The powerful House International Relations Committee today adopted an amendment to the foreign operations authorization bill that aims to eliminate anti-Semitic messages and references from United Nations-sponsored education programs (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees.

    The amendment was sponsored by Vice Chairman Chris Smith (NJ-4).  It had significant support including that of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairwoman of the Middle East and Central Asia Subcommittee.

    Smith, Vice Chairman of the committee, said his amendment, “Supplements existing State Department efforts to bring pressure and diplomacy to bear on UNRWA to cease its use of anti-Semitic textbooks, take down posters in its schools that incite violence, and terminate political affiliations by UNRWA staff with terrorist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad."

    UNRWA was created in 1950 by General Assembly Resolution 194, and provides education and humanitarian relief services to nearly 4 million registered Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, and Syria.  UNRWA has been criticized sharply by the United States and Israel over concerns that textbooks it uses to educate Palestinian children reject the legitimacy and existence of Israel, and promote anti-Semitism.  UNRWA has acknowledged some deficiencies in older textbooks provided to it by the Palestinian Authority, and is phasing them out over a multi-year process.

    Smith, encouraged that reforms are underway, believes immediate action against hatred and intolerance is needed. “Textbooks that teach hatred, anti-Semitism, and that incite children to violence should be gathered up tomorrow morning in UNRWA schools, and pitched into the trash can. It should not take years to fight hatred, it should take minutes.  There can be no excuses for so-called ‘educational material’ that urges Palestinian children to glorify homicide bombers and the slaughter of innocents,” he said.

    The amendment also calls for expanding an ongoing General Accounting Office investigation examining US assistance for UNRWA.  The U.S. currently finances nearly a third of this UN agency’s budget.  The Smith amendment, as passed, urges the GAO to inspect “all recent United States assistance to UNRWA to ensure that taxpayer funds are being spent effectively and are not directly or indirectly supporting terrorism, anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish teachings, or the glorification or incitement of violence.” 

    Smith’s amendment also urges UNRWA to get serious about opposing terrorism.  In July 2001, an UNRWA school hosted a Hamas rally by a key Hamas leader.  Later on, a UNRWA employee praised homicide bombers and said “The road to Palestine passes through the blood of the fallen, and these fallen have written history with parts of their flesh and their bodies.”

    “UNRWA has a choice – it can either support peace or support terrorism; and its actions must correspond with its words.  We can no longer allow UNRWA to say it supports peace and then engage in conduct that glorifies terrorists and their evil causes,” Smith said.