In 1975, on the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the UN General Assembly adopted a Soviet-led resolution equating Zionism, or the idea of a Jewish homeland, with “racism.”
Sure, the world would see genocides, manmade famines, violent repression of ethnic minorities, authoritarian regimes, terror states, theocratic revolutions, juntas, concentration camps, and communist despotism over the next four-plus decades. But this international parliament of depraved totalitarians and extremists would never lose focus. Since 1975, the UN has condemned Israel, the only free nation in the Middle East, more than any other in the world. Many years, in fact, the tiny country has been targeted with more resolutions than all others combined.
In addition to emboldening and legitimizing Israel’s enemies, including the pioneer of modern terrorism, the UN has also adopted an Arab myth in its effort to erase Jewish identity. Most infamous is a UNESCO resolution denying Jews any historical connection to their faith’s holiest sites at the Temple Mount and Western Wall — a contention that should come as a surprise to anyone who’s read a book. The motion was supported by 24 nations, including Security Council members Russia and China. Only six countries opposed it.
Then there is the United Nations Human Rights Council, whose mission is purportedly to protect “human rights around the world.” Donald Trump pulled funding and refused to allow the U.S. to participate in these Third World, Jew-hating bull sessions. When Joe Biden became president, he rejoined the council. He did so on the same day as Eritrea, which usually ranks below North Korea in those freedom “indexes,” just to give you an idea of the quality of the membership.
This year the sickening farce is led by Morocco. Members include Cuba and China.
Still, as reprehensible as all this history is, no one in any of those agencies, as far as we know, has actively participated in the killing of Jews. One can no longer say the same for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), another agency Biden rejoined when becoming president.
We now know that at least 12 of UNRWA’s employees took part in the Hamas massacre of Jews on Oct. 7, not merely offering logistical help or coordination, but sometimes participating in the actual kidnapping and murdering of civilians. As of this writing, the UN fired nine of its employees — which seems like a small price to pay for murder. The U.S., Britain, Germany, and Australia, among others, have temporarily paused funding to UNRWA, which has been a major tool for funneling international money to Hamas.
Progressives, naturally, were aghast. Not at the UN’s role in the massacre, but at the funding freeze. “Among an organization of 13,000 UN aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained.
Oh, only 12 people employed by the United Nations participated in the murder, rape, and kidnapping of Jewish women and children, you say? Seems like a lot to me, actually.
Indeed, Israel provided the U.S. with intelligence proving around 1,200 — or about 10 percent of UN employees in Gaza — have direct links to Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Nearly half of UNRWA’s employees are close relatives of members of various terrorist groups. When UN Watch translated 249,000 user posts in the UNRWA chat group right after the terror attack, thousands of them praised Hamas (“May Allah keep their feet steady and guide their aim.”) Most of those excited by the news were likely teachers. And that is vital to remember.
Whatever the number, however, please spare us the argument that the agency bears no responsibility for the actions of its employees. Israel has long warned that the UN was aiding and abetting Hamas. UNRWA knew what was going on. We have known for decades that the agency employs members of Islamic terror organizations. And that’s just the start.
Created as a temporary agency after the Israelis won their independence in 1949, UNRWA was tasked with providing social services and education for those “refugee camps” in Arab nations. The number of refugees that supposedly fled from Israel after the Jews was less than 700,000. More than 70 years later, there are allegedly 5.9 million Arab “refugees.”
When Palestinians were living under Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian, and Lebanese control, not one of those nations attempted to create a new state. Not one integrated those fleeing a war they started. Palestinians were kept in “camps,” often underwritten by the UN, in an effort to create an intractable situation for Israel and a convenient issue to exploit.
Israel, incidentally, accepted around the same number of refugees after 1948, most of them expelled from their ancestral homes throughout the Islamic world. Until 1952, the UNRWA also helped Jewish and Arab “refugees” within Israel. That was a long time ago. There are no “refugee camps” in Israel anymore. Not for those who came from Iran or Iraq or Morocco or Kenya or Ethiopia or Russia. Or anywhere else.
The UNRWA, tasked with running schools, has not only propped up terror groups on Israel’s border, but it has educated successive generations of Arabs in hating Jews and the West, and believing in the fantastical “right of return.” The UN not only continues to foster the false hope that Arabs will rule a Judenfrei “West Bank” and Jerusalem, but that “refugees” will one day return to Israel proper. The return of nearly 6 million “refugees” would mean the end of Israel. Which is the point. This fantasy has helped scuttle virtually every attempted peace deal.
Tens of millions of people around the world have been victims of major conflicts in the world since the Arab world first failed to destroy Israel. Over those years, Palestinians have been mired in a self-inflicted quagmire of poverty and war while the UN has helped perpetuate the victimhood and extremism. It’s no surprise some of its employees finally decided to take the next logical step.
