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While evidence was presented to High Commissioner Phillipe Lazzarini, he, the review panel and the press simply ignored it.
By Jason Shvili, JNS
NPR recently broadcast an article asserting the lie that Israel has been “spreading false information about UNRWA,” referencing the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian “refugees.” Yet, Israel has presented voluminous evidence that UNRWA is a front for the Hamas terror group.
In fact, it’s the U.N. that’s lying about UNRWA, and now its lies are being covered up by NPR and other mainstream media.
Indeed, back in April, The New York Times parroted the bogus claims of an “independent” review that exonerated UNRWA of having ties to Hamas, with the headline, “Israel Hasn’t Offered Evidence Tying Many U.N. Workers to Hamas, Review Says.”
Wrong.
The State of Israel has presented extensive lists of terrorists connected to UNWRA, as well as examples of overlapping funding, governance and facilities, indicating that UNRWA has been thoroughly infiltrated by Hamas operatives and loyalists. While this evidence was presented to UNRWA High Commissioner Phillipe Lazzarini, he and the review panel simply ignored it.
The review cited by both NPR and the NYT is highly suspect, since it was commissioned by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is operationally responsible for UNRWA activities. Guterres called UNRWA a “lifeline of hope and dignity”—lofty praise for an organization that has utterly failed for 75 years to help Palestinians rise above their dependent refugee status. To the contrary, the agency has cynically fostered and perpetuated Palestinian victimhood.
Most egregiously, the panel that conducted the probe on behalf of the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) lacked the mandate to investigate the presence of Hamas among its staff—which should have been the very subject of the investigation. In fact, by the U.N.’s own admission, the review was only designed to ease the concerns of donors. These two facts were somehow omitted by NPR, the NYT and other media.
Furthermore, the probe was led by a former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, presenting another major conflict of interest, since Colonna approved French support of millions of euros for UNRWA. Also participating in the probe were three organizations whose executives have expressed extreme animosity towards Israel, accusing it of “genocide” and “apartheid.”
Despite these major flaws, following publication of the OIOS findings, the media were quick to absolve UNRWA and turn the tables by attacking Israel. Major media ran headlines such as “Report says Israel has not provided evidence of widespread militancy among UNRWA staff” (Washington Post) and “Israel has yet to provide evidence of Unrwa [sic] staff terrorist links, Colonna report says,” (The Guardian).
In truth, UNRWA and Hamas are virtually indistinguishable. No wonder Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said that “Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it is no longer possible to determine where UNRWA ends and where Hamas begins.”
Guterres’s “probe” hides the complicity of UNRWA with Hamas.
According to U.N. spokesperson Chris Gunness, the investigation’s real purpose was to “provide the donors with further cover if that’s what they need within their own internal constituencies to resume funding for UNRWA.”
Indeed, Colonna, who headed the OIOS panel, said the purpose of the review was to “enable donors” to “regain confidence . . . in the way UNRWA operates.” In other words, the panel’s goal was to prove UNRWA’s innocence. So much for revealing the truth about terrorist infiltration.
Israel presented overwhelming evidence of UNRWA’s corruption and integration with Hamas.
This evidence included a list of 100 terror operatives employed by the agency, as well as intelligence indicating that over 10% of senior UNRWA educators in Gaza were members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Israel also revealed proof that over 30 UNRWA facilities contained terrorist infrastructure, such as tunnel shafts powered by UNRWA electricity. Hamas even operated a high-end server farm directly under—and connected to—UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters. Lazzarini—and the media and the panel and donor countries—had this information, but all chose to suppress it.
The OIOS probe was fundamentally flawed from the outset.
It was designed to avoid exposing UNRWA’s corruption and staffed by those likely to support the collaboration of UNRWA and Hamas. For starters, the investigation was led by Colonna, who herself helped establish France as UNRWA’s fourth largest donor, also a founding board member of the U.N. agency.
The review also included organizations whose executives expressed extreme anti-Israel bias: the Michelsen Institute, whose senior staff and board members have accused Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid;” the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, whose executive director also accused Israel of apartheid; and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, whose communications director accused Israel of “illegally occupying” Palestine for 70 years.
The media lied and covered up the Hamas-UNRWA marriage.
The Washington Post, Reuters, The Guardian, NPR and The New York Times all joined the effort to hide UNRWA corruption. Their headlines claimed Israel provided no evidence of UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, when in fact the Israeli government provided massive evidence—and reporters were able to see much of it on the ground. In parroting the OIOS report’s false claims, these media again demonstrated despicable journalistic practices and outright bias against Israel.
The Washington Post said UNRWA “has mechanisms in place to prevent its facilities from being misused for political or military purposes.” Really? Then why are UNRWA facilities being used as terrorist bases?
The Associated Press even asserted that “Israel did not express concern about [UNRWA] staff.” Seriously? In fact, for years Israel has expressed outrage about Hamas’s infiltration of UNRWA’s ranks, but the media have refused to cover it.
Indeed, the media have every interest in hiding the reality that Hamas and UNRWA are virtually inseparable. This truth would destroy their newsrooms’ false narrative that the agency is a benevolent humanitarian organization, doing its best to serve desperate, needy Palestinian victims of Israel’s aggression.
Both the U.N. and the media are disguising the truth that Hamas and UNRWA are inextricably intertwined. They simply don’t want donor nations—and the public—to know the shameful truth. If citizens of donor countries, like the U.S., were to see proof that their tax dollars are funding barbaric terrorism, they would surely insist on slashing UNRWA’s funding.
Jason Shvili is a contributing editor at Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME), which publishes educational messages to correct lies and misperceptions about Israel and its relationship to the United States.
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