Israelis Defend UNRWA Ban Amid US Rebuke, Say School Kids Better Off Without Agency’s ‘Poisonous Influence’

Israel’s decision to ban the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and their descendants from operating in the country was necessary given the organization’s ties to the Hamas terror group and “poisonous influence” in the Middle East, according to an expert and Israeli officials, who argued that concerns over the move are overblown.

The US blasted its ally Israel for passing legislation on Monday that bans the the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from operating within Israeli territory and prohibits any Israeli authority from engaging with the agency.

The two laws passed overwhelmingly in Israel’s parliament, known as the Knesset, amid mounting revelations of UNRWA staff involvement in the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The legislation will close UNRWA’s operations in Jerusalem, where it services hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with education, health, and other aid. It will also limit the agency’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank, which relies on cooperation from Israeli authorities.

The Biden administration said it was “deeply troubled” by the move.

“Implementing the legislation risks catastrophe for the more than 3 million Palestinians who rely on UNRWA for essential services, including health care, and primary and secondary education,” the US State Department said. “We urge the government of Israel to pause and further consider implementation of this legislation to ensure UNRWA can effectively carry out its mission and facilitate humanitarian assistance.”

Marcus Sheff — CEO of the NGO IMPACT-se, which examines anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content in UNRWA’s educational materials — noted that numerous UNRWA-employed teachers were directly involved in the Oct. 7 massacre, while many others “openly celebrated it.” He cited a Wall Street Journal report from earlier this year that found that 23 percent of UNRWA’s male employees have ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15 percent for adult males in Gaza. A further 10 percent of UNRWA’s school principals in Gaza and their deputies were leaders in Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group.

“These are not a few bad apples but representative of the whole rotten barrel,” Sheff told The Algemeiner.

Sheff downplayed the Biden administration’s warnings about potential “catastrophe” from shutting down the agency.

“Fifteen million refugee children are in school today around the world and 97 percent are being educated without the help of UNRWA. Even UNRWA head [Philippe] Lazzarini acknowledged that other aid agencies could replace UNRWA, but that the Palestinians refuse. So what can UNRWA possibly offer the next generation of Palestinians? More poisonous textbooks taught too often by extremist teachers?”

Sheff testified to a US congressional committee in January that textbooks supplied by UNRWA “teach that Jews are liars and fraudsters that spread corruption, which will lead to their annihilation. Students are taught about cutting the necks of the enemy, that a fire massacre of Jews on a bus is celebrated as a barbecue party.”

Fleur Hassan Nahoum, special envoy for Israel’s foreign ministry, assailed UNRWA’s “poisonous influence” in the Middle East.

“Eighty percent of the terrorists that committed the massacre on Oct. 7 were educated in UNRWA schools. And so not only do they not have legitimacy to do the work that they’re doing, they have actually been a poisonous influence in our region,” she told The Algemeiner.

Hassan Nahoum, who also served as deputy mayor of Jerusalem, said that the curtailing of UNRWA’s operations in the Israeli capital had already shown positive signs.

“In Jerusalem, by offering better opportunities with the Arab-Israeli curriculum, we have managed to move the needle by 20 percent of kids now abandoning the UNRWA school system and learning a curriculum of hope and opportunity,” she said.

UNRWA on Thursday confirmed that a Hamas Nukbha force commander killed in an Israeli strike a day earlier was a staffer. Muhammad Abu Attawi led the killing and abducting of hostages, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, from a roadside bomb shelter near the site of the Nova party in Re’im in southern Israel.

Attawi’s name appeared in a July letter that Israel sent to the Palestinian refugee agency, listing more than 100 staff members affiliated with terror groups, including Hamas. An Israeli foreign ministry official said the list was a “small fraction” of the total number of terrorists employed by the UN agency, but that the full list could not be disclosed out of security considerations.

CCTV footage captured the body of Yonatan Samerano, who was murdered by terrorists on Oct. 7, being dragged by an UNRWA social worker, Faisal Ali Musalem al-Naami, and eventually stuffed into an UNRWA marked vehicle.

Last month, Hamas confirmed that Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amin, the chairman of UNRWA’s Teachers’ Association, served as its commander in Lebanon.

In a recording released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) earlier this year, UNRWA teacher Youssef Zidan Suleiman al-Hawajara is heard bragging to a friend: “We have female hostages; I captured one!”

Following the Oct. 7 attack, 18 countries suspended their funding to UNRWA, including the US, which contributes about a third of the agency’s budget, but resumed the flow of money again in March.

In 2018, the Trump administration cut all funding to UNRWA, calling the agency “irredeemably flawed,” a decision reversed by the Biden administration soon after taking office.

Israel has long called for permanently shuttering UNRWA, citing the agency’s ties to terrorism as well as its mandate, which according to Israeli officials perpetuates the conflict. Palestinian refugees are unique in that they pass their status to descendants, regardless of their age and country of residency, a practice Israel claims fuels demands for a “right of return.” The return of over 5 million Palestinians to Israel would destroy the Jewish state by demographic means, critics argue.

UNRWA faced scrutiny in 2019 when a leaked report accused its leadership of corruption, sexual misconduct, and mismanagement. The agency’s own report found that Palestinian terror groups had stored weapons in several empty UNRWA schools in Gaza and that rockets were “probably” fired at Israel from two of these schools during the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict.

Speaking ahead of a Security Council meeting on Monday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said, “There is no longer any plausible deniability regarding UNRWA’s infiltration by terrorists. Nor are there any excuses left.”

The post Israelis Defend UNRWA Ban Amid US Rebuke, Say School Kids Better Off Without Agency’s ‘Poisonous Influence’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.