Britain has cut its funding of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees by just over 50% last week, according to a report in the UK daily The Guardian. Having invested some $57 million in UNRWA in 2020, this amounted to a contribution of $28 million in 2021.
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UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini tied the move to criticism of the Palestinian Authority curriculum used by UNRA. "The organization is sometimes subjected to vicious political attack, usually through the lens of the curriculum," he said.
According to Lazzarini, the UK was the third-largest UNRWA donor in 2020.
He said UNRWA had started off 2021 with "critical vulnerabilities."
The move follows the UK's decision to end all funding of the Palestinian Authority's coffers last month.
The issue of UNRWA's curriculum was brought to the public agenda in January 2021 when the agency's head was forced to confirm the findings of a report by IMPACT-se in which the research and policy institute found learning materials with UNRWA branding were replete with hatred, antisemitism, incitement to jihad and violence and failed to include any promotion of peace and tolerance in complete violation of UN values.
Lazzarini admitted UNRWA had printed and taught "inappropriate" material that was "mistakenly" included in the curriculum in use during the pandemic.
In June, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the UK's Foreign Office James Duddridge confirmed UNRWA's curriculum continued to contain anti-Israel, antisemitic material, a situation he said was not acceptable to the parliament or the government.
Speaking before a congressional committee last June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was "determined that UNRWA pursue very necessary reforms in terms of some of the abuses of the system that have taken place in the past, particularly the challenge that we've seen in disseminating in its educational products antisemitic or anti-Israel information.
In April, the European Parliament became the first legislative body in the world to adopt a resolution formally condemning and demanding the "immediate removal" of content that incites to hatred in violence in UNRWA's curriculum." Canada and Australia also opened official investigations into UNRWA over the hatred and antisemitism espoused in the organization's textbooks this year.
According to IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff, "Policymakers in the US and Europe are standing in line to condemn the hatred in Palestinian Authority textbooks used by UNRWA. The head of the organization Philippe Lazzarini stood before the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee in September and admitted antisemitism, intolerance, and the glorification of terrorism are part of the Palestinian Authority textbooks taught in UNRWA's schools.
"Of course, the obvious remedy would be to remove the hatred and create a curriculum of peace and tolerance instead of inciting and blaming others. But it is unreasonable for change to happen when responsibility for this remains in UNRWA's hands. The agency's teachers themselves create content that is just as radical as that of the Palestinian Authority," he said.
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