

Even more alarming than the Facebook posts themselves, however, is the fact that UNRWA systematically hires and employs racist staff and places the education of impressionable Palestinian youth in their hands.

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