UNRWA’s top officials and its apologists have been asking why the whole agency is being punished because of a few “bad apples.” Over the weekend, eleven UNRWA donor countries-the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Finland, France, Switzerland, and Japan-suspended funding to the agency in light of evidence provided by the Israeli government that several UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7th attacks.
Below we provide examples of those making the “bad apples” argument and explain why the opposite is true-the poison is pervasive.
The Bad Apples Argument
- Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA: “I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a few individuals and as the war continues, needs are deepening & famine looms.”
- Jan Egeland, Norwegian Refugee Council: “UNRWA has rightly terminated the contracts of those alleged to violate our neutrality principle. Donors, do not starve children for the sins of a few individual aid workers.”
- Ken Roth, Former HRW: “UNRWA says cutting funding to it (because a dozen employees allegedly aided Hamas) is ‘collective punishment’ of Palestinian civilians.”
- Sarah Leah Whitson, Former HRW: “Let’s be perfectly clear: punishing the entire UNRWA organization for potential wrongdoing of a dozen employees is effectively collective punishment against Palestinians…”
- Claudio Francavilla, HRW: “But allegations about 12 people (immediately fired) out of 13000 UNRWA staff suffice to stop funding the organisation”
- Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International: “Sickening heartless decision of the richest countries in the world to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people.“
- Owen Jones: “There’s 13,000 Palestinians working for UNRWA. There are allegations against 12 staff members - or 0.092% - and that’s what they are, allegations based on Israeli ‘interrogations’ of prisoners.”
- Khaled Elgindy, Middle East Institute: “So the US can instantly cut off funds for UNRWA’s life-saving work in Gaza based on unproven allegations against a tiny handful of its employees…”
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Helen Clark, Former PM of New Zealand: “Serious as allegations around a tiny % of now former @UNRWA staff may be, this isn’t the time to suspend funding to UN’s largest relief & development agency in #Gaza”
- Ayman Safadi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan: “UNRWA is the lifeline for over 2m Palestinians facing starvation in Gaza. It should’t be collectively punished upon allegations against 12 persons out of its 13000 staff.“
Why The Problem Is Not Just A Few Bad Apples; UNRWA Is Rotten To The Core
1. 11 reports by UN Watch since 2015
Since 2015, UN Watch has exposed more than 180 perpetrators in 11 reports. Just the fact that UN Watch continues to find UNRWA teachers who endorse jihadi Hamas terrorism on social media proves that the problem is deeply rooted and that UNRWA is not seriously addressing it.
2. Over 180 perpetrators exposed based on public posts only
UN Watch reports address only public social media posts by individuals who self-identify as UNRWA employees and yet we still found over 180 perpetrators. This indicates that if we had access to all staff activities in and out of the classroom, including on Facebook, we would find many more examples of UNRWA staff celebrating and glorifying jihadi terrorism.
3. 30,000 UNRWA teachers and other staff never condemned colleagues’ hate on Facebook
We are not aware of a single member of UNRWA’s staff of over 30,000 that has publicly criticized the hateful content posted by their fellow staff members which we exposed in our reports.
4. 2,000-member UNRWA Lebanon staff union rallied behind terror-supporting UNRWA teacher Riad Nimr
When Riad Nimr was suspended in wake of our March 2023 report for posting support for terrorism, the nearly 2000-member UNRWA staff union embraced him instead of condemning him. They declared a three-day strike, pulling students out of class and shutting down most UNRWA services in the camp. The teachers, unions, schools, and staff glorified Nimr and turned him into a TikTok hero, staging mass protests for nearly three weeks until Nimr was reinstated. This shows that UNRWA’s staff condones the kinds of views expressed by Nimr.
5. UNRWA students brandish real-looking weapons at Lebanon protests
During the mass protests in support of UNRWA teacher Riad Nimr, children were seen holding real-looking weapons. This shows that UNRWA students know their teachers support the kinds of views expressed by Nimr on Facebook.
6. UNRWA staff and students endorse violent content
Worse than the lack of condemnation, UNRWA teachers and students affirmatively endorse their colleague’s hateful posts, confirming that the problem goes far beyond the 180 teachers identified in our reports. For example, our March 2023 report contained a violent post by an UNRWA student who tagged his UNRWA teacher Ayman Dlash, apparently knowing the teacher would approve of it. That report also contained a post praising Hitler by UNRWA staff member Labibeh Iskandarani which was endorsed by other UNRWA employees. In our February 2017 report, we showed how UNRWA students praised UNRWA teacher Ghanem Naim Ghoneim’s post venerating Hitler; and how UNRWA principal Ahmad Nasser endorsed a similar post celebrating Hitler by UNRWA teacher Omar Asaad.
7. None of 3,000 UNRWA Staff in UNRWA Terrorgram group objected to celebrations of October 7th
Not a single one of the 3,000 UNRWA teachers in the UNRWA Staff Telegram group objected to their colleagues’ joyful celebrations of Hamas’s October 7th atrocities. The opposite is the case. They liked and amplified their colleague’s joyous posts. On October 12th, one teacher in the group, known as “Abu Omar,” confirmed the close relationship between Hamas and UNRWA when he said that more than 30 of his “brothers and friends.” had become martyrs since October 7th. He also sought to protect those close to these terrorists’ by advising other group members how to avoid being targeted by the IDF in case “one of your relatives or friends becomes a martyr.”
