Sadly, wars break out from time to time. Beyond the unspeakable suffering and destruction they leave in their wake, large numbers of people find themselves on the firing line and have to flee and live as refugees. The UNHCR – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - attends to the welfare and rehabilitation of refugees around the world. It is the most commendable mission of mercy.
But surprise surprise, there is just one single group for which the UN has set up and has been maintaining a special refugee agency - for 75 years. UNRWA – United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency – is dedicated exclusively to Palestinian refugees. And just in case you are wondering, nowhere in the entire world is there any other such population, despite all the wars that have beset various countries over the years. A recent IDSF research has unveiled the full scope of UNRWA’s wrongdoing, in chilling detail.
Anyone with sense in his head understands that UNRWA is intended to perpetuate the Arab-Israeli conflict. After all, what does every refugee in the world hope for? To rehabilitate himself and regain control over his life as soon as possible. Therefore, the refugee status is canceled when he settles in a new country and obtains its citizenship.
Not so the Palestinians. According to UNRWA, the Palestinian’s refugee status lasts in perpetuity. This way, the number of UNRWA refugees has grown six-fold from approximately 750,000 at the end of the 1948-1949 war. Nowadays the number of Palestinian refugees is estimated at 6 million. Among these, for example, some 2.4 million are Jordanian citizens.
And while any other refugee anywhere else in the world loses his refugee status if there is reasonable suspicion that he has committed war crimes, this is not the case with the Palestinians. In other words, in UNRWA’s playbook, a Palestinian is an eternal refugee. As such, he is allowed to and is even encouraged (more on this below) to engage in terrorism and war crimes.
Some 60% of the UNRWA budget is spent on education. It operates over 700 schools in Palestinian refugee camps worldwide and also in East Jerusalem. The schoolbooks are approved by the Palestinian Authority and they are also under UN supervision. An expansive report from the Impact-SE Institute provides details of how UNRWA educates schoolchildren to become anti-semitic and commit anti-Jewish violence. On top of that, it exalts the principle of jihad, praises shaheeds and champions the eradication of Israel.
The report contains details on 118 Hamas operatives who were educated in UNRWA schools. The report also contains photographs of pages in these UNRWA schoolbooks teaching the children that the Jews control global money, media and politics.
Suicide terrorists are portrayed as heroes; the texts say that the Jews living in the State of Israel are destined to be wiped off the face of the Earth. So why should it come to us as a surprise that at least 30 UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 massacre and assisted Hamas subsequently in the war? Furthermore, at least two UNRWA teachers held hostages in their homes.
According to the Israeli security forces, at least 440 terrorists from the Hamas military wing are employed by UNRWA. About 2,000 more are non-combat Hamas operatives. And some 7,000 of them have first-degree relatives who are Hamas terrorists. In total, 9,500 out of the 12,000 UNRWA employees have connections with Hamas.
According to the Wall Street Journal, some 23% of the male UNRWA employees are connected to Hamas, and 49% of the entire workforce have relatives connected to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. So it is certainly no surprise that in the elections for the UNRWA workers' union in 2012, candidates affiliated to the Hamas terrorist organization won 25 of the 27 seats on the board.
For years UN reports have been exposing the military use the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations have been making of UNRWA facilities in the Strip. In the course of the war, the IDF forces found Hamas equipment in UNRWA sacks and UN equipment in homes from which Hamas fired on IDF forces.
There is also documented evidence of Hamas firing on IDF forces from inside UN buildings. And to top it all, the immense terror tunnel Hamas built under the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, with the entry shaft to that tunnel located inside an UNRWA school.
And all this terrorist activity has been financed by approximately 20 different countries. In 2022, the organization’s budget was approximately $1 billion. The most generous of the donor countries have traditionally been the United States ($344 million), Germany ($202 million), the European Union ($114 million), and Sweden ($61 million). Apparently, most donor countries have no mechanism for closely overseeing how this aid money is being used. This, at least, is what we would like to believe.
The Israel Defense and Security Forum calls on the Israeli government to adopt an approach that calls for the immediate and total disbanding of UNRWA and to withdraw this organization’s accreditation - with immediate effect.
Its activities in the West Bank should be blocked and all of the UNRWA institutions in Israel should be shut down. This, in addition to the cancelation of all UNRWA’s tax benefits in Israel. Responsibility for the areas UNRWA was in charge of should be assigned to the relevant government ministries.
Dr. Jacob RimerAs for the Gaza Strip, UNRWA’s humanitarian aid distribution system in the Gaza Strip must urgently be replaced with a provisional military administration apparatus. And immediately following the final defeat of Hamas, responsibility for all the schools, clinics and other UNRWA institutions must be assigned to the UNHCR.
There is no justification for continuing to tolerate this special refugee agency dedicated to the Palestinians, whose main aims are to increase anti-Semitism in the world and the annihilation of the State of Israel.
Dr. Jacob Rimer is a senior consultant and lecturer on cyber topics, artificial intelligence, and the sciences at the Israel Defense and Security Forum.