Over 100 teachers and staff of schools run by UNRWA have been explicitly and publicly promoting hateful content, particularly against Jews and Israelis, including celebrating deaths, according to a new report by the NGO UN Watch.
UNRWA, which operates several schools for Palestinians, is now coming under fire for the comments made by its educators and staff.
As documented in a UN Watch report titled "Beyond the Textbooks," multiple cases are outlined showing instances of incitement. This, the report claims, flies in the face of UNRWA's own rules and values, specifically a zero-tolerance rule for racism, discrimination and antisemitism.
A total of 113 instances were obtained by UN Watch solely from viewing the public social media pages of UNWRA employees, many of which celebrated and promoted violence, even among children. The Geneva-based NGO added that it only analyzed those who publicly identified as UNWRA employees, and estimated that the actual number of staff who incite violence may number far higher.
One notable example provided is of Nahed Sharawi, a math teacher at an UNRWA school in Gaza. On their social media page, Sharawi shared a video of Adolf Hitler and inspirational quotes to "enrich and enlighten your thoughts and minds." Another teacher, Husni Masri of an UNRWA school in the West Bank, shared conspiracy theories that the Jews created COVID-19, seek to destroy Islam and control the world.
“Around the world, educators who incite hate and violence are removed, yet UNRWA, despite proclaiming zero tolerance for incitement, knowingly and systematically employs purveyors of terror and anti-Jewish hate," UN Watch director Hillel Neuer said in a statement.
“We call on the governments that fund UNWRA to take action to stop the vicious cycle of generations being taught to hate and violently attack Jews. We demand that UNRWA address the core problem, and demonstrate its genuine commitment to basic norms of education in its schools, by publicly condemning UNWRA employees who incite terrorism and antisemitism, removing them from their positions, and creating an independent and impartial investigation of all of its staff."
This is not the first time the organization has been under fire for controversy surrounding incitement.
In early 2021, a report by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School, or IMPACT-se, found that many of the textbooks issued by the organization were rife with examples of encouragement of violence and demonization of Israel and of Jews.
The report had said that the textbooks present “ambivalent – sometimes hostile – attitudes towards Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people.... Frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people... suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice, especially when embedded in the current political context.”
An exercise in one religious studies textbook asks students to discuss the “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the prophet” Muhammad and asks who are “other enemies of Islam.”
One Arabic grammar booklet features phrases like “Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise.” Another reads that “The Palestinians are lions in fighting the enemies.” One book has a poem about how “a raging fire awaits the Occupation,” while another states that “The motherland is worthy of any kind of sacrifice” and “the Enemy [committed] heinous offences against … the mujahideen,” Arabic for anyone fighting a jihad, or holy war.
In response, UNRWA claimed that the textbooks were "mistakenly included" and promised to take steps to investigate how it happened.
Lahav Harkov, Tovah Lazaroff and Cnaan Lipshiz/JTA contributed to this report.