Students in a school in Gaza of the UNRWA at the beginning of the new academic year.

David Bedein – Why Does the US Continue to Fund UNRWA?

As I recently outlined in The Algemeiner, the UN’s Palestinian relief agency — UNRWA — continues to promote hatred, antisemitism and jihad in its education materials.

The Palestinians — with the help of UNRWA — are teaching their children to hate, and are thus making any future peace deals with Israel impossible.

On  January 1, 2018, UNRWA incorporated another new set of school books — which it obtained from the Palestinian Authority — to educate a new generation of 500,000 children, who live in UNRWA refugee camps.

But as my post in The Algemeiner detailed, these new books are no different from the old ones.

When I questioned the US Embassy in Israel as to why the US continues to fund UNRWA schools that use such a war curriculum, I received no response.

When asked the same question, a State Department spokesperson responded by saying: “[We take] such reports seriously. We are in regular contact with UNRWA to ensure any allegation of inflammatory, biased, or inciteful content in education materials is thoroughly investigated and addressed.”

However, when asked if the Americans were monitoring textbook content, the spokesperson would only say: “The US government has supported UNRWA in the development and integration of educational materials that promote human rights, conflict resolution, and tolerance.”

But the UNRWA school books do not reflect that State Department reassurance.

This is an American issue — because the US remains the most important funder of UNRWA, to the tune of $360 million a year — out of a total $1.2 billion UNRWA budget. And UNRWA reports that 54% of the UNRWA budget goes to education.

So why does the US continue to fund such a curriculum?

Someone should ask the US Congress and Mike Pompeo — should he become the new secretary of state.

David Bedein