The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has placed six employees on administrative leave following UN Watch’s report implicating them in inciting violence against and calling for the murder of Jews.
The 42-page report exposed antisemitism and incitement to terrorism propagated recently by 10 UNRWA teachers and other employees. This is in addition to more than 100 UNRWA educators and staff previously exposed by UN Watch.
In a June 30, 2022 interview on ILTV, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer gave the example of Elham Mansour, a UNRWA teacher in Lebanon who calls for the slaughter of Zionists, who she refers to as “filthy criminals,” saying Israel “deserves nothing but death.”
In donor countries such as the UK or Canada, racist teachers who incite hate are usually fired. Neuer welcomed UNRWA’s announcement, in part, that they had suspended six people, which indicated an acknowledgement of the issue but stressed that this did not go nearly far enough.
“Teachers who call to murder Jews must be barred from the classroom for life,” he said. “These temporary suspensions are just a slap on the wrist.”
Referring to the the problem as pervasive, Neuer pointed out that the virulently antisemitic Facebook posts are liked, shared, commented on and endorsed by many others, including other UNRWA teachers and employees.
“The problem of racism and antisemitism is systemic in UNRWA and they are putting their heads in the sand — they don’t want to deal with the problem.”
With the U.S., Germany and European Union among those states giving huge amounts of money to UNRWA, Neuer urged donor countries to get serious about stamping out antisemitism in UNRWA.
Even as UNRWA announced measures against the six people, the agency attacked UN Watch as a “politically-motivated organization” that “seeks to destroy and “create conflict.”
Noting that UN Watch had exposed 120 UNRWA employees so far, Neuer stressed that UNRWA had not released the name of one single employee who has been fired.
“UNRWA is trying to pretend they solved the problem, even as they signal to their staff—and to terrorist organizations like Islamic Jihad which pressed UNRWA to reject the UN Watch report—that they don’t really object to the virulent antisemitism of their teachers, which UNRWA and its donors know pervades the agency,” said Neuer.
