UNRWA's deceitful ploys to stifle Israeli truth-telling - opinion

• Published date: 07 October 2021
• Author: RUTHIE BLUM
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The item was a poster illustrating the antisemitic views of an UNRWA school teacher in Gaza by praising Adolf Hitler. Erdan had equipped himself with the placard to refute the statements he knew were going to be made by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

He had good reason to want to come prepared with visual evidence. The corrupt body, whose ill-deserved status as an agency for "refugees" keeps it in financial cover, continues to employ educators who regularly incite terrorism against Jews, both in the classroom and on social media.

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This was one key impetus for the decision by the administration of former US president Donald Trump in 2018 to cut America's entire aid budget to UNRWA. In the first place, the bloated agency has spent the many decades since its inception perpetuating the "refugee crisis," rather than using its mandate to settle the approximately 600,000 "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict [Israel's War of Independence]."

Second, and even more egregiously, it has actively and passively abetted terrorism. Not only does it hire people affiliated with Hamas, but the terrorist group that rules Gaza uses UNRWA schools and other buildings as facilities for the storage of weapons.

LIKE THE current White House, which in April restored massive aid to UNRWA, Lazzarini doesn't seem to know or care that this is the case. Instead of vowing to root out such evil, he took the opportunity of the meeting in question to say that he's "proud of UNRWA's education system and its resources."

UNRWA, he stated, "uses host country curricula in line with the best practices in refugee education."

Let that sink in. The head of UNRWA acknowledged that what he's up to is "refugee education": encouraging kids born and raised in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – like their parents and even many of their grandparents – to embrace their misery, not extricate themselves from it.

At least he was being honest about that. Nevertheless, he out-and-out lied when he asserted that "UNRWA has a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech, incitement, discrimination, hostility or violence."

To soften the fabrication, he added, "I am, however, acutely aware that we are operating in a highly divided and...