OPINION:
The United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, an agency that’s supposed to provide health, education and social services to select populations, has been just caught — again — pushing through schools via online and study-at-home materials that Israel is basically the devil.
This is the agency President Donald Trump refused to fund.
This is the agency President Joe Biden wants to resume funding.
What a difference a change of White House face makes.
A report released by the Israeli non-governmental organization Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, IMPACT-se, found, as part of UNRWA’s “self-study cards” issued for grades one through nine, “a spelling exercise which teaches 9th graders to condemn Arab-Israeli peace and normalization initiatives” and that claims such peace agreements “only serve to weaken the resolve of Palestinians.”
The report also detailed how this same spelling exercise contained a passage that “extolls violent resistance” against Israel, seemingly in reference to the Abraham Accords, as well as to other peace deals between Israel and Jordan or Egypt.
“In either interpretation [of the passage],” IMPACT-se wrote, in the “Hateful Content Remains in UNRWA Self-Learning Materials” reported, covering a review period of November through January, and published just this month, “staff of a UN organization are effectively teaching lessons which contradict one of the main tenets of the UN Charter, the peaceful resolution of disputes.”
More hateful teachings?
UNRWA’s study cards include maps where Israel is erased from the region, and that reference Palestinians’ rightful ownership of the territory; lesson plans that teach “jihad is the road of glory” and that press 6th-grade girls to “make preparations for jihad” to defend the Al-Aqsa mosque.
“A 9th grade lesson teaches spelling using the term ‘pieces of corpses’ and references a text containing graphic descriptions of corpses and body parts strewn about city streets,” IMPACT-se wrote.
The findings are all the more egregious because UNRWA had just pledged a few months ago to clean up its anti-Israel act.
A previous investigation by IMPACT-se that covered the periods of March through September found study cards that were similarly problematic, similarly anti-Israel. UNRWA, confronted with the inappropriate study materials, said it addressed the problem and removed “all instances of hate and incitement.”
Apparently — not.
“The teaching of Palestinian nationalism remains a central theme in the UNRWA-labeled content, in contravention of UNRWA’s principle of neutrality,” IMPACT-se wrote.
And yet: Biden will resume U.S. aid to the agency. Or so he says.
“The acting US envoy to the UN, Richard Mills, told the Security Council that Mr. Biden supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” BBC just wrote. “To help advance one, he said, the US would ‘restore credible engagement.’”
That’s code for kicking in the U.S. bucks.
In 2018, Trump, angered by the UNRWA’s heavy pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel slant, cut off $300 million or so in aid. His State Department, in announcing the cut, said America “will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation.”
There’s a new man in town, though. Out with America First, out with America And Her Allies First; in with United Nations First, in with anti-Israel policies. Just as with Biden’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, the theme for the next four years from this White House will be: America Coughs Up Billions For Foreigners Who Hate America. Or, the equally repulsive sister theme: America Apologizes For Being America.
“UNRWA Launches 2020 Budget Appeal for US $1.4 Billion,” UNRWA said in a January release.
No doubt, from Biden, they’ll get it — and more.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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