Hard-left Democrats introduced a bill to restore U.S. funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organization that has been accused of supporting terrorist groups.
Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), André Carson (D-IN), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act of 2024, which seeks to have the United States resume funding the organization, a practice halted by former President Donald Trump in 2018, restored by President Joe Biden when he took office, then halted again when it was found that UNRWA staff members were directly involved in the Hamas massacre of more than 1200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023.
“On 26 January, in response to allegations received orally from Israeli officials regarding the alleged involvement of 12 UNRWA staff in the 7 October attack against Israel, and upon ascertaining that the individuals were indeed UNRWA staff members, the UNRWA Commissioner-General decided to immediately terminate the appointments of these staff ‘in the interest of the Agency,’ in accordance with applicable staff regulations, in order to protect its ability to deliver humanitarian assistance,” UNRWA announced last February.
UNRWA had denied the allegations for months and falsely labeled accusations as Israeli propaganda and “disinformation.”
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One month after the October 7 massacre, at a hearing held by the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the subcommittee, stated:
UNRWA provides education in hatred of Jews to the vastly expanded number of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of the original refugees. UNRWA’s textbooks, curricula, summer camps, official media, are all infamous incubators of hatred. … A June report by U.N. Watch and Impact SC from March this year carefully document that “UNRWA deliberately and systematically hires teachers who publicly praise Hitler, glorify terrorist attacks against Israeli children, and spread globalist-like conspiracy theories against the Jews.”
“A new Impact SC report just released exposes an absolutely deplorable fact: UNRWA staff celebrated Hamas’ massacre,” he continued. “UN Watch just released a new report 2 days ago, on November 6, documenting how as soon as news of the horrific slaughter broke, which was live streamed on social media by some of the terrorists, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, staff immediately celebrated and justified it on Facebook. Celebrated the slaughter of innocent people.”
“No one should have been surprised that UNRWA allowed Hamas to use its facilities, provides employment to Hamas members, or that UNRWA’s textbooks follow the Hamas agenda,” the Jerusalem Post reported in 2014.
In November 2023, Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of UN Watch, told Congress, “Teachers and schools at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which runs education and social services for Palestinians, regularly call to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism.”
Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, pointed out, “The UN doesn’t recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Nor does it recognize Hezbollah either. That means UN resources can be and regularly are provided to members of those terrorist groups.”
Last February, Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX), introducing the Uncovering UNRWA’s Terrorist Crimes Act to prohibit any additional funding from the United States to UNRWA, told The Washington Free Beacon:
There is a reason that President Trump halted all funding to UNRWA during his administration. It is an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish organization that promotes terrorism and anti-Semitism. UNRWA is also one of the largest money laundering and child-trafficking organizations in the world that works directly with Hamas to hire teachers to indoctrinate innocent children. This is yet another sorry example of the United States being suckered into sending billions of dollars overseas to globalist organizations that want to put America last, despite being more than $34 trillion in debt. American taxpayer dollars have no place in promoting and enabling terrorism, yet that’s exactly what’s been happening with UNRWA, and I won’t stand for it any longer.
