ArcaMax

It is Albert Einstein who is credited with observing that "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results." If that is so, it is finally coming to light that those who have defended the U.N.'s special agency for Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA), have been guilty of a kind of criminal insanity. It's long been obvious that UNRWA is not merely a de facto affiliate of Hamas in Gaza, but a de facto Hamas sponsor -- funneling cash to the murderous group, serving as a recruitment and training vehicle for Hamas operatives, and functioning as cover for the construction of Hamas military infrastructure and a shield for the storage of Hamas weaponry and rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. Five years ago, Switzerland's foreign minister stated what even then was obvious: "UNRWA has become part of the problem. It supplies the ammunition to continue the conflict. By supporting UNRWA, we keep the conflict alive. It's a perverse logic."

UNRWA's role as an arm of Hamas in Gaza has been voluminously documented -- and studiously ignored. Arab donors haven't been especially troubled. Western donors have shrugged, looked the other way and changed the subject. Meanwhile, billions of American taxpayers' dollars have been forked over to UNRWA. The Trump administration suspended American aid, but since taking office the Biden White House has restarted the fund flow, providing about a billion dollars to UNRWA in the last three years.

The jig may be up for UNRWA, a hackarama for Hamas sympathizers and, it is now clear, Hamas killers. Last Friday the United States announced that it was suspending aid to UNRWA. Within 36 hours, over 12 Western democracies followed suit. The trigger: the disclosure that UNRWA staffers in Gaza had actively participated in the Oct. 7 mass slaughter of some 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of almost 250 others. These governments pronounced themselves "shocked, shocked" to learn that UNRWA workers had invaded Israel and massacred Israelis.

But they can't possibly be surprised, let alone shocked.

Organizations like U.N. Watch and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and numerous journalists have produced report after report, year after year, on what a cesspool of jihadism and virulent antisemitism UNRWA is. UNRWA's willful blindness about Hamas' use of its facilities to wage war against Israel is legendary. The agency's schools and summer camps consistently glorify the murder of Jews in blood-curdling terms right out of The World According to ISIS, and UNRWA's 13,000 employees in Gaza pack social media with exhortations to murder. Perfectly typical is this 2022 Facebook posting by UNRWA teacher Elham Mansour: "By Allah, anyone who can kill and slaughter any Zionist & Israeli criminal and doesn't do so doesn't deserve to live. Kill and pursue them everywhere. All Israel deserves is death."

U.N. Watch has released an analysis of a chat room for 3,000 UNRWA teachers filled with messages celebrating the Oct. 7 massacre, exulting over video and photographs of slaughtered, dismembered and raped Israelis, praying for Israel's destruction -- and asking when UNRWA would pay their salaries. Released Israeli hostages report being held in the homes of UNRWA staff. There is endless evidence out of Gaza of Hamas fighters operating out of UNRWA facilities and, of course, of Hamas tunnels underneath UNRWA buildings. Asked whether UNRWA had any indication that Hamas was constructing hundreds of miles of tunnels underneath Gaza, a U.N. representative stammered: "Not to us. I mean, to think that the U.N. had any understanding of what was -- any information about these operations, I think is -- no, is clearly the answer to that."

Doubtful, but let's find out. It may be coincidental that the administration's announcement on Friday that it was suspending aid to UNRWA came just days before this week's scheduled hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability entitled "UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency's Mission and Failures." The hearing promises to splatter a whole lot of egg on a whole lot of faces. Some of those faces are in Gaza. But some are in Washington, D.C.

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Jeff Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment, he is a longtime columnist for the Boston Herald, writing on politics, national security, human rights and the Mideast.

Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate Inc.