Europe’s leading newspaper reports on UN Watch’s joint report with Impact-SE about UNRWA incitement to antisemitism. Translation below.
ANTISEMITISM IN PALESTINIAN SCHOOLS
Germany continues to pay for hatred of Jews
By: BJÖRN STRITZEL
04/21/2023
Many millions of Euros of taxpayers’ money for hate: The EU continues to fund calls for violence and anti-Semitic incitement.
This is the result of an investigation into Palestinian teaching materials used in schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) during the current school year. In addition, many of the teachers employed there also make openly antisemitic statements, glorify Hitler and cheer the murder of Jews.
UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East. It has a de facto monopoly as the relief agency for Palestinians in the Palestinian territories as well as Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The vast majority of UNRWA staff are Palestinians themselves, including many of the teachers employed by the relief agency.
The joint UN Watch and Impact-SE investigation reveals the openness with which teachers in UNRWA schools engage in anti-Semitic incitement:
▶ A teacher working in an UNRWA school in Aleppo posted a photo on Facebook of Adolf Hitler asleep: he should finally wake up, there are still “people to be burned.”
▶ A teacher of an UNRWA school in the West Bank declared that the “project” United Arab Emirates was started by “rich Jews”, the explanation for this alleged secret procedure can be found in Henry Ford’s antisemitic hate pamphlet “The International Jew”.
▶ A teacher at an UNRWA school in Lebanon glorifies terrorist Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, on his Facebook page.
The researchers found antisemitic hate speech and calls for violence in a total of 133 teachers at UNRWA schools.
Arson attacks as “barbecue”
And many teaching materials at UNRWA schools are also full of anti-Semitic ideology:
▶ In an exercise for students in a 9th grade class in Gaza, a Palestinian arson attack on a bus carrying Jews is referred to as a “barbecue.”
▶ Schoolgirls at Asma School are urged in 6th grade to sacrifice their own blood and lives in Jihad for the homeland.
▶ Maps are used in several schools that do not show Israel. In addition, Israelis are repeatedly portrayed as greedy, brutal and devious.
In total, the investigation found such content at ten different UNRWA schools, which, according to impact-SE, “violates UN values, UNESCO standards, and UNRWA’s purported ‘zero tolerance policy for discrimination or incitement to hatred and violence in its schools, educational materials, or in any of its operations.'”
Germany funds the hate
Funding for the hate centers also comes from Germany - in a variety of ways. Both through payments to UN agencies and through EU funds, and directly through the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Most recently, the BMZ pledged aid of 100 million euros over two years during German-Palestinian government negotiations in September 2021. In 2022, according to UNRWA, Germany had paid 180 million euros to projects run by the UN agency, including five million euros for a new girls’ school in Gaza.
At least the EU funds are soon to be subject to stricter scrutiny: “We will launch a new attempt this year to keep these funds in reserve,” says Niclas Herbst (50, CDU), vice-chairman of the EU Parliament’s budget committee.
“It’s not about punishing the education sector, but about Palestinian children having a right to education without indoctrination and agitation, in line with the goals of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.” If agitation continues in UNRWA schools, the funds should instead go to NGOs that are clearly committed to the UN goals, Herbst told BILD.
Volker Beck (62), president of the German-Israeli Society, also calls for tighter control: “As long as Germany and the EU are still giving money to UNRWA, this must be done with clear guidelines: no anti-Semitism, no approval of terrorism and violence!”
There needs to be a binding procedure to punish violations of requirements. Teaching materials that incite children to hatred must be confiscated and destroyed, UNRWA staff must be dismissed if they make such statements, and they must be barred from working for the UN, Beck said.
[End of article]
Overt glorification of violence: several Palestinian schools glorify terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who was a leader in a 1978 attack that murdered 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children
Antisemitismus an palästinensischen Schulen - Deutschland zahlt weiter für Juden-Hass https://t.co/Lsgxc2Cdfb
- BILD (@BILD) April 20, 2023
