UN’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Appoints ‘Impartial’ Groups to Investigate UNRWA

After Israel accused a dozen members of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza of having participated in the atrocities inflicted on Israeli men, women, and children on October 7, many donors to UNRWA, including the US, the UK, Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania, and Sweden, cut off funding for UNRWA. And more UNRWA staff have now been accused of taking part in the October 7 attack; a total of 19 are now under investigation. In addition, Israel has evidence in its intelligence dossier that has led it to accuse 190 UNRWA employees of being “hardcore” Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, and also to claim that about 1,200 UNRWA employees, 10% of UNRWA’s 12,000 employees in Gaza, have links with Palestinian jihad groups. UNRWA itself has done nothing to prevent Hamas from using its schools and other facilities in Gaza, over many years, to hide its operatives and weapons. Finally, UNRWA schoolbooks continue to brainwash children in Gaza (and everywhere that UNRWA schools exist) in antisemitic hate, even though UNRWA keeps promising to remove that material from the books. It never does.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed three Scandinavian institutes to conduct what he describes as “an iimpartial review” of Israel’s charges against UNRWA, and to see whether UNRWA deserves to be defunded. An examination of these groups — the Norwegian, Chr. Michelsen Institute, the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg Institute, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, makes clear that they are not impartial, but have long records of vilifying Israel and being cheerleaders for Hamas. More on the three can be found here: “Exposed: UNRWA’s Rigged ‘Independent’ Review,” UN Watch, April 15, 2024:

…Chr. Michelsen Institute: Israel Guilty of ‘Apartheid,’ ‘Genocide’

The impartiality of Norway’s Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) concerning UNRWA is undermined by the extreme bias of its publications on UNRWA, and by the litany of pronouncements by numerous of its staff and board members accusing Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide.”

In 2022, CMI published a report on UNRWA examining reasons for the agency’s funding troubles and advising steps forward. In the report, CMI states that UNRWA’s funding problems are caused by “unfounded claims” that the agency “instigates violence, for example, through school curricula with an anti-Israeli edge.”

The charge that UNRWA schoolbooks are full not just of anti-Israel material but are also virulently antisemitic has been supported by study after study by UN Watch, and UNRWA, in fact, has admitted as much when, year after year, it promises to rid its schoolbooks of all such material. It never has fulfilled that promise.

In other words, CMI has already expressed the opinion that claims of UNRWA incitement—documented over 10 years in a series of reports by UN Watch that show screenshots of UNRWA teachers calling to slaughter Jews—are “unfounded.”

The researcher and lead author of CMI’s 2022 UNRWA report is Kjersti G. Berg, who is involved in most if not all of CMI’s published material relating to UNRWA. Since January 2024, Berg has defended UNRWA and the continued funding of the organization (see here and here).

Ms. Berg published a book in 2023, “Palestina. Fakta på bakken,” where she argues in favor of the Palestinian “right of return,” which effectively means the destruction of the State of Israel. In 2017, Berg hosted a lecture with Raja Shehadeh, founder of the group Al-Haq, which in 2021 was designated by Israel as a terrorist organization….

In conclusion, it is clear that there is a systemic bias within CMI against Israel and in support of UNRWA, and that CMI lacks the impartiality necessary to objectively examine UNRWA support for and complicity with terrorism.

Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI)

The leading staff and board members of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI)  have been routinely portraying Israel as uniquely evil.

Eight years ago, in 2016, RWI Executive Director Peter Lundberg accused Israel of “apartheid.”…

RWI on its website features a lengthy interview with Richard Falk, after he was famously condemned for antisemitism by the United Kingdom, championing his report for Arab states that accused Israel of “apartheid.”

Danish Institute Backs UNRWA Funding

The Danish Institute for Human Rights has demonstrated a sharp anti-Israel and pro-UNRWA bias, as evident by its public statements, pronouncements of its board members and senior staff, and its sole Palestinian partner organization.

For example, DIHR applauded South Africa’s ICJ case that accused Israel of “genocide.” In a statement on behalf of DIHR, Senior Researcher Peter Vedel Kessing called the ruling a “breakthrough and an important progress for international humanitarian law.”…

After that mountain of evidence meticulously gathered by UN Watch, demonstrating the extreme anti-Israel bias exhibited by the staffs of CMI, RWI, and DIHR, no one in his right mind could conclude that these groups are capable of an “independent” and “impartial” review of the charges made by Israel against UNRWA, as Antonio Guterres maintains. But at this point, who would dare to claim that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is in his right mind?