Dear Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade,

The UN has just fired some employees of UNRWA who may have participated in the Oct 07 massacre. There is evidence that UNRWA employed numerous members of terror organisarions, including Hamas. There is also evidence of widespread support among UNRWA employees for terror groups and acts. And UNRWA schools use a curriculum that glorifies terrorists and terror acts.

New Zealand financially supports UNRWA.

We request all documents you hold that discuss:
(a) the employment of terrorists,
(b) employment of terror supporters, or
(c) promotion of terror
by any other organisation that New Zealand financially supports.

Yours faithfully,
David

To: MFAT CEO, Mr Bede Corry (via email: [email address])
CC: Foreign Minister, Rt Hon Winston Peters ([email address])
Human Rights Commission ([email address])

05 September 2024

Dear Mr Corry,

Background
On several occasions in the past, IINZ has provided evidence that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools incite hate, that UNRWA facilities have been used by terrorists with full knowledge of UNRWA staff, that UNRWA has knowingly employed terrorists, that UNRWA resources have been diverted to terror, and that UNRWA staff have incited violence and terror on social media.
This evidence is in the public domain and has become more acutely relevant in the wake of the 07 October 2023 massacre, in which UNRWA staff participated.
Some evidence is presented/repeated below as background to our question for you.
In 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed concern “about the existence of hate speech in [PA]… school curricula and textbooks, which fuels hatred and may incite violence, particularly hate speech against Israelis, which at times also fuels antisemitism.”
An EU-funded report published in 2021 confirmed the decades of evidence that UNRWA schools teach a curriculum of hate and antisemitism. Examples cited in the report included egregious antisemitism, glorification of terror, rejection of peace, delegitimization of Israel, and incitement to violence such as:
Jews are described as deceptive, inferior, cowardly, and/or aggressive and parts of the curriculum are said to send the message “that the Jews as a collective are dangerous and deceptive, and demonises them. It generates a feeling of hatred toward Jews and must be characterised as anti-Semitic”.
There is an entire section of the report dealing with “the depiction of Dalal Al-Mughrabi. Dalal led an attack on Israeli civilians that killed 38, including 13 children. The United Nations has designated her a terrorist. The PA textbooks call her act one of “defiance and heroism, which made her memory immortal in our hearts and minds.”
Violence against civilians is considered central to narrative of “Palestinian nation-building” and textbooks refer to violence against Israelis as acts of “heroic struggle.”
Violent jihad and martyrdom are taught and glorified in multiple subjects, frequently used in praise of violence by Palestinians against Israeli civilians.
In July 2022, there was still evidence that UNRWA was creating their own school materials with content that encourages jihad, violence, and martyrdom, as well as content promoting antisemitism, and the erasure, demonization, and delegitimization of Israel; and deliberately directing students to pages in Palestinian Authority textbooks containing hateful passages that violate UN values.
A report published in March 2023 shows that UNRWA continued to create their own egregious material, as well as continuing to use the hate-filled texts produced by the Palestinian Authority. The report contains 25 examples from 10 different UNRWA schools of heinous content, including 9th grade study material created by UNRWA that celebrates a firebombing attack on a Jewish bus as a “barbecue party”. The report also contains newer examples of UNRWA teachers and other staff posting support for hate or violence, including conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world, and praising Hitler.
The majority of teachers and staff identified as inciting violence on social media faced no consequences. As Hillel Neuer, CEO of UN Watch, said
"UNRWA is trying to pretend they solved the problem, even as they signal to their staff—and to terrorist organizations like Islamic Jihad which pressed UNRWA to reject the UN Watch report—that they don’t really object to the virulent antisemitism of their teachers, which UNRWA and its donors know pervades the agency,”
In written testimony to the US Congress former General Counsel for UNRWA, James Lindsay, stated:
“... the Colonna Report came up with some 50 recommendations, the majority of which reflect deficiencies that any competent management team would have long ago addressed without prodding from an independent review. Moreover, some of those management deficiencies (e.g., no vetting of staff for terrorist sympathies/connections, the presence of antisemitic/anti-Israel and glorification of violence in teaching materials) are both fundamental to the operations of any United Nations agency and have been repeatedly brought to the attention of UNRWA’s management over many years; yet those same deficiencies have persisted and still had to be noted in the Colonna Report.” [shortened for brevity; emphasis added]
In written testimony to the US Congress UN Watch CEO, Hillel Neuer, stated:
“... UNRWA effectively admits that it has never undertaken, and does not see itself as obligated to undertake, a comprehensive review of its staff for neutrality violations.
Moreover, UNRWA's approach of minimizing the problem and focusing only on the issue of staff social media violations ignores the deeper, systemic problem, which is the fact that UNRWA is hiring these antisemitic and terror-supporting teachers in the first place and placing them in classrooms to serve as role models for impressionable Palestinian children… Sadly, we are not aware of any donor state that asked UNRWA to stop attacking the few groups that expose UNRWA staff support for terrorism.” [emphasis added]
Apartments bought by UNRWA in Gaza were registered in the name of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif's wife. Apartments of Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas head Yahya Sinwar's brother, were found to be received from UNRWA and then rented to Palestinians, according to rental contracts. Documentation of Hamas operatives working for UNRWA was also found.

The response of MFAT
When the egregious material was presented by us in 2019, the response of your agency officials was to effectively deny there was any problem.
There was no evidence of any formal briefing of the issues to Ministers.
Your Executive Services Division wrote to IINZ after we submitted the report stating “We confirm that officials in New Zealand have undertaken meetings pertaining to budgetary issues in UNRWA… None of the concerns outlined in your OIA request [or report] were covered and we do not hold any written reporting on that meeting.”
It was only after the Human Rights Commission stated that your funding of hate may “place NZ in breach of its international human rights obligations” that any mention of the issues were included in a briefing to the Minister.
The briefing stated “Claims have been made about the inclusion of anti-Semitic teachings in Palestinian Authority textbooks used in schools… We are awaiting the outcome of a review by the EU of textbooks…”.
The use of “claims” suggests that your agency does not believe the decades of evidence that clearly shows antisemitism in the textbooks used by UNRWA.
The review mentioned is the report referred to in paragraph, 3, above; the results of which confirmed hate and incitement in the curriculum used by UNRWA.
It is noteworthy that your agency sent taxpayer funds to UNRWA before the EU-funded review was published.
Deb Collins, MFAT Divisional Manager, Partnerships, Humanitarian and Multilateral, met with UNRWA officials in December 2021 and mentioned the report referred to in paragraph 3, above. Minutes from the meeting record that she found the inclusion of antisemitism and glorification of terror in the UNRWA curriculum "not surprising".
From the responses to OIA requests we have made, your agency has done no risk assessment or evaluation of the amount of aid you send to UNRWA which has been, or could be, diverted to terror activities.

Our question to you
Despite the evidence, responses to several OIA requests from your agency denies there is any incitement, hatred, or support for terror, and that UNRWA does not employ terrorists or staff who incite or support terror. Could you please explain the discrepancy between the publicly available evidence and the stated position of your agency?

Sincerely,

Dr David Cumin
Co-director
IINZ

Dear MFAT ESD,

Thank you for your letter and timeline of correspondacne. For some reason you failed to include reference to the letter we sent you on 17 September 2024 in response to your alleged concerns and threats of Police action.

In that letter, we asked three questions in good faith to better understand your perspective and help us consider your request for us to cease criticism of the decisions made by MFAT staff. The questions were:
1. Which posts, specifically, are you alleging constitute harassment and why, specifically, do you consider them to be "harassing"?
2. In what way, specifically, do you consider IINZ has "incorrectly accused" staff of anything [we believe we have evidenced all the claims we have made]?
3. How do you believe senior MFAT officials (named on your website and in OIA responses) can be held to public account for their actions or inactions without naming them?

You did not respond to the questions and you have now repeated your assertion, without evidence, that some online posts have “incorrectly accused” Ministry staff of a range of actions.

Rather than choose a path of openness, transparency, and diplomacy, you have now also chosen to refuse to release any more information to us.

The requests we made did not seek any individual staff names or details. If you do not wish any individual staff members to be held accountable for their actions or inaction then you should redact their details. If you are genuinely concerned about the privacy of your staff, then one might expect you will also remove the names of your staff from your website and cease naming them in media releases or on social media.

The requests for information we made are not vexations at all; that is simply another false allegation against us. We do not wish to make an Ombudsman complaint against you but if you do not release the documents we have asked for, with names redacted as you see fit, then we will be compelled to appeal your unreasonable decision.

We look forward to your response and, as always, we are also open to transparent and honest discussion.

Sincerely,
David