Trump should defund, end UNRWA once and for all

OPINION:

It is clear from President-elect Donald Trump’s choices for his new administration, from the chief of staff to border czar to U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. and Israel, that he means to hit the ground running on Inauguration Day.

We hope that when it comes to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Mr. Trump will immediately defund an agency that serves as an ATM for Hamas teachers whose facilities above and below ground have been used as jumping-off points to murder and maim innocents and whose pedagogical raison d’etre is to brainwash Palestinian children to seek Israel’s destruction.

But this time, Mr. Trump, your secretary of state should urge the 60 other donor nations to join the U.S. and demand an end to UNRWA once and for all. It would be a disaster to treat UNRWA as a bulwark of hope the day after the Israel-Hamas war is over when it has actually played a key role in keeping alive the dream of a Jew-free Holy Land.

We make this plea with a heavy heart.

For nearly two decades, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has lobbied the United Nations, the State Department, European governments and Japan’s Foreign Ministry to review the UNRWA curriculum. We presented academic studies that confirmed that UNRWA’s was a pro-war curriculum. Its teachers were encouraged to present mass-murdering terrorists as heroes.

Our suggestions largely fell on deaf ears. As a result, generations of Palestinian children were raised to deny Israel’s existence and to embrace a culture of death.

Now, in the face of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas pogrom, the people of Israel have had enough and will no longer cooperate with UNRWA.

Mr. Trump should be prepared for denunciations like the one from UNICEF’s spokesman when Israel made its announcement.

“So a decision such as this suddenly means that a new way has been found to kill children,” James Elder declared, upgrading the medieval antisemitic blood libel.

Please don’t get us wrong. Palestinians in need should receive medical and social assistance. And Palestinian children still need to be educated — just not by the United Nations.

No one at the U.N. from the secretary-general on down has shown any inclination to change UNRWA or hold it accountable.

New intelligence collected by Israel since the Oct. 7 attack shows that over 10% of the 510 employees in UNRWA’s education system in the Gaza Strip who hold senior positions (school principals and their deputies, directors and deputy directors of training centers) are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated terrorist organizations.

A coordinator of the pogrom against Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam is a former employee of UNRWA. In late June, UN Watch released a report documenting over a decade of promoting Hamas terrorism by Fateh Sherif Abu El Amin, president of the UNRWA teachers union in Lebanon. The report showed he was a member of Hamas. And an Israeli hostage freed by the Israel military reported being held captive by an UNRWA teacher.

The hard truth is that after three-quarters of a century, it is time for the Palestinians to stand on their own two feet. The Palestinian Authority already runs its own schools on the West Bank. Its Education Ministry should take over all educational institutions. The same approach should be applied to medical and social needs.

It is past time to remove refugee status from millions of Palestinians, who, unlike the rest of the 43 million refugees around the world, are empowered to transfer refugee status — through UNRWA — from generation to generation.

What will be gained by this move?

In the short run, perhaps not much. While we hope that donor nations and nongovernmental organizations will push for transparency, the Palestinian Authority will likely hire some of the same educators who teach and preach the right of return from river to the sea.

It is even possible that remnants of Hamas will return to their teaching positions. But they will no longer be able to brainwash Palestinian children and the goal of destroying Israel under the banner of the United Nations.

In the long run, the fact that they no longer will be refugees in perpetuity sends a message that the status quo of denying the reality of a Jewish state cannot stand. Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have already sent a blunt message to their Palestinian cousins that they will no longer be held hostage by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It has not been lost on the Palestinians that the Abraham Accords helped Arab nations and Israel improve their economic standing.

Perhaps then, an expanded Abraham Accords led by Mr. Trump and his Middle East partners will eventually encourage a new generation of Palestinians committed to a future where Israel’s legitimacy will be acknowledged and taught in schools.

Until then, Mr. Trump and the major donors to UNRWA will actually help protect Palestinian children and increase chances for peace and reconciliation by shuttering UNRWA permanently.

• Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the associate dean and director of global social action of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Dr. Deborah Soffen, a pediatrician, is the center’s women and children advocate.