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Israelis Defend UNRWA Ban Amid US Rebuke, Say School Kids Better Off Without Agency’s ‘Poisonous Influence’
Security personnel work at the UNRWA headquarters, in Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel’s decision to ban the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and their descendants from operating in the country was necessary given the organization’s ties to the Hamas terror group and “poisonous influence” in the Middle East, according to an expert and Israeli officials, who argued that concerns over the move are overblown.
The US blasted its ally Israel for passing legislation on Monday that bans the the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from operating within Israeli territory and prohibits any Israeli authority from engaging with the agency.
The two laws passed overwhelmingly in Israel’s parliament, known as the Knesset, amid mounting revelations of UNRWA staff involvement in the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The legislation will close UNRWA’s operations in Jerusalem, where it services hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with education, health, and other aid. It will also limit the agency’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank, which relies on cooperation from Israeli authorities.
The Biden administration said it was “deeply troubled” by the move.
“Implementing the legislation risks catastrophe for the more than 3 million Palestinians who rely on UNRWA for essential services, including health care, and primary and secondary education,” the US State Department said. “We urge the government of Israel to pause and further consider implementation of this legislation to ensure UNRWA can effectively carry out its mission and facilitate humanitarian assistance.”
Marcus Sheff — CEO of the NGO IMPACT-se, which examines anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content in UNRWA’s educational materials — noted that numerous UNRWA-employed teachers were directly involved in the Oct. 7 massacre, while many others “openly celebrated it.” He cited a Wall Street Journal report from earlier this year that found that 23 percent of UNRWA’s male employees have ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15 percent for adult males in Gaza. A further 10 percent of UNRWA’s school principals in Gaza and their deputies were leaders in Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group.
“These are not a few bad apples but representative of the whole rotten barrel,” Sheff told The Algemeiner.
Sheff downplayed the Biden administration’s warnings about potential “catastrophe” from shutting down the agency.
“Fifteen million refugee children are in school today around the world and 97 percent are being educated without the help of UNRWA. Even UNRWA head [Philippe] Lazzarini acknowledged that other aid agencies could replace UNRWA, but that the Palestinians refuse. So what can UNRWA possibly offer the next generation of Palestinians? More poisonous textbooks taught too often by extremist teachers?”
Sheff testified to a US congressional committee in January that textbooks supplied by UNRWA “teach that Jews are liars and fraudsters that spread corruption, which will lead to their annihilation. Students are taught about cutting the necks of the enemy, that a fire massacre of Jews on a bus is celebrated as a barbecue party.”
Fleur Hassan Nahoum, special envoy for Israel’s foreign ministry, assailed UNRWA’s “poisonous influence” in the Middle East.
“Eighty percent of the terrorists that committed the massacre on Oct. 7 were educated in UNRWA schools. And so not only do they not have legitimacy to do the work that they’re doing, they have actually been a poisonous influence in our region,” she told The Algemeiner.
Hassan Nahoum, who also served as deputy mayor of Jerusalem, said that the curtailing of UNRWA’s operations in the Israeli capital had already shown positive signs.
“In Jerusalem, by offering better opportunities with the Arab-Israeli curriculum, we have managed to move the needle by 20 percent of kids now abandoning the UNRWA school system and learning a curriculum of hope and opportunity,” she said.
UNRWA on Thursday confirmed that a Hamas Nukbha force commander killed in an Israeli strike a day earlier was a staffer. Muhammad Abu Attawi led the killing and abducting of hostages, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, from a roadside bomb shelter near the site of the Nova party in Re’im in southern Israel.
Attawi’s name appeared in a July letter that Israel sent to the Palestinian refugee agency, listing more than 100 staff members affiliated with terror groups, including Hamas. An Israeli foreign ministry official said the list was a “small fraction” of the total number of terrorists employed by the UN agency, but that the full list could not be disclosed out of security considerations.
CCTV footage captured the body of Yonatan Samerano, who was murdered by terrorists on Oct. 7, being dragged by an UNRWA social worker, Faisal Ali Musalem al-Naami, and eventually stuffed into an UNRWA marked vehicle.
Last month, Hamas confirmed that Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amin, the chairman of UNRWA’s Teachers’ Association, served as its commander in Lebanon.
In a recording released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) earlier this year, UNRWA teacher Youssef Zidan Suleiman al-Hawajara is heard bragging to a friend: “We have female hostages; I captured one!”
Following the Oct. 7 attack, 18 countries suspended their funding to UNRWA, including the US, which contributes about a third of the agency’s budget, but resumed the flow of money again in March.
In 2018, the Trump administration cut all funding to UNRWA, calling the agency “irredeemably flawed,” a decision reversed by the Biden administration soon after taking office.
Israel has long called for permanently shuttering UNRWA, citing the agency’s ties to terrorism as well as its mandate, which according to Israeli officials perpetuates the conflict. Palestinian refugees are unique in that they pass their status to descendants, regardless of their age and country of residency, a practice Israel claims fuels demands for a “right of return.” The return of over 5 million Palestinians to Israel would destroy the Jewish state by demographic means, critics argue.
UNRWA faced scrutiny in 2019 when a leaked report accused its leadership of corruption, sexual misconduct, and mismanagement. The agency’s own report found that Palestinian terror groups had stored weapons in several empty UNRWA schools in Gaza and that rockets were “probably” fired at Israel from two of these schools during the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict.
Speaking ahead of a Security Council meeting on Monday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said, “There is no longer any plausible deniability regarding UNRWA’s infiltration by terrorists. Nor are there any excuses left.”
The post Israelis Defend UNRWA Ban Amid US Rebuke, Say School Kids Better Off Without Agency’s ‘Poisonous Influence’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘F—k the Jew, F—k the Zionist’: Former CAIR Director Launches Antisemitic Tirade in Manhattan
Noora Shalash confronting Jewish men in New York City. Photo: Screenshot
A former senior employee of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was caught on camera launching a profane and antisemitic tirade at Jewish men in New York City in a viral video posted to social media on Thursday.
Noora Shalash, who previously worked as the director of government affairs for CAIR’s Kentucky branch, was confronted by an individual in an office building after allegedly harassing a “visibly Jewish man.” After being grilled for her alleged conduct, Shalash then went on an antisemitic diatribe.
“F—k the Jew. F—k the Zionist,” Shalash said.
Shalash then said that she “loves Jesus” and claimed Jews “dishonor the Virgin Mary and call her a ‘whore.’” She also called the man recording the video a “b—ch” and swiped her hand at his cellphone. A security guard intervened and physically pulled Shalash away while she appeared to continue attempting to assault the man.
“This is what Jews have to deal with in New York City,” the man said.
Midtown Manhattan – crazed antisemite assaults a visible Jew and gets arrested.
“F*ck the Jew … f*ck the Zionists” she says confidently. pic.twitter.com/EdmTR2UzWg
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 7, 2025
The video, which was obtained and posted on X/Twitter by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism, quickly went viral on social media, gaining nearly 600,000 views within 16 hours.
CAIR National responded to the viral incident, claiming that Shalash had not been employed by the organization for five years and currently has “no other role at our civil rights group.”
“We condemn and reject the antisemitic comments in the video, just as we condemn and reject the anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim hate,” the organization added.
A picture circulated on social media showing CAIR identifying Shalash as a senior official as of October 2020.
PHOTO: CAIR-KY met with #Kentucky Senate Pres Robert Stivers. Representing CAIR-KY were CAIR-KY Board members: Dr. Salah Shakir, Dr. Nadia Rasheed, Dr. Dina Rasheed, Noora Shalash (CAIR-KY Dir Gov Affairs) Sen. Reginald Thomas attended @kysenatepres @BGPolitics @tweet2waheedah pic.twitter.com/YtYGH7z8V3
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 1, 2020
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, the organization was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
CAIR leaders have also found themselves embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago last November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
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New ‘Gaza Encampment’ Hits Bowdoin College
Anti-Zionist Bowdoin College students storming the Smith Union administrative building on the evening of February 6, 2025 to occupy it in protest of what they said are the college’s links to Israel. Photo: Screenshot
“Gaza Solidarity Encampments” returned to American higher education on Thursday with the capture and occupation of an administrative building at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine by the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
According to the Bowdoin Orient, the campus newspaper, SJP stormed Smith Union and installed its encampment on Thursday night in response to US President Donald Trump’s proposing that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and transform it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism. The roughly 50 students residing inside the building have vowed not to leave until the Bowdoin officials agree to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
“President Trump’s recent statement suggests a potential endorsement on Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, a move that threatens the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people and undermines the prospect for a just and lasting peace,” SJP leader Yusur Jasmin said during a speech delivered to the students, who are breaking multiple school rules to hold the demonstration.
Following the action, Bowdoin officials promptly moved to deescalate the situation by counseling the students to mind the “gravity of situation” in which they placed themselves, with senior associate dean Katie Toro-Ferrari warning that their behavior “could put them on the path where they are jeopardizing their ability to remain as Bowdoin students.” However, the Orient said the students continued to flood Smith Union anyway. One student, Olivia Kenney, proclaimed that “Bowdoin does not know how to handle us right now.”
Bowdoin has not conceded the fight to gain control of Smith Union. On Friday, the Orient said it ordered security to declare the building closed for the day and to deny access to all who attempt to enter it, including Orient reporters seeking interviews with the occupiers. The directive has so far blocked entry to over a dozen students who approached its doors on Friday while chanting “This institution does not scare us. To the security, you do not scare us.” The school has also stated unequivocally that refusing to end the demonstration will prompt a “disciplinary process,” the paper added.
“The demonstration that began on our campus on Feb. 6 is in clear violation of our policies, and those students who are participating will be subject to the disciplinary process. Bowdoin’s priority is to ensure that all our students, faculty, and staff feel safe and welcome on campus,” Bowdoin College told The Algemeiner on Friday in a statement.
No college or university has seen the successful establishment of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” since the conclusion of the spring semester of the 2023-2024 academic school year, when anti-Zionists across the US commandeered school property and vowed to maintain control of them until school officials agreed to boycott and divest from Israel, a measure they said would signal disapproval of Israel’s prosecution of its war to eradicate Hamas from Gaza. Several attempts to do so this academic year were undertaken at the University of California, Los Angeles and Sarah Lawrence College, as well as the University of Cambridge and Munich University in Europe, but those endeavors were short lived.
Bowdoin’s encampment, equipped with tents and provisions to support an extended stay inside Smith Union, seems to be modeled directly on those which emerged last year and could be just as difficult to uproot. Some schools, such as Stanford University, failed to negotiate an end their encampments for as many as 120 days. How Bowdoin moves forward will be an early example of how college officials plan to operate in new political and legal parameters set by Trump’s second administration, which has vowed to quell campus unrest.
On Friday the National Association of Scholars, which published in 2013 a groundbreaking study — titled, What Does Bowdoin Teach? — of scholar-activism at Bowdoin College and has been a vocal critic of the anti-Zionist campus movement, called on school officials to restore order and uphold “the core mission of liberal arts education.”
It continued, “We urge Bowdoin College to reaffirm its dedication to a balanced liberal arts education by maintaining an environment where academic inquiry prevails over political activism. By doing so, the college can uphold its responsibility to educate students who are well-equipped to engage thoughtfully and constructively in civic life.”
Bowdoin College is not the only higher education institution that has been convulsed by anti-Israel activity this semester.
Columbia University was a victim of infrastructural sabotage last month, when an extremist anti-Zionist group flooded the toilets of an academic building with concrete to mark the anniversary of an alleged killing of a Palestinian child. The targeted facilities were located on several floors of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), according to Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of the school, who addressed the matter, calling the behavior “deplorable, disruptive, and deeply unsettling, as our campus is a space we cherish for learning teaching, and working, and it will not be tolerated.”
Numerous reports indicate the attack may be the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia on Wednesday were shared with students.
Republicans in Washington, DC have said that such behavior “will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration.” Meanwhile, the new president has enacted a slew of policies aimed at reining in disruptive and discriminatory behavior.
Continuing work started started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — Trump’s recent “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement. Another major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Sanctions ICC, Blasts Court for Setting ‘Dangerous Precedent’ With Netanyahu Arrest Warrant
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump has issued an executive order imposing travel and economic sanctions against those who assist with International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations of American citizens or allies such as Israel.
Trump announced the executive order on Thursday, coinciding with the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant last year over his role in the Gaza war — to Washington, DC. Under the sanctions, ICC officials, employees, and agents, together with their immediate family members, will have their property and assets blocked and their access to the United States suspended.
“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest,” the order reads. “This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel.”
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
The ICC responded to Trump’s executive order with a forceful condemnation, stressing that the court produces “independent and impartial” work.
“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” the ICC said.
European Council President Antonio Costa blasted the US move, writing that “sanctioning the ICC threatens the court’s independence and undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole.”
However, not all reactions to the executive order were negative. Israel commended Trump for his sanctions against the ICC.
“I strongly commend @POTUS President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court,’” wrote Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on X.
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