The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency must do more to ensure its employees are politically neutral and aren’t teaching biased content in its schools in Gaza and the West Bank, a U.N.-ordered investigation found Monday.
Despite “robust” procedures at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as Unrwa, to uphold the U.N. principle of neutrality, the review found antisemitic content in some textbooks used by Unrwa schools and dozens of biased social-media posts by employees.
“Even if marginal, these issues constitute a grave violation of neutrality,” the U.N. report said, noting that some textbooks included maps that didn’t mention Israel and labeled Jerusalem the capital of Palestine, which is unrecognized by Israel, the U.S. and most of Western Europe.
The probe was launched after the U.S. and other donors suspended funding to the agency in January in response to accusations that at least a dozen employees in Gaza took part in the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped.
The investigation released Monday and headed by Catherine Colonna, a former French foreign minister, didn’t address those accusations, which are being examined in a separate probe.
“We have long made clear that there needs to be reforms at Unrwa, and we would welcome the U.N. making the reforms that former foreign minister Colonna made in her report,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
Read more here from the Wall Street Journal.
