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Israel Is Right about UNRWA

(Spectator-UK) Limor Simhony Philpott - The Israeli parliament on Monday voted 92-10 to severe ties with UNRWA, with even opposition members of the Knesset supporting the bill. For years, it was known that UNRWA's employees teach the most deplorable anti-Semitic content and glorify terrorism in schools, radicalizing generations of Palestinians. This has played a major role in perpetuating the bloody conflict between the sides, and makes the possibility of a settlement a distant dream, by dehumanizing and demonizing Israelis and Jews. This long-standing and known problem of incitement to violence and hatred in textbooks has been acknowledged and criticized by American administrations and the EU, but has never been resolved. But it was the massacre of Oct. 7 and the subsequent war that has pushed the Knesset to sever ties with UNRWA. It is estimated that 10% of UNRWA's 30,000 employees have connections to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Some of them participated in the massacre of civilians and soldiers, raped and abducted Israelis, and have hidden Israeli hostages and the bodies of Israelis killed on Oct. 7. For years, UNRWA facilities provided shelters for Hamas's terror activities, including in schools and medical clinics. Even though it was known that UNRWA has been plagued by extremism, no real action has been taken by the UN or by donor states to bring meaningful reforms. The very existence of UNRWA has helped to perpetuate the Palestinians' refugee status, instead of helping Palestinians resettle, build a sustainable self-rule, and a functioning economy that would render the refugee agency obsolete. Israel recognizes the need for humanitarian assistance, but it wants this done through agencies that have not been compromised by ties to terrorism. The Oct. 7 massacre and the war have exposed the depth of UNRWA's involvement in terrorism and, as such, it should no longer have a mandate to exist. This is an opportunity to replace it with organizations that can provide relief without enabling terrorism and who could reform the educational system in ways that de-radicalize rather than incite. The writer is a former research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.
2024-10-31 00:00:00
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