Report finds incitement against Israel still prevalent in UNRWA school material

A report by an Israeli nonprofit argues that UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, has failed to remove hateful content glorifying terrorism and demonizing Israel from its school curriculum.

The report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), written jointly with the UN Watch nonprofit, finds 47 new instances of alleged incitement by UNRWA teachers and staff, despite previous pledges by the agency to remove such content and adopt a zero tolerance policy for employees who incite to racism or murder.

It finds that the agency’s staff and schools, which teach Palestinian children throughout the Gaza Strip and elsewhere, “regularly call for the murder of Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and incite antisemitism,” according to a statement by IMPACT-SE.

The report “captures evidence taken from inside UNRWA classrooms, showing the teaching of these materials, and revealing how UNRWA’s own content directs students to study specific hateful passages in Palestinian textbooks — which the organization claims teachers are told to skip.”

It “identifies 133 UNRWA educators and staff who were found to promote hate and violence on social media, and an additional 82 UNRWA teachers and other staff affiliated with over 30 UNRWA schools involved in drafting, supervising, approving, printing, and distributing hateful content to students.”