UNWRA Exposed as Anti-Israel Propaganda Machine

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that without a new injection of funding, it is “likely or highly likely” that the agency will not be able to deliver some services or pay salaries by the fall, as was reported by the Times of Israel.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said at a press conference in Beirut that the agency responsible for services to Palestinian refugees has been facing a shortfall of $150 million to $200 million annually in recent years.

Donors at a pledging conference earlier this month provided only $107 million in new funds, significantly less than the $300 million the agency had called for to keep its programs running through the end of the year.

When UNWRA (United Nations Relief Work Agency) was formed In December 1949, it was supposed to temporarily tend to the needs of the approximately 600,000 Arab refugees of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, in refugee camps. Since the founding of UNRWA, the number of “refugees’ have increased to a staggering  5.7 million according to UNRWA and according to PASI, the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, that number is 6.7 million. The refugee camps of the past have become cities. In Judea and Samaria, two million of those refugees reside. Other lands include, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Other than providing aid, are there other agendas of UNRWA?

It appears that UNRWA run refugee “camps” (cities) are perpetuating enmity towards Israel. Confrontation with Israel is taught in their schools which have adopted the anti-Israel curriculum of the Palestinian Authority in violation of UN principles of peace and reconciliation.  UNRWA school textbooks contain many examples of indoctrination against Israel and also contain veneration of terrorists.

Textbooks omit recognition of Israel school maps omit the existence of Israel. School books exclude any connection between the Jews and the land. It also appears that refugees are being primed for combat. UNRWA summer camps actually give young “campers “paramilitary training, preparing for future war with the Jews. The goal is the “right of return”, is to bring Arab populations to cities and towns like Lod, Ashdod, Jaffa, and Ashkelon, which were populated by Arabs who left or fled in 1948 when Arab armies attacked the newborn Jewish state and whose leaders assured them that they would return to their homes when the Jews were defeated.

The advocacy group UN Watch, enumerated on how teachers in UNRWA schools express support for terrorism and Palestinian terrorist groups, and indoctrinate students to violence. On July 15, 2022, Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch tweeted that UN Watch has “easily identified 120 UNRWA teachers, school principles and other employees who praise Hitler, glorify terrorist attacks and spread snit-Semitism.”  Watch decried the, “exploitation of children as child soldiers” as a “form of child abuse and a violation of international law.”

The time is long overdue for the cessation of all funding to the UNWRA. This odious organization clearly has a dangerous agenda and must be exposed as the anti-Israel propaganda machine that it is.