Investigation Exposes UN Agents Inciting Terrorism, Hate

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The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is under fire yet again over employees who publicly promote terrorism, praise National Socialist mass-murderer Adolf Hitler, support violent jihad, and foment hatred of Jews. The latest accusations, documented in a 130-page report provided to U.S. lawmakers, come from an investigation by the non-profit watchdog group UN Watch. Dozens of UN agents and employees were implicated, including many with access to children.

The explosive new revelations were laid out late last week at a U.S. congressional subcommittee hearing dealing with the UN, Israel, and Arabs. The investigative report, entitled “Poisoning Palestinian Children: A Report on UNRWA Teachers’ Incitement to Jihadist Terrorism & Antisemitism,” exposes some 40 instances of UN officials and employees — some of whom are in the classroom supposedly “teaching” vulnerable children — spreading hatred, promoting terror, and more.

According to a statement released by UN Watch, the investigation found more than 40 Facebook pages operated by UN school teachers, principals, and other employees that incite terrorism and anti-Semitism. The document shows, among other examples, UN officials celebrating terrorist kidnappings of Jewish children, cheering rockets fired at Israeli civilians, erasing Israel from maps, and even praising Nazi dictator Hitler for his role in killing Jews.

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In one example highlighted by the report, Ghanem Naim Ghoneim, identified on social media as a UN school teacher, was caught posting photographs of the mass-murdering National Socialist and touting him as “our beloved” and “Hitler the great.” Noting that Hitler was close to Arab leader Amin al-Husseini, the UN teacher wrote, “Allah bless Hitler.” His students at the UN school, funded by U.S. taxpayers, praised the posts and the teacher. In another post by the UN teacher, he celebrated a rocket attack “to hit the Jews” by Hamas terrorists on the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

“The pro-Hamas post grossly violates UNRWA employees’ duty of neutrality, and the antisemitic posts violate their duty to reject racism in all its forms,” UN Watch said about the social-media comments of the UN employees, referencing UN policies surrounding the behavior of the organization’s officials and employees. The posts remained active online as of the time of publication, despite the international outcry.

Separately, another UNRWA employee cited in the probe, Hatem Asaad, published a poster on his social media account glorifying two jihad terrorists, Rassan Abu Jamal and Udei Abu Jamal, responsible for murdering four Jews in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014. “These posts supporting the murder of Israelis grossly violate the duty of neutrality applicable to all UNRWA employees,” UN Watch said, adding that Asaad could be seen with children at a UN school on social media.

The watchdog group presented its findings to U.S. lawmakers on February 2, and also sent letters about the scandal to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. The letter called on the officials “to take action and demand UN and UNRWA condemnation of the incitement, and the immediate termination of the implicated employees.”

“We need to see zero tolerance in the U.N. for terrorism and antisemitism,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based watchdog group behind the report.

The organization in question, known as the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA for short, has received billions of U.S. tax dollars, making up about a third of its budget. It also receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars annually from the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The UN officials and employees implicated in the investigation “serve” all across the UNRWA’s areas of responsibility in countries including Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, as well as in Gaza.

But the most recent charges against the scandal-plagued UN agency of inciting terror, hate, and genocide are hardly new. In fact, just last year, the Center for Near East Policy Research released a film exposing UN schools involved in brainwashing Arab children to wage constant war against Israel and Jews. The film also provided examples of UN schools providing military-style training to young children.

The short documentary, entitled “The UNRWA Road to Terror: Palestinian Classroom Incitement,” argues that the source of much of the violence in the region today is the pseudo-education being offered in UN schools on UN facilities funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars. “A closer look reveals that the uprising has hardly been spontaneous,” says the narrator as video of recent brutal stabbings and killings plays in the background. “Its roots derive from an education curriculum taught to Palestinians beginning in the first grade.”

That is followed by footage from inside a UN classroom, with an adult leading very young children in chanting that Israeli territory is actually Arab, “from the river to the sea.” The chant is a reference to Israeli land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea, which some Arabs hope to ethnically cleanse of all Jews. Many of the terrorists behind a recent wave of attacks were educated in similar UN schools, the film states. Some were also caught hiding weapons and bombs for terrorists.

“The thing to understand is that these schools, they’ve developed a full-scale military-training system,” explained David Bedein, director of the group behind the documentary and a longtime journalist. “How many people realize that there’s military training going on in these camps? It’s not even just hate education, it’s war education. The education for the last 16 years, the school system has been devoted to indoctrinating children to make war on the Jews.”

After the explosive revelations from the Center for Near East Policy Research, U.S. lawmakers asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the UN agency’s ties to terrorism. Media outlets have reported that the probe, requested by Senate Near East Subcommittee Chairman Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), began last month. The senator said he would reserve his comments until he reviews the GAO’s findings.

UN Watch also drew attention to problems with UNRWA employees in a 2015 report highlighting some 30 previous cases of incitement to commit terrorism by UN officials. In one instance cited in the report, UNRWA official Hani al Ramahi posted an image on social media featuring a masked Arab holding a bloody knife with a caption reading, “Stab Zionist dogs.” Despite some media attention, little was done to rein in the UN agency or its pro-terror employees.

In a statement provided to the far-left Times of Israel newspaper, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the UN agency was aware of the “allegations” and was “looking into” it as part of the entity’s alleged commitment to neutrality. He also vowed that the UN agency he speaks for would be unveiling “compulsory” social-media training for its employees, most of whom are Arab Muslims, to teach them not to post pro-terror propaganda on the Internet.

“The outrageous alleged statements apparently posted online by a tiny fraction of present or former staff do not in any way represent the commitments to neutrality and principles of humanity and independence of 30,000 staff serving with conscience and professionalism in the conflict zones of the Middle-East,” Gunness added.

Critics, though, were not buying it. “Basically, the UNRWA is a terrorist training camp,” wrote Eileen Toplansky in American Thinker. “Legal violations of the UNRWA, which are discussed in the report, the act of inciting terrorism, the public display of Facebook posts which celebrate radical Islamic terrorism, and the violation of internal United Nations policies are clear-cut reasons why UNRWA needs to be dismantled. Clearly, nothing short of this will make a difference.”

But of course, the problems with the UN go far beyond just the UNRWA, an agency that critics say does its best to perpetuate the misery of Arabs in the region to justify its existence. In fact, virtually the entire UN system is out of control, spending much of its energy demonizing Israel and the United States even as many of the UN’s mass-murdering member regimes sit on the UN “Human Rights Council” and literally get away with murder.

While the UNRWA brainwashes children with hate, UN “peacekeeping” troops have been exposed in virtually every mission around the world raping children. In one town in the UN-occupied Ivory Coast, eight out of 10 underage girls admitted to being raped and sexually abused by UN troops. Another UN agency, WIPO, violated UN and U.S. sanctions and handed sensitive dual-use technology with potential military applications to the Iranian regime, which the U.S. State Department considers a sponsor of terrorism.

Most recently, the widely ridiculed “dictators club” stoked fury in Washington, D.C., after the UN Security Council condemned the mere existence of Jews in Judea and Samaria, as well as parts of Jerusalem, as a supposed violation of “international law.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle exploded, vowing to defund the UN. Even neocon globalists have joined the bandwagon as Trump considers executive actions slashing funding for the UN and its tentacles.

However, a more permanent solution to the problem would be for the United States to withdraw completely from the UN, according to a group of U.S. lawmakers behind the American Sovereignty Restoration Act (H.R. 193). With President Trump in the White House, analysts say the UN is on thin ice. And with UN employees being caught yet again praising Hitler, terror, and genocide, the pressure on the dictators club is likely to keep building.

Photo at top: screen-grab from the documentary entitled “The UNRWA Road to Terror: Palestinian Classroom Incitement”

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected].