The UNRWA has a long history of flirting with if not outright supporting terrorism, which is one of the reasons former President Trump cut off funding in 2018. Otherwise, the UN itself was chartered primarily to allow Soviet Russia to influence world affairs, making it a cesspool in 1945 and an even worse cesspool today.
Last weekend’s revelation a dozen staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) actively participated in the Hamas massacre of October 7 appeared to be a shock to many including the Biden Administration. Information shared by Israeli Intelligence, provided to ABC News and other outlets, detailed how “seven staff members…stormed into Israeli territory during that attack, including two who participated in kidnappings” to use ABC News’ own phrasing. Another “two were said to have participated in raids on communal farming villages, according to the document. One was accused of arming himself with an anti-tank missile the night before the attack, while the document claimed another took photos of a female hostage.” At least one was said to have taken part in an attack on Kibbutz where 97 people died, another held a hostage themselves for a month. The New York Times further reported that “Israeli intelligence officers had established the movements of six of the men inside Israel on Oct. 7 based on their phones; others had been monitored while making phone calls inside Gaza during which, the Israelis say, they discussed their involvement in the Hamas attack. Three others got text messages ordering them to report to muster points on Oct. 7, and one was told to bring rocket-propelled grenades stored at his home.” Of the 12, nine were fired immediately by the UN itself. The documentation went on to claim at least “190 UNRWA workers were also working as Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, without providing evidence” according to ABC News. Given the UNRWA employs some 13,000 people, many, particularly on the political left, were quick to dismiss these disturbing developments with the old “few bad apples” canard, but a closer look at the organization itself reveals a much deeper rot. The Wall Street Journal described how deep, “23% of UNRWA’s male employees had ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15% for adult males in Gaza, indicating a higher politicization of the agency than the population at large. Nearly half of all UNRWA employees—an estimated 49%—also had close relatives who also had official ties to the militant groups, especially Hamas, the intelligence reports said.” In other words, somewhere around 10% openly advocate on behalf of terrorism. To put this in perspective, some 249,000 thousand messages in support of Hamas terrorists were shared on a group chat of just 3,000 UNRWA teachers, displaying the real depth of the problem.
In response, the United States and several other large nations – a total of ten at the time of this writing – paused funding to the organization claiming to be deeply, deeply troubled, though we soon learned that isn’t precisely what it seems, more in a moment. “The United States is extremely troubled by the allegations that twelve UNRWA employees may have been involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote in a statement. “The Department of State has temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA while we review these allegations and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.” “UNRWA brought this information to us, and they are conducting an investigation. They’re taking it very seriously. So, I’m not going to get ahead of the investigation that they are conducting, but I know that we need to see fundamental changes before we can resume providing funding directly to UNRWA,” explained Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the United Nations. The United Nations itself acted with something resembling surprised outrage. A Statement from the Secretary General claimed he was “horrified by these accusations” and the “abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences” while insisting funding must continue. This “funding must continue” regardless mantra was repeated by many in the media and politics, again generally on the left. Progressive firebrands Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both called the decision “unacceptable” while relying on the bad apples theory. “Cutting off support to @UNRWA – the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans – is unacceptable. Among an organization of 13,000 UN aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible. The US should restore aid immediately,” Representative Ocasio-Cortez posted on X. Senator Sanders followed suit, releasing a statement, “Obviously, it’s not acceptable for any of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza to be involved with Hamas, and allegations against the 12 people charged must be investigated. However, we cannot allow millions to suffer because of the actions of 12 people. The U.S. and other countries must restore funding to stave off this humanitarian catastrophe.” Some in the media went even further, claiming that cutting off funding is the equivalent of the war crime of “collective punishment,” not so subtly claiming the President himself is actually a war criminal. Zeeshan Aleem, writing for MSNBC, insisted the “Biden administration’ suspension is a drastic and morally indefensible step.” “To cut off the entire agency, especially in concert with several other major donors, is effectively an act of collective punishment — carried out against a people who have been subjected to lethal collective punishment for months. And it could have swiftly devastating consequences: the U.N. says it won’t be able to continue humanitarian operations beyond the end of February unless funding resumes.”
Setting aside what is morally defensible about continuing to fund an organization that participated in the largest slaughter of Jewish people since the holocaust, complete with babies being burned in their cribs and women being raped in public, conservatives like myself were not surprised that the Biden Administration was greatly, greatly exaggerating the cuts, and didn’t really mean that cutting off funding is actually cutting off funding. They were referring to “additional funding,” you see, rather than all funding as though your boss was going to fire you, partially, and only for any potential increase in salary you might have received in the future. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported on just how ridiculous this entire charade has been, something more suited to Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984 than an honest government of any kind: A total of $300,000 is slated to be cut off. Not $300 million, $30 million, or even $3 million. $300,000! “The State Department downplayed the significance on Tuesday of its decision to pause funding for the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, explaining that it had already provided virtually all the money allocated by Congress for that purpose and that the Biden administration hoped the matter could be resolved quickly.” The group will still set receive $121 million from the United States this year, meaning the “cuts” total a paltry .2%, as in two tenths of a percent, of what they will ultimately receive. In addition, the United States has already allocated an another $100 million in aid efforts “through trusted partners including U.N. agencies” which we can take to mean the UNRWA according to the Biden Administration. Thus, we will spend some $221 million in total, reducing the overall “cut” to a mere .1%, but certainly that is a catastrophe if not a war crime. Otherwise, Hamas itself could alleviate some of the challenge of delivering this aid without the UNRWA involved by allowing other third party groups with superior track records and no ties to terror such as the Red Cross to enter Gaza. The fact that they will not should indicate how closely aligned a terror group is with a supposed aid organization, but everyone is supposed to studiously avoid the obvious and simply keep the money flowing under any circumstances. It’s like claiming most Nazi’s didn’t actually kill Jews, only a small percent manned the camps after all, so let’s fund them for the good work they did elsewhere.
Of course, we’re also supposed to studiously avoid that the close relationship with Hamas and the UNRWA, as well as general dysfunction in the organization, has been known for some time. Memories appear to be rather short because it was only a few years ago when President Donald Trump halted all funding to the organization, calling it “an irredeemably flawed operation” way back in 2018, what seems like another lifetime at this point. “The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation,” explained State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert. “We are very mindful of and deeply concerned regarding the impact upon innocent Palestinians, especially school children, of the failure of UNRWA and key members of the regional and international donor community to reform and reset the UNRWA way of doing business.” Previously, the Administration had said the group “has perpetuated and exacerbated the refugee crisis and must be changed so the Palestinian people can reach their full potential.” At the time, these and other moves were met with claims that chaos would ensue immediately. “After using humanitarian aid to blackmail and pressure the Palestinian leadership to submit to the empty plan known as ‘the deal of the century,’” explained Ahma Shami, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, “the Trump administration plans to commit an immoral scandal against Palestinian refugees by giving itself the right to abolish the historical rights of Palestinian refugees without any legitimacy.” “This is a clear looting of our humanity leading to more chaos in the region,” he added, while calling for a “stop [to] the gambling schema of Trump and Netanyahu to endorse colonization, apartheid, and denial of Palestinian fundamental rights.” As a reminder, President Trump was in office for more than two years after this statement, but none of these things came to pass. President Biden, on the other hand, reinstated the funding, re-engaged with Iran, and displayed a disdain for Israel. The chaos came on whose watch?
Unfortunately, the UNRWA has been deeply invested in Hamas, if not outright terrorism for more than a decade now, perhaps significantly longer. Last spring, the United States Congress was presented with a report detailing how textbooks used by the UNRWA to teach some 286,000 students “have remained openly antisemitic and continue to encourage violence, jihad and martyrdom, while peace is not taught as preferable or even possible. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies proliferate throughout the curriculum, including in science and math textbooks.” The report included examples such as “a UNRWA-created Arabic reading comprehension exercise for ninth-grade students at UNRWA’s Al-Maghazi Middle School for Boys B in Gaza, which celebrated a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus as a ‘barbecue party.’” Another example was at “UNRWA’s Al-Zaytun Elementary School in Gaza, where fifth grade students were taught to glorify Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who in 1978 carried out a civilian bus bombing on Israel’s Coastal Road in which 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were murdered.” As early as 2004 and 2005, Reuters and other networks captured video of five armed terrorists evacuating in a UNRWA ambulance after killing six Israeli soldiers. The UNRWA’s response was that they do not discriminate in who they carry in their ambulances, because surely most emergency vehicles just accidently pick up armed men. The UN itself did nothing at the time, but again, this is not a surprise. The United Nations as whole is infested with terrorist sympathizing, dictatorial regimes, some 70% of the so-called Human Rights Council are autocracies – and always has been.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the United Nations was not chartered by enlightened countries seeking peace and prosperity for all, ready to usher in a global utopia. Communist Russia under Joseph Stalin, a mass murderer who killed more people than Hitler and broke every agreement he was ever a part of, was a founding member and the entire structure of the organization was designed for him to exert his malign influence around the globe under official auspices. In the wake of two world wars, however, Western countries including the United States under President Harry Truman were desperate to craft a global governing body, even if they had no illusions Russia could be trusted. The United Nations Conference, held in the spring of 1945 in San Francisco, was a battle of freedom versus democracy from the start with the two remaining powers, the United States and Russia, so at odds they couldn’t even agree who would be the chair. Perhaps most tellingly for our purposes, was the dispute over whether Poland should be a member. Before the conference began, the Soviets had installed a puppet regime in the war torn country while marching onward to Germany. The new, unelected government incensed the US and Britain, who repeatedly called for the free and fair elections Stalin had promised at the Yalta Conference with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The Russians however, doubled down, even inviting Polish dissidents to Moscow to address their concerns, only to arrest them on the spot – never to be seen again. They wanted Poland in the UN to control another vote, and they were not the only country they sought to control, either. A conversation between Chip Bohlen, from the State Department, and Jan Masaryk, the Czech foreign minister, at a bar late one night during the conference is telling. “What can be done about these Russians?” Masaryk asked, before immediately continuing. “Out of the clear blue sky I got a note from Molotov [the head of the Russian delegation] saying Czechoslovakia must vote for the Soviet proposition in regard to Poland, or else forfeit the friendship of the Soviet government. What kind of way is that to behave to a country that is trying to be friendly? You can be on your knees and this is not enough for the Russians.” President Truman himself put it this way when presenting the Charter to the Senate before ratification in July 1945, “The choice before the Senate is not between this Charter and something else. It is between this Charter and no Charter at all.”
It was a disaster then and it is even worse today. Everyone knows this – or at least they should if they were doing their jobs – but sure, let’s continue to fund our enemies so they can kill more Jews. They will never phrase it this way, but that is exactly what they’re doing and I think deep down inside they probably know it, though why remains a mystery to anyone who actually wants world peace or cares about providing aid to the disadvantaged.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 