“UNRWA is a horror show that is decades in the making, co-produced by the United States taxpayer,” Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who was personally sanctioned by Iran in 2020, told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability this week.
“Terrorism support and subsidy for UNRWA is a feature, not a bug. The organization is built from its core mission, its mandate, to indoctrinate generation after generation to hate Jews, to destroy Israel, to be ready to manifest themselves as those who that come to wipe the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea,” he told the legislators.
Goldberg was one of four expert witnesses at the hearing, titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures.” The hearing provided one of those rare occasions in Washington to see Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans agree on anything.
UNRWA educates that dying is better than living
Rep. Kathy Manning (D-North Carolina), a staunch pro-Israel supporter, said that UNRWA has been “raising terrorists with their textbooks.”
“UNRWA educates that dying is better than living,” Marcus Sheff, CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, which has produced hundreds of pages of reports about UNRWA’s terrorism involvement, told the committee.
“Clearly, as far as the educational platform is concerned, they need to make sure that those textbooks are not taught another day, not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well, because they are taught by the Palestinian Authority and they need to put pressure on the PA. But we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to make sure that hate is no longer taught by UNRWA,” Sheff told The Media Line.
About 30 anti-Israel protesters arrived early at the hearing, wearing pink shirts and with their hands painted red. They were promoting propaganda that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) believes is being floated and funded by Russia.
CODEPINK demonstrators hold up their red-painted hands at the congressional subcommittee hearing, Jan. 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Clint Van Winkle/The Media Line)
The demonstrators, primarily comprising a group of elderly Jewish women from a radical leftist CODEPINK peace group, posed for journalists, laughed when hostages were mentioned, and interrupted the meeting until they were too tired to keep their red hands in the air.
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Several were forcefully removed by police. Each one complained of some ailment or age-related reason why the police should be gentle with them.
Protester Leslie Angeline of CODEPINK is removed by US Capitol Police officers during a hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the US Capitol, Jan. 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Clint Van Winkle/The Media Line)
The members of Congress were clearly not amused by the group’s support for the Islamist terrorist group.
“The United States has given UNRWA $7 billion to date and we have seen the results: one generation of young people after another who hate Jewish people and dream of the day when they are all killed,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) told The Media Line.
Smith, the chairman of the Global Health, Human Rights and International Organizations subcommittee, has chaired two meetings on UNRWA’s shortcomings in the past year.
This cycle of teaching children to hate will never be stopped if the United States countenances further support for UNRWA in any way, shape, or form. We can and must find an alternative.
According to figures provided by Smith’s office, US taxpayers have sent UNRWA $1 billion since 2021, when President Joe Biden reversed former President Donald Trump’s decision to defund the agency. Smith this week introduced legislation along with Reps. Brian Mast (R-Florida) and Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) to prohibit the US from funding UNRWA.
Rep. Brian Mast (C) attends the hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee at the US Capitol, Jan. 30, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Clint Van Winkle/The Media Line)
“This cycle of teaching children to hate will never be stopped if the United States countenances further support for UNRWA in any way, shape, or form. We can and must find an alternative,” Smith said.
UNRWA, short for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, says it provides “human development and humanitarian services [that] encompass primary and vocational education, primary health care, relief and social services, infrastructure and camp improvement, microfinance and emergency response, including in situations of armed conflict.”
However, it has been found to be a leading source of terrorism education and Hamas support in the region.
UNRWA textbooks for schoolchildren promote jihad, martyrdom, and Jew-hatred.
Several UNRWA staff members, including teachers and former students, were actively involved in the Oct. 7 attacks. Many more applauded the attacks on social media.
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of watchdog organization UN Watch, said that UNRWA is not a case of “one bad apple,” but it is “rotten to the core.”
We know that in Gaza at least 12 UNRWA employees personally participated in the massacre of October 7, which involved the murder of 1,200 Israelis along with mass rape, torture, and mutilation
Neuer presented UN Watch’s latest report, “Terrorgram,” which showed a Telegram channel with over 3,000 UNRWA teachers in Gaza that was “replete with messages, photos and videos, cheering and celebrating the massacre of October 7.”
“We know that in Gaza at least 12 UNRWA employees personally participated in the massacre of October 7, which involved the murder of 1,200 Israelis along with mass rape, torture, and mutilation,” Neuer told the US legislators.
Mara Rudman, the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, advocated to keep funding UNRWA. She said that defunding the agency would lead to famine and an increase in terrorism, and that “food-secure Palestinians” who are “able to sustain themselves and their families” would provide a better chance at peace in the region.
She was not the only one who did not want UNRWA defunded, especially without an alternative aid agency in place.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado), a ranking member of the committee and former army ranger with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, said: “We cannot stop the delivery of aid and the support of an organization that is essential to the livelihood of about 2 million Palestinian people, and I will continue to be a vocal advocate to make sure we find a way forward from here.”
The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, declined an invitation to testify to the committee.