Letter also sent to EU Commission president demanding probe into antisemitism, incitement to violence.
A cross-party group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sent a letter Monday to the UN Secretary-General and EU Commission president demanding an investigation into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over the revelations of antisemitism and incitement to violence in its educational materials.
The 26 MEPs, who represent all the major parties in the European Parliament, initiated by MEP David Lega (EPP, Sweden) and MEP Miriam Lexmann (EPP, Slovakia), raised significant concerns about the kinds of materials that UNRWA uses.
The letter expressed alarm about “UNRWA’s continued use of hateful school materials that encourage violence, reject peace, and demonizes both Israel and the Jewish people.”
“We deeply deplore the agency’s lack of oversight, transparency and accountability with regard to the repeated revelations of teaching hate and incitement to Palestinian children under UNRWA’s care.”
Crucially, the letter condemns the use of EU taxpayers’ money to fund hate teaching and anti-Semitic provocation, which the authors maintained was a “grave misuse in violation of our values.”
They added that the revelations were particularly “disturbing” given that UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini addressed the European Parliament just last November, he personally guaranteed that in UNRWA schools ‘there is absolutely no room for any teaching which would encourage violence, discrimination, racism or antisemitism.'”
“The EU condemned UNRWA in May for teaching hate and these members of the European parliament are absolutely right in turning to Secretary-General Guterres for answers they have not been able to receive from UNRWA itself, including who authored and authorized the hateful UNRWA-produced teaching material,” maintained IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.
UNRWA was recently condemned after it admitted that Hamas terrorists used one of its Gaza schools to construct a tunnel.
(i24 News).