Indoctrination on a Grand Scale

On Sunday, the New York Times (NYT) published a report identifying 24 employees based at 24 different schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as registered members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.

The newspaper reviewed materials seized by the Israelis during fighting in the Gaza Strip and combined them with interviews of relevant people to reach its conclusions. Most of the 24 served in senior positions such as school principal or deputy principal, and about half of them possessed lethal weaponry.

Among the documents captured by Israel are secret Hamas plans revealing the terror group’s belief that schools and other civilian sites are “the best obstacles to protect the resistance.”

In several cases, UNRWA allowed the accused staff to continue in their role even after being informed they were terrorists. While UNRWA claims to take these allegations seriously, the NYT team found that one employee had been placed on administrative leave, while ‘additional information’ was requested for ten others.

Experts on the matter say that the real problem with UNRWA is not staff ties to terrorist groups but its broader role in perpetuating the Israel-Palestinian conflict by teaching most of the children to hate Israel and glorify martyrdom in the cause of restoring the whole area to Muslim rule.

IMPACT-se is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that reviews the education curricula of various countries around the Middle East. Its Chief Executive, Marcus Sheff, commented that the NYT’s report confirms what the world has known for years:

“Quite simply, Palestinian children are subjected to indoctrination on a grand scale
 – and UNRWA is one of the driving forces behind it.”

Marcus Sheff was interviewed on this topic earlier in the year and highlighted the fact that UNRWA’s education services cultivate terrorism among the Palestinians.

Earlier this month another NGO, UN Watch, published the latest in a series of interviews with Palestinian children that reveal the truth of this.

There is no hope of peace between Israel and the Palestinians all the time the United Nations continue to insist that UNRWA is the agency to provide humanitarian support to this group of people.