Hillel Neuer appeared on i24News with Laura Cellier to discuss the implementation of UNRWA’s ban in Jerusalem and to discuss why UNRWA is replaceable.
Laura Cellier, i24News: We’re joined by Hillel Neuer. He’s the Executive Director of the group United Nations Watch. Thank you very much for being with us, Hillel, good to see you again. So I mean, we’ve all seen the evidence. You yourself have provided extensive evidence about UNRWA’s activities and how they are infiltrated by terrorists and terrorist supporters, but realistically, how does kicking them out of Jerusalem make Israel safer.
Hillel Neuer: In 48 hours, Laura, UNRWA activities will cease to exist in Israel in particular. This means Jerusalem primarily. This sends a message. It sends a message that Israel is no longer supporting UNRWA in any way, and understands that UNRWA is not the solution. It is the problem. UNRWA is not the firefighter. UNRWA is the pyromaniac. It’s setting the fires.
Laura Cellier, i24News: Now, as I say, you and yourself have painstakingly put together all of this evidence about the activities, the nefarious activities of UNRWA employees, and you’ve taken it to the UN. What kind of response have you had?
Hillel Neuer: Well, you know, we’ve been doing this for 10 years now, beginning in August 2015 when we sent warnings and detailed reports to UNRWA. Typically, these were screenshots of UNRWA teachers, school principals and other employees in Gaza, in Lebanon and elsewhere, who openly called to slaughter Jews praised Adolf Hitler, supported Hamas and praised Hamas terrorism as glorious martyrdom operations.
The immediate reaction, Laura, from August 2015 until today, has been to attack us and to defame us as opposing Palestinian refugees. Their response has been the very opposite of being interested in rooting out the infiltration of Hamas members, Hamas leaders, and Hamas supporters in their ranks.
We know that the leaders of the teachers’ unions in Lebanon and Gaza were Hamas terror chiefs. I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to. The head of the UNRWA teachers union in Gaza, Suhail al-Hindi is on the Hamas politburo in Gaza. He’s one of the planners of the October 7th massacre. The leader of UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, Fathi Sharif, until his untimely death in September from an IDF missile, was the head of Hamas in Lebanon.
So, the leaders of UNRWA education in Lebanon and Gaza were the leaders of Hamas and UNRWA never was interested in this at all. They allowed it to be infiltrated. All they did was attack us from time to time, under extreme us pressure. At certain moments, they gave a slap on the wrist to individuals, but Laura, it was never more than that. It was all denial, cover up and attacking the messenger.
Laura Cellier, i24News: Yeah, and I see that you yourself have taken some pretty vicious attacks from UN staff who seem to be absolutely apoplectic with rage about your work.
Hillel Neuer: That’s right. You know, we just called out a the UN Rapporteur on the Right to Health. Her name is Tlaleng Mofokeng from South Africa, and we called her out. And then she saw that I was opposing UNRWA so she called me an evil, scum, white man, bastard, among other things. She’s someone who routinely spouts expletive filled tirades and obscenities. She used a four letter word against Israel’s Prime Minister, which she was forced to delete. So, you get attacked for speaking out against terrorist leaders who run the education systems. That’s the response that we get.
Also, I should mention the infamous UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who used to work at UNRWA and let’s not forget that it was in a fundraising letter that she posted online in the summer of 2014 that “America is subjugated by the Jewish Lobby. That was a letter she wrote to fundraise for UNRWA, which she sent to her family priest in her town in Italy. So UNRWA employees and UNRWA supporters are open antisemites in numerous important cases.
Laura Cellier, i24News: Well, people around the world might be looking at this and saying, okay, fair enough, UNRWA is clearly doing a terrible job. But what about all those thousands of people who depend on UNRWA for their education, for their health care and all the rest of it. What is the alternative?
Hillel Neuer: Well, in Jerusalem, let’s break it down. In Jerusalem, there’s only a small UNRWA facility in a place called Shuafat in a neighborhood of Jerusalem. Jerusalem takes care of, I think, 800,000 students, or the hundreds of thousands of students, Jewish and Arabs. So they will easily be able to accommodate those students in existing facilities that Israel has in Jerusalem for Arab students. The same with the medical system. So that’s the easy part.
Of course, in Gaza, for example, Israel has not outlawed UNRWA in Gaza. Israeli law does not apply in Gaza, so UNRWA can continue to run in Gaza, but it’s going to be harder because the international individuals will have a harder time getting visas. They’re only 1% of the UNRWA staff, 99% are locals, so they’re going to continue working. UNRWA is continuing to send the money. What we’re going to see, in my opinion, Laura, is a gradual handover of services to other agencies.
And you know, UN Secretary-General Guterres said UNRWA is irreplaceable. Well, that’s absurd. I’m speaking to you from Geneva, across the street, from the UN Refugee Agency. When there’s a crisis, whether it’s in Ethiopia or Sudan, Ukraine, Syria, tens of millions of people in need food and other aid, the UN system shows up within weeks, they have numerous major UN agencies, UNHCR, UNDP, World Health Organization, UNICEF for children, many large relief NGO organizations, and they’re able to handle millions of people in huge swaths of territory that are the size of France and larger.
The idea that other agencies cannot replace UNRWA in Gaza, which is a tiny strip of land with only 2 million people, is absurd. All the other agencies, like the World Food Program, are already carrying much of the burden from the past year. More of them can take the burden.
And to quote Dr. Einat Wilf, the world expert on UNRWA, what will replace UNRWA? It ought to be Palestinian responsibility. The Palestinians don’t need seven decades of being in dependency and being brought up on resentment and hate. They can manage their own affairs. If they could build hundreds of miles of terror tunnels. They can build facilities for food, for medicine, for schools, they can run them, manage themselves, and that’s really what ought to be happening in the long term.
Laura Cellier, i24News: Hillel, we appreciate it. I know you’re a very busy man. Hillel Neuer at United Nations Watch. Thank you very much.
Hillel Neuer: Thank you.
