- UN WATCH - UN Watch Briefing - MAR 14, 2023 -
100-page report shows how UNRWA schools funded by US and EU indoctrinate Palestinian children, promote hate and violence
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2023 — Teachers and schools at the UN agency for Palestinians regularly call to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism, reveals a new report by UN Watch and IMPACT-se.
The joint report will be presented today in a meeting at the U.S. Congress, which is considering new legislation in the House and the Senate to cut funding for UNRWA.
The report uncovers 47 new cases of incitement by UNRWA staff, in breach of the agency’s stated policies of zero tolerance for racism, discrimination or antisemitism in its schools and educational materials.
The report captures evidence taken from inside UNRWA classrooms, showing the teaching of materials promoting antisemitism and terrorism, and revealing how UNRWA’s own content directs students to study specific hateful passages in Palestinian textbooks — which the organization insists teachers are told to skip.
The report identifies 133 UNRWA educators and staff who were found to promote hate and violence on social media, and an additional 82 UNRWA teachers and other staff affiliated with over 30 UNRWA schools involved in distributing hateful content to students.
The hatred is systemic at UNRWA, and its internal self-auditing mechanisms are not fit for purpose.
UN Watch has previously reached out to UNRWA prior to publication of its reports to raise concerns over promotion of hate and violence by its teachers on social media but has yet to receive a response.
The joint report was submitted today to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, EU Commissioner Joseph Borell, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The US, EU, and Germany are among the top funders to UNRWA. The groups also submitted the report to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.
UN Watch and IMPACT-se are calling on the agency’s major funders to ensure that taxpayer funds to UNRWA are not used to support teachers, schools and school districts that teach antisemitism and hate, and to hold the agency accountable, per its commitments.
With a budget of $1.6 billion, nearly 60% of which goes to education, and a staff of 30,000, the UN agency might be the most heavily funded educational undertaking in the history of international aid. And yet today's report demonstrates how UNRWA has consistently breached its duty of care to the children attending its schools.
Social Media: UNRWA Staff Incite Hate and Terrorism
Among the UNRWA educators identified in the report as propagating hate on social media:
UNRWA Syria math teacher Adnan Shteiwi glorified Diaa Hamarsheh, the perpetrator of the March 2022 Bnei Brak shooting attack which killed four Israeli civilians and one policeman as a "martyr" whose name should "forever remain in letters of fire, might, and magnificence." UNRWA head math teacher Shteiwi's Facebook post lionized Hamarsheh, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, as "splendor" and called for "glory" to his "spirit."
UNRWA Lebanon teacher Riad Nimer venerated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Commander Ibrahim Nabulsi as a "martyr" and the "noblest of souls." Nabulsi's cell had been responsible for several attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians in the West Bank, including an attack on the Jewish holy site Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. UNRWA teacher Nimer's post also encouraged others to follow Nabulsi's path by posting the video of his funeral procession which called for "peace unto...martyrs who have commanded us to follow the path they had taken."
UNRWA Syria Employee Labibeh Iskandarani celebrated Adolf Hitler when she shared a photograph of Hitler, calling on him to wake up because "there are still some people you need to burn." Iskandarani also liked comments by other UNRWA employees endorsing the post.
Curricula: UNRWA Schools Glorify Violence and Antisemitism
Today's report provides detailed evidence on how UNRWA creates institutional educational content for Palestinian children that glorifies terrorism, incites to violence, demonizes Israel and spreads antisemitism.
Examples cited in the report, based on UNRWA classroom photos and other material found in Telegram and Facebook groups and elsewhere online, include:
• UNRWA's Al-Zaytun Elementary School (Gaza) glorified terrorists and encouraged martyrdom. In March 2022 and September 2021, fifth graders were taught to glorify Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who carried out the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 Israeli civilians including 13 children were killed. Photos taken of a classroom blackboard show how she is presented as "the fighting leader" and a "hero" who is to be honored by naming children and streets after her. Likewise, in September 2022, 5th-graders at the school were taught to admire as a "martyr" and "hero" Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassem, the namesake of Hamas' military wing, who had preached the murder of Jews. On November 20, 2022, photos of a classroom blackboard from Social Studies class in the 5th grade Class 9 of the fifth grade show a map labeled Palestine. The map includes the State of Israel – a UN member state, and marks areas and cities in Israel such as Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, and Beersheba as part of Palestine.
• UNRWA's Al-Maghazi Middle School for Boys B (Gaza) endorsed violence, demonized Israel, and encouraged martyrdom. In December 2022, an UNRWA-created Arabic reading comprehension exercise for 9th graders celebrated a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus as a "barbecue party." Another UNRWA-created text, taught to 9th-graders at the school posted in December 2022, demonized Israelis as sadistic predators looking for prey by teaching reading comprehension using graphic descriptions of Israelis brutally murdering Palestinians in entirely fictional stories. A “Zionist officer” deliberately shoots to death a Palestinian fisherman in front of his son in Gaza for being late to shore. The graphic text describes a “fountain of blood bursting from his chest.” In addition, 5th-graders at the school learned that martyrdom and jihad are “the most important meanings of life” through an exercise practicing vocabulary and grammar in Arabic language Learning material posted in September 2022.
• UNRWA's Tel Al-Hawa Middle School (Gaza) endorsed violence, demonized Israel, and promoted antisemitism. An UNRWA-created social studies lesson posted in September 2022 instilled in 9th-grade students the message that "armed struggle" against Israel is a "divine right." Another September 2022 UNRWA-created 9th grade social studies text spreads antisemitic propaganda by teaching the libel that Israel infects Palestinians with cancer by dumping toxic waste in the West Bank and Gaza.
• UNRWA’s Asma Middle School for Girls B encouraged schoolgirls to liberate the homeland by sacrificing “their Blood” and pursuing jihad. UNRWA-created Arabic language material posted in September 2022 for the 6th grade includes an exercise promoting sacrificing one’s life—“the most precious thing” a person has—for the homeland as an obligation and to sacrifice “their blood.” A grammar exercise states that “I will commit jihad to liberate the homeland” and “I will not give up a centimeter of my land.” The last sentence further indicates students are taught to reject any territorial compromise with Israel.
Who Funds UNRWA's $1.6 Billion Budget?
UNRWA's teachers of hate are largely funded by Western countries who contribute the lion's share of the agency's $1.6 billion-dollar budget. Amounts pledged for 2022 included:
• $344 million from the United States • $122 million from Germany • $107 million from the European Commission • $61 million from Sweden • $17 million from the UK • $24 million from Switzerland • $32 million from Norway • $28 million from France • $24 million from Canada • $15 million from the Netherlands
UNRWA's Response: Deny and Downplay
Despite numerous prior requests and detailed evidence, UNRWA has failed to fire teachers who incite to racism and terrorism and routinely continues to produce and distribute institutional teaching material containing violence, hatred and antisemitism. UNRWA should therefore be considered complicit in its staff members’ misconduct.
Around the world, educators who incite hate and violence are removed. Yet UNRWA, despite proclaiming ‘zero tolerance’ for incitement, systematically employs preachers of anti-Jewish hate and terrorism.
Let us be clear: the problem is not the social media posts, but rather the employment of teachers who preach antisemitism and terrorism. UNRWA’s response to previous cases exposed in the past was to deny or downplay the problem, and to attack the messenger.
Only when pressed by donors did UNRWA carry out a small number of investigations which led to a handful of temporary staff suspensions or admit that its teachers had “mistakenly” produced and distributed “inappropriate material.
A mere slap on the wrist to teachers of hate only sends the message that it’s business as usual. Instead, those who incite to racism or murder should be fired, under a zero-tolerance policy, just as the UK government banned a teacher from the classroom for life over an antisemitic Facebook post.
UNRWA's Strategy: Attack the Messenger
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini accuses certain groups — code for UN Watch and IMPACT-se — of making “irrational allegations such as incitement to violence or anti-Semitism” and asserted that UNRWA should be “shielded from political attacks that seek to undermine its legitimacy as a way to erode the rights of Palestine refugees.”
UNRWA describes UN Watch as “an organization with a deep history of unfounded and politically-driven assertions against the Agency” and of making “sensationalist and politically-motivated attacks.”
Lazzarini laments “ferocious politically motivated campaigns the Agency faces,” accusing “UNRWA’s opponents” of trying to “harm its reputation.” He has complained about “growing attacks from politically motivated pressure groups on its education programme” which he said were “aiming at delegitimizing the Agency.”
“Those behind these attacks,” says Lazzarini, do not have the wellbeing of Palestine refugee children at heart.”
The U.S. and EU need to demand that UNRWA stop defaming UN Watch and IMPACT-se for exposing hatred in their schools, which UNRWA claims to oppose.
Call to Action
Today's report calls on UNRWA’s donor states to:
Demand that UNRWA implement its stated Zero Tolerance policy for employees who incite racism or murder, and immediately terminate them.
Establish an independent investigation into systemic incitement to antisemitism and terrorism among UNRWA teachers and other staff, and in UNRWA educational materials, and recommend remedial action.
Determine and disclose which of the people identified as having posted terrorist and antisemitic incitement on social media or being involved in producing and distributing teaching materials that violate UN values and UNESCO standards of education is still employed by UNRWA.