By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--November 10, 2024

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Israel’s Knesset voted overwhelmingly (92-10) in late October to approve two bills directed at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The legislation delayed its implementation for ninety days. The laws will prevent UNRWA from operating within Israel itself and bar Israeli authorities from having any contact with UNRWA. No other UN agency is affected.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon explained the reason that the Knesset felt compelled to take this drastic action against UNRWA:

UNRWA’s “terrorism problem” includes the fact that Hamas has regularly used UNRWA facilities, especially schools, to hide their weapons and rocket launchers. UNRWA’s “terrorism problem” is also proven by credible evidence that hundreds of UNRWA staff have been affiliated with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

UNRWA itself admitted that a top Hamas commander who was subsequently killed in Lebanon had been one of its employees. And not just any employee. This terrorist was the principal of an UNRWA school and the head of Lebanon’s UNRWA Teachers Union. UNRWA finally got around to suspending him for just three months for violating “agency protocols" after information belatedly came to its attention of the UNRWA employee’s ties to Hamas. The UNRWA teachers’ union protested the suspension, indicating support for the employee’s Hamas affiliation among teachers in UNRWA schools where Hamas propaganda is “taught.”

Moreover, the vast majority of UNRWA staffers in Gaza have declared their support for Hamas, even if they themselves are not members of Hamas or other Palestinian terrorist organizations.

In short, UNRWA is far from a neutral humanitarian UN agency legitimately performing its responsibilities pursuant to its official mandate. It has become a cesspool of hatred towards the Jewish state of Israel and an enabler of Palestinian terrorists.

Nevertheless, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and other senior UN officials have condemned Israel’s legislation, which detached Israel from this cesspool, as a violation of international law. They have claimed that the legislation, once implemented, would violate Israel’s obligations........

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