Report from the UN

by Harris O. Schoenberg
February 4, 2009
 
In its first comment following the end of the fighting in Gaza, the United Nations Security Council agreed on a statement welcoming the separate unilateral cease-fire statements of Israel and Hamas and the efforts to make the end of this round of the armed conflict durable and sustainable. It urged both sides to protect UN facilities and “ensure respect for international humanitarian law.”  The Council also called for guarantees to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza and for the permanent opening of border crossings. 
 
UN Secretariat statements ,in contrast, were harsh – at least at first. Secretary-General Ban ki-moon accused Israel of “outrageous attacks against UN facilities” including schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). He blamed Israel for the destruction and civilian casualties, which he called “shocking and alarming,” without any mention that Hamas had provoked the Israeli attack, after years of firing rockets at Israeli civilians, by increasing their number and range. Nor did he refer to the fact that Hamas had used civilians, including women and children, as human shields and fired on the Israelis from schools, playgrounds, hospitals, mosques, and apartment buildings, which Hamas prevented civilians from leaving.  But the evolution of statements by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes is instructive. 
 
On a tour of Gaza after the fighting stopped, Mr.Holmes declared that the number of casualties is “extremely shocking.”  
 
A day later Mr. Holmes commended Israel for its “good will” and “good cooperation” in reaction to the news that Israel had allowed humanitarian supplies to reach Gaza even during the fighting.  (However, Mr. Holmes did not yet mention that Hamas was intercepting shipments of aid meant for the civilian population in Gaza. On one night alone Hamas gunmen had hijacked twelve trucks loaded with humanitarian aid donated by Jordan.)  
 
By the following week, however, Mr. Holmes was willing to admit to Hamas’ “cynical use” of civilian installations.  He told the Security Council on January 27th that “the reckless and cynical use of civilian installations by Hamas, and the indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilian populations are clear violations of international humanitarian law.”  He also acknowledged that Hamas is largely responsible for humanitarian aid not reaching the civilian population of Gaza. 
 
But UNRWA was slow to change its allegations of Israeli atrocities.  John Ging, UNRWA’s Director of Operations in Gaza had insisted and Secretary-General Ban had repeated, that the Israelis had attacked an UNRWA school.  According to reports, Mr. Ging said the attack on the school killed 40 people after the Israelis told them to go there.  It was not until The Globe and Mail of Canada published a story on January 29th revealing that Mr. Ging knew there was no Israeli attack on the school and that no one was killed in it, that Mr. Ging admitted: “I knew no one was killed in the school.”
 
Why did UN officials at first parrot Hamas accusations that Israeli forces had fired on UN installations without provocation?  Much of the UN’s information on the situation in Gaza came from UNRWA.  And, in Gaza, UNRWA is primarily a subsidiary of Hamas, just as in Lebanon it was a subsidiary of the PLO.  
 
The Associated Press reported already on June 18, 1979 that PLO terrorists controlled three UNRWA “camps” around Tyre, Lebanon.  During the summer of 1982, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found that UNRWA schools were used as terrorist bases and that shelters and schools were used as arms depots.  The IDF also discovered a training school for terrorists located at a vocational training school ran by UNRWA at Siblin.  No student was permitted to graduate from the Siblin Center without graduating first from a PLO course of study and serving a minimum of twelve months with the PLO, which was an umbrella group of terrorist organizations.  The local UNRWA staff viewed themselves as working for the PLO under the UN flag.  
 
UNRWA headquarters covered up this situation until the United States suspended payments.  The agency finally issued a report that confirmed the IDF revelations.  UNRWA’s Commissioner-General at the time, Olof Rydbeck, who had previously served as Sweden’s ambassador at the UN, later admitted that for some time prior to the disclosures, he had not been permitted to inspect UNRWA camps in southern Lebanon without prior notice to the PLO, and then only with an escort provided by the PLO.  He acknowledged that the “camps” throughout southern Lebanon were effectively under PLO control.  And UNRWA officials were denied access to their own warehouse in Beirut without written permission from PLO officials, according to an UNRWA report of September 28, 1982.  
 
As a result of these revelations, which I had a hand in publicizing at the time, then Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar ordered closer supervision of UNRWA activities in Lebanon.  But the staff members who were supposed to supervise left the country abruptly when their lives were threatened.  Worse – UNRWA insiders were suspected.  
 
Basically the same type of situation exists in Gaza.  In an interview with Canada’s CBC, the immediate past UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen stated: “I am sure there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don’t see it as a crime …  We do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another.”  It did not seem to matter to him that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, a UN member-state.
 
The current UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd made Hamas leaders on the UNRWA payroll in Gaza take a leave of absence in order to campaign for election in 2006.  But she did not appear to mind that they were on the payroll in the first place, or that they resumed their UNRWA roles following the election.  Nor, according to press reports, has she prevented Hamas from storing munitions in UNRWA schools in Gaza and firing rockets at Israel from UNRWA facilities.
 
During that same year, 2006, Ms. AbuZayd admitted at a U.S. Congressional briefing her agency’s failure to check the names of those who receive financial aid from UNRWA against any terrorist watch list.
 
While not every UNRWA educator is a member of a terrorist organization, Hamas reportedly dominates the education of children in Gaza. Suhil el-Hindi, who makes no secret of being a Hamas operative, reportedly controls the curriculum and the employment of teachers in the UNRWA schools and summer camps.  
 
The Hamas Interior and Civil Affairs Minister, Said Sayyam, is reportedly responsible for Hamas’ terror operations.  He was a teacher at UNRWA schools for 23 years, from 1980 to 2003.  Islamic Jihad also plays a role in the education of Gaza’s children. Awad el-Qiq, the principal of an UNRWA school in Rafiah, was reportedly, until last year, also head of an engineering unit that manufactured weapons and rockets in Gaza for Islamic Jihad.
 
Many people believe that information that comes from a UN source is more authoritative than that which comes from parties to a conflict.  The UN Secretariat’s early pronouncements on the recent Israeli response to aggression from Gaza -- based in considerable part on reports from UNRWA -- clearly reveal that many people are misinformed.
 
P.S.  On January 28th eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a concurrent resolution “expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of … UNRWA … to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.”