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Article shared by Niloufar Pourzand
Summary:
The article discusses efforts to discredit the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) amid the crisis in Gaza. It focuses on unsubstantiated claims made by groups like UN Watch and IMPACT-se that UNRWA schools promote anti-Semitism. These are just the latest efforts to malign UNRWA are part of a pattern of biased attacks aiming to undermine the agency as it fulfills its mandate to support Palestinian refugees amid an acute humanitarian crisis.
- UN Watch and IMPACT-se have published false stories about UNRWA recently, like that a teacher held an Israeli captive and Germany halted funding. Both claims were firmly rebutted.
- Such smear campaigns accompany every major Israeli-Palestinian clash, but the credibility of the claims requires scrutiny. UN Watch is known to "sensationalize" criticism of UNRWA.
- IMPACT-se also has a history of mistranslations and misrepresentations regarding Palestinian Authority curriculum taught in UNRWA schools, per an EU-funded review.
- UNRWA schools teach host state curriculums to ensure accreditation and employability. UNRWA regularly reviews materials for bias.
- Over 500,000 Palestinian refugee children attended UNRWA schools before the current crisis. It's disingenuous to blame the violence on textbooks.
- The campaigns align with Israel's efforts to erase Palestinian identity. Alongside mass casualties, Israel has destroyed political and cultural sites in Gaza.
- UNRWA's mandate is to operate until a just refugee solution is reached. But it depends on voluntary donations, making it a target for politically-motivated attacks.
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This is an opinion piece, not objective journalism, with obvious political bias. The problems with UNRWA politicization and poor governance are well known, both within the UN family and among donors, as well as with independent NGO’s working in the territories.
ReplyDeleteThis is again another comment from "Anonymous" that is not based on evidence or knowledge about the situation, but rather on bad faith and propaganda. Having worked specifically on the issue of curricula in the Middle East, I can attest to the veracity of this piece. Also, important to note that while donors have asked us (UNRWA, UNICEF, UNESCO) to review the content of Palestinian curricula (because of 'worries' that such curricula, legitimately so, convey Palestinian identity, culture, and history), the Israeli Ministry of Education has systematically refused to have Israeli curricula scrutinized (...). Dear colleague "Anonymous", if you stand up for what you say, why don't you reveal your name? I find it antithetical to UNICEF's spirit of transparency to (continue to) hide behind these arbitrary comments you make.
DeleteYes, the discrediting of UNRWA continues and grows with the present conflict, viz. the attempt of de-funding UNRWA by the Swiss government, fortunately unsuccessful for now.
ReplyDelete