Democrats introduced a bill to reinstate US funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been charged with providing support to terrorist organizations, was introduced by Democrats.
The UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act of 2024 was introduced by Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), André Carson (D-IN), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). It aims to restore US funding for the organization, which was stopped by former President Donald Trump in 2018 and then resumed by President Joe Biden upon his election. However, it was stopped once more when it was discovered that UNRWA employees had a direct hand in the Hamas massacre that killed over 1200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023.
“On 26 January, in response to allegations received orally from Israeli officials regarding the alleged involvement of 12 UNRWA staff in the 7 October attack against Israel, and upon ascertaining that the individuals were indeed UNRWA staff members, the UNRWA Commissioner-General decided to immediately terminate the appointments of these staff ‘in the interest of the Agency,’ in accordance with applicable staff regulations, in order to protect its ability to deliver humanitarian assistance,” UNRWA staed last February.
For months, UNRWA refuted the claims, mislabeling them as “disinformation” and Israeli propaganda.
The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), said the following during a meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs one month after the October 7 massacre:
“UNRWA provides education in hatred of Jews to the vastly expanded number of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of the original refugees. UNRWA’s textbooks, curricula, summer camps, official media, are all infamous incubators of hatred. … A June report by U.N. Watch and Impact SC from March this year carefully document that “UNRWA deliberately and systematically hires teachers who publicly praise Hitler, glorify terrorist attacks against Israeli children, and spread globalist-like conspiracy theories against the Jews.”
“A new Impact SC report just released exposes an absolutely deplorable fact: UNRWA staff celebrated Hamas’ massacre,” he went on. “UN Watch just released a new report 2 days ago, on November 6, documenting how as soon as news of the horrific slaughter broke, which was live streamed on social media by some of the terrorists, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, staff immediately celebrated and justified it on Facebook. Celebrated the slaughter of innocent people.”
“No one should have been surprised that UNRWA allowed Hamas to use its facilities, provides employment to Hamas members, or that UNRWA’s textbooks follow the Hamas agenda,” the Jerusalem Post said in 2014.
Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of UN Watch, told Congress in November 2023, “Teachers and schools at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which runs education and social services for Palestinians, regularly call to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism.”
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Senior Vice President for Research, Jonathan Schanzer, noted that Hamas is not recognized by the UN as a terrorist group. It also doesn’t acknowledge Hezbollah. That means UN resources can be and regularly are donated to members of those terrorist groups.”
Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX) told The Washington Free Beacon in February of last year that he was presenting the Uncovering UNRWA’s Terrorist Crimes Act, which would forbid the United States from providing UNRWA with any more cash.
“There is a reason that President Trump halted all funding to UNRWA during his administration. It is an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish organization that promotes terrorism and anti-Semitism. UNRWA is also one of the largest money laundering and child-trafficking organizations in the world that works directly with Hamas to hire teachers to indoctrinate innocent children. This is yet another sorry example of the United States being suckered into sending billions of dollars overseas to globalist organizations that want to put America last, despite being more than $34 trillion in debt. American taxpayer dollars have no place in promoting and enabling terrorism, yet that’s exactly what’s been happening with UNRWA, and I won’t stand for it any longer.”
