[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                              
 
  UNITED NATIONS' BIGOTRY TOWARDS ISRAEL: UNRWA ANTI-SEMITISM POISONS 
                           PALESTINIAN YOUTH

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

 SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL 
                             ORGANIZATIONS

                                   of

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            NOVEMBER 8, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-59

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
        
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             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 55-685PDF           WASHINGTON : 2024
                      
                       
                       

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                   MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     GREGORY MEEKS, New York, Ranking 
JOE WILSON, South Carolina               Member
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            BRAD SHERMAN, California
DARRELL ISSA, California             GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ANN WAGNER, Missouri                 WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
BRIAN MAST, Florida                  DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
KEN BUCK, Colorado                   AMI BERA, California
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee              JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee             DINA TITUS, Nevada
                                     TED LIEU, California
ANDY BARR, Kentucky                  SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
YOUNG KIM, California                COLIN ALLRED, Texas
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida        ANDY KIM, New Jersey
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan              SARA JACOBS, California
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,       KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
    American Samoa                   SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas                      Florida
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio                GREG STANTON, Arizona
JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida               JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey         JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York             SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
CORY MILLS, Florida                  JIM COSTA, California
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              JASON CROW, Colorado
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas                BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
JOHN JAMES, Michigan
KEITH SELF, Texas


 
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                    Brendan Shields, Staff Director

                    Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director
                                 ------                                

 Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International 
                             Organizations

                  CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, Chair
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida        SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania, Ranking 
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,           Member
    American Samoa                   AMI BERA, California
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas                SARA JACOBS, California
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
JOHN JAMES, Michigan

                       Mary Vigil, Staff Director
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                 INFORMATIONA SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Information submitted for the record.............................

                               WITNESSES

Neuer, Hillel C., Executive Director, U.N. Watch.................
Schanzer, Jonathan, Senior Vice President for Research, 
  Foundation for the Defense of Democracies......................
Lincoln, Jonathan, Interim Director, Center for Jewish 
  Civilization at Georgetown University..........................     4

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    XX
Hearing Minutes..................................................    XX
Hearing Attendance...............................................    xx


  UNITED NATIONS' BIGOTRY TOWARDS ISRAEL: UNRWA ANTI-SEMITISM POISONS 
                           PALESTINIAN YOUTH

                      Wednesday, November 8, 2023

                          House of Representatives,
              Subcommittee on Global Health, Global
                    Human Rights, and International
                                     Organizations,
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in 
room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. And good 
morning to all.
    This hearing, ``United Nations Bigotry Toward Israel: UNRWA 
Anti-Semitism Poisons Palestinian Youth,'' will come to order.
    Make no mistake, anti-semitic bigotry is at the root of the 
UN's hostility to Israel, which is ugly, evil, and manifests in 
almost every U.N. entity. The United Nations is unquestionably 
the world's foremost legitimizer of anti-semitism, including in 
its most virulent and violent forms.
    The monstrous and genocidal atrocities we have seen coming 
out of Gaza since October 7th, or anti-semitic hate crimes, the 
logical consequence of the unbridled anti-semitism fomented and 
enabled by the United Nations.
    Today, Israel is defending itself from a cowardly invasion 
and massacre by Hamas. It has an absolute right to defend 
itself. We have all seen the evidence of ugly images of Hamas' 
crimes, of psychotic terrorists butchering innocent civilians, 
rape, hostage-taking, the beheading of babies, and daily 
indiscriminate missile attacks reminiscent of Nazi buzz bombs 
and V-2 rockets.
    Yet, yesterday, as Charles Hilu of the Washington Free 
Beacon reported, Francesca Albanese, who serves as the Office 
of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Special 
Rapporteur for Palestinian Territories, employed torturous 
logic to say that Israel has no right to self-defense against 
Hamas under international law, which is absolutely absurd.
    We are here to talk about yet another, another set of 
images that has been seen on the news, U.N. diplomats like 
Francesca Albanese and many, many others, and minions of U.N. 
agencies engaged in the work of licensing, encouraging, 
legitimizing this demented hatred of Israel. What is going on 
at the U.N. may look civilized but, in fact, what is going on 
is morally ugly.
    The activities of the U.N. entities are, of course, the 
genocidal attacks of the past month are an effect, of course, 
of that cause.
    I have been in the fight against anti-semitism for all of 
my 43 years in the U.S. Congress, including an early trip in 
1982 to Moscow and Leningrad on behalf of Soviet Jews.
    I have chaired 14 congressional hearings focused 
exclusively on anti-semitism, and many more focused on 
religious freedom, of which anti-semitism is a part, and wrote 
the law that created the special envoy to monitor and combat 
anti-semitism in the U.S. Department of State in 2004.
    Later, I wrote another law to upgrade and to strengthen the 
special envoy to the rank of Ambassador reporting directly to 
the Secretary of State.
    Kathy Manning and Rob, who is with us today, I want to say, 
Rob, when that bill was hung up in the Senate, could not get 
passed, I want to thank you because you are the one who made it 
happen over at the U.S. Senate. Thank you so much for that.
    Kathy Manning and six other members and I co-chair the 
Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-semitism, and what we 
see at the U.N. is anti-semitism in its most dangerous form, a 
genocidal illuminated ideology.
    At a meeting I chaired in June 2004, and at the Berlin 
Conference, Natan Sharansky powerfully articulated his 
insightful 3D test for identifying anti-semitism as relates to 
Israel and said that it often hides behind a veneer--and this 
is his words--of legitimate criticism of Israel. He said, of 
course you, if you want to be successful in the struggle 
against anti-semitism, as against any other evil, there must be 
more clarity on the issue.
    What are we talking about? It is important to define the 
line between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-semitism. 
Israel is a strong democracy, and the only democracy in the 
Middle East. And it is built on the criticism from within and 
from without.
    He went on to say, of course we support all forms of 
legitimate criticism, but it is very important to see the 
difference and draw that line.
    According to Natan Sharansky, who testified for the third 
time before our subcommittee just as recently as June, his 3D 
test is nothing less than the--the criticism of Israel is 
nothing less than anti-semitic when it passes over into 
demonization of Jews and Israel, delegitimizing the Jewish 
State, or applying a double standard that is one standard for 
Israel and one standard for every other country on the globe.
    A few words now about U.N. entities most involved in 
promoting anti-semitism. UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works 
Agency, as we all know was set up in 1949 to provide aid to 
refugees. Seventy-four years later it is still going, which is 
absurd in itself since nearly every Arab nation will not permit 
the former to integrate into their society. Why do not they 
welcome the Palestinians? They simply will not.
    UNRWA provides education in hatred of Jews to the vastly 
expanded number of children, grandchildren, and great 
grandchildren of the original refugees. UNRWA's textbooks, 
curricula, summer camps, official media, are all infamous 
incubators of hatred. Aspects of its propaganda are so twisted, 
and is publicly available, you can read it, you can go online 
and read what they have to say.
    They encourage children to martyrdom as suicide bombers. 
What a, what a form of child abuse is that, to tell little kids 
to kill themselves and to blow up innocent people on buses and 
elsewhere throughout Israel.
    A June report by U.N. Watch and Impact SC--and they are 
here both today, thank you--from March this year carefully 
document that ``UNRWA deliberately and systematically hires 
teachers who publicly praise Hitler, glorify terrorist attacks 
against Israeli children, and spread globalist-like conspiracy 
theories against the Jews.''
    You can put your hands down. Why do you support that kind, 
that kind of hatred toward Jews is unthinkable and 
unconscionable.
    A new Impact SC report just released exposes an absolutely 
deplorable fact: UNRWA staff celebrated Hamas' massacre.
    Similarly, Impact SC has published three reports analyzing 
``hundreds of pages of teaching materials revealing that 
content glorifying terrorism, inciting violence, and promoting 
anti-semitism is actually included in UNRWA's own materials, 
created by UNRWA staff, for UNRWA students.''
    UN Watch has published many, many pages of documentation of 
over 100 UNRWA teachers and their Facebook pages inciting anti-
semitism and praise of jihadi terrorism. And it makes very, 
very great reading.
    UN Watch just released a new report 2 days ago, on November 
6th, documenting how as soon as news of the horrific slaughter 
broke, which was live streamed on social media by some of the 
terrorists, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, 
staff immediately celebrated and justified it on Facebook. 
Celebrated the slaughter of innocent people.
    As the report states, ``this is a symptom''--and this is a 
quote from U.N. Watch, ``of a much larger systemic problem, the 
fact that UNRWA hires anti-semitism terrorist-supporting staff 
in the first place.''
    UNRWA bears a hidden moral responsibility for the 
perversity we saw performed by Hamas in its October 7th 
invasion of Israel. I would point out that in 2018, because of 
all this President Trump ceased all funding to UNRWA. 
Regrettably, President Biden reversed that policy and has given 
UNRWA approximately a billion dollars. Where are the strings? 
Where is the reform? Has not happened.
    UN Human Rights Council is a hypocritical institution. And 
I was there when we tried, you know, we went from the 
commission to the council. Everybody talked about how it would 
be so much better, transparent, and really focus on egregious 
violations of human rights. Well, it is a place where the 
world's worst human rights abusers have made Israel a permanent 
agenda item so as to be able to demonize it at every meeting.
    Its commissions of inquiry on Israel and reports are beyond 
biased, based on unsubstantiated reports and strained logic. 
Their only purpose is to put a mantel on apparent authority on 
wild accusations of Israel's worst enemies.
    We are fortunate to have three wonderful and very effective 
leaders. We are also very, and I would welcome, would welcome 
U.N. Watch, Hillel Neuer, who is the world's leading authority 
on the U.N. Rights Council, who will testify today in part, 
because his testimony is very, very comprehensive. And he 
points out that ``since the creation in June 2006 to June 2023, 
the council has adopted zero resolutions on serial human rights 
abusers such as China.''
    I chair the China Commission. It is a bicameral, bipartisan 
commission. I have chaired 81 commission hearings and hearings 
in this committee. The egregious abuses committed by Xi Jinping 
are beyond the pale. You name it: genocide against the Uyghurs, 
all of the terrible abuses. And yet, crickets, nothing in the 
Human Rights Council.
    Again, going back to Hillel Neuer's statement, he points 
out zero resolutions on abusers like China, Pakistan, Qatar, 
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, and Cuba. It has adopted two 
condemnatory resolutions on Sudan, three on Venezuela, 12 on 
Eritrea, 14 on Iran, 16 on North Korea, 42 on Syria and, guess 
what, 103 on Israel. China, nothing. Israel, 103.
    It is absurd.
    Shockingly, Iran chaired the U.N. Human Rights Council's 
Social Forum on November 2d and 3d. I mean, what is that all 
about, put them at the helm, at the chair of that forum?
    UN General Assembly is into this for annually adopting 
between 60 to 20 resolutions condemning Israel. Again I thank 
Hillel Neuer for his reporting on this. But an average of 12 
country-specific resolutions on the rest of the world combined. 
That is incredible.
    One of the worst was in 1975 when UNGA, the U.N. General 
Assembly Resolution 3246 addressed the Palestinians and, quote, 
and I quote it, ``Reaffirms the legitimacy of the people's 
struggle for liberation from alien subjugation by all available 
means, including armed struggle.''
    That was from the UN
    This was written to legitimize Palestinian terrorism, and 
Hamas, and other terrorist organizations. And they do it 
regularly, and incite it regularly.
    It must be repealed. Just as Zionism is racism resolution 
was repealed.
    I remind members, we were on the floor discussing Hamas, 
read the Hamas Charter of 1988. Clearly, it talks about openly, 
aggressively killing Jews. It says Israel has no right to exist 
and needs to be eviscerated from the face of the Earth. It is 
right there in black and white. And they are doing it. Why are 
we surprised?
    The U.N. Security Council has been, since October 7th, 
unwilling to condemn Hamas or to acknowledge Israel's right to 
self-defense.
    And we all remember because, again, I was here, that Yasser 
Arafat could not even come here because he refused to recognize 
Israel's right to exist. He gave some very, very weak statement 
and then was allowed to come to the United Nations. But that, 
Israel's right to exist, has still not been accepted by so many 
at the U.N.
    The U.N. Secretary General has done even worse, saying 
Hamas' atrocities did not happen in a vacuum. And then pointed 
to 56 years of suffocating occupation.
    Secretary General Antonio Guterres claimed he was not 
justifying Hamas but, in fact, he is relativizing and excusing 
them. Thankfully, Israel has an ambassador to the United 
Nations, Gilad Erdan, who had the strength of character to call 
out the Secretary General.
    I would note, parenthetically, he was scheduled to be here 
today. He will come at a future hearing. But the situation in 
New York requires his presence there, and could not make it.
    The relative context for understanding Hamas' genocide 
atrocity, is provided by the U.N. itself in its persistent 
morally bankrupt policy of promoting anti-semitic grievances 
and justifying anti-semitic violence.
    Finally, there is a web of bodies dedicated solely to 
harming Israel. I mentioned one a moment ago with Ms. Albanese 
and her statements. The Special Committee to Investigate 
Israeli Practices Affecting the Palestinian People, the 
Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, 
they are funded by the General Assembly, which means we are 
funding them, and function solely as propaganda channels for 
anti-semitism grievances and maligning Israel.
    There is no similar committee on any other country in the 
world.
    So, again, I want to thank you. I would like to yield to my 
very distinguished and good friend Ms. Wild for any opening 
comments.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    I am glad we are having this hearing. I thank all of you 
for being here, particularly the witnesses for taking time, and 
the people who are here to give witness to this, this hearing 
and the substance of it.
    As we know, this is an incredibly difficult time for so 
many people across our Nation, across the world, and in my own 
community in Pennsylvania. And that includes Jews, Muslims, 
Arab Americans of different faiths, people of other faiths, and 
all of those who have been overcome by grief since October 7th 
and over the subsequent weeks. I think we are all in a period 
of collective mourning to some extent or another.
    And let me first say may we all think of the 240 hostages 
and work for their release as soon as possible. That must be 
foremost in all of our minds.
    We cannot find the words to express our grief. And far too 
often we find ourselves divided in our pain rather than united 
in our common humanity.
    As a Jew myself, I value the existence of the State of 
Israel, and I condemn all forms of anti-semitism. But, time and 
again I have said to my many constituents of many different 
faiths that no human life is worth more than any other to me.
    I hold in my heart every life that hangs in the balance. 
And I am ready to work with anyone to make any degree of 
progress in addressing this devastating crisis.
    We all need to work together to bring about a peaceful 
existence and a place to live for everyone. But, sadly, this is 
a time of war. And I will say, parenthetically, I reject any 
claim that Israel caused or instigated this war.
    Having said that--having said that, while this hearing will 
shine a light on many issues and challenges that the United 
States and the United Nations face to improve the United 
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the 
Near East, colloquially known as UNRWA, we also need to 
recognize that UNRWA and other partners are working to deliver 
essential humanitarian aid to meet the emergency needs of 
innocent civilians in Gaza.
    We know that the humanitarian needs are only going to rise, 
and we must be cognizant that UNRWA is the backbone of the 
humanitarian response in Gaza, and that without UNRWA, 
assistance simply cannot be delivered.
    Right now UNRWA is working and coordinating responses with 
other excellent agencies like World Food Program, an agency 
that I am very familiar with, have seen up close and personal 
in other countries, and am very impressed by. And to ensure 
that civilians are able to receive critical humanitarian 
assistance consisting of food, water, shelter, and medical 
care.
    And I think we all know that the humanitarian crisis is, is 
huge. It is not being completely addressed by any means. May 
not even be possible to completely address the humanitarian 
crisis that is happening there. But we must try, UNRWA must 
try, and its partner organizations.
    So, in this challenging moment when it is really hard to 
feel any kind of hope for the future we have a responsibility, 
I feel, for the sake of future generations to engage in robust, 
proactive diplomacy on the international stage. That means 
working to strengthen and improve agencies, including UNRWA and 
the U.N. system across the board, not walking away from our 
international commitments. And, together, I feel that we must 
find a way forward.
    And so, I look forward to this hearing, Mr. Chairman. And 
with that, I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you.
    Ms. Manning.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member 
Wild. And thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us 
today.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership as the co-chair 
of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-semitism, 
which met yesterday, and all of your efforts over many years to 
bring important focus and attention to this fight.
    And thank you, Representative Wild, for bringing the issue 
of the hostages front and center to this hearing.
    As you know, we have been meeting with hostage families for 
the last 3 weeks. And much like the stories of Holocaust 
survivors, each story of a hostage family is unique, each story 
is heartbreaking. And we must continue to do everything we can 
to bring the hostages home.
    Anti-semitism is on the rise here in the U.S. and around 
the world. And we must stand up to anti-semitism in all of its 
forms.
    As ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said yesterday, before the 
Hamas attack on Israel, anti-semitism was at a crisis level. 
Since that horrific Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th, 
anti-semitism is a catastrophe.
    There is no question that certain U.N. member states, 
bodies, and the General Assembly have a negative, 
disproportionate focus on Israel, and routinely support 
singling it out more than any other country in the world. This 
single-minded negative focus on Israel undermines the 
credibility of the United Nations, and it distracts from 
serious challenges facing the world.
    One-sided U.N. resolutions do not advance peace, they 
single out one side of the conflict for blame while encouraging 
the other side to reject direct negotiations in favor of a 
unilateral strategy.
    It also removes any sense of agency or responsibility from 
one side. And that removes the incentive to work assiduously 
toward peace. A lasting peace agreement will only come from 
direct negotiations from two sides. It cannot be imposed by an 
international organization such as the United Nations.
    I am glad that the United States has regularly vetoed 
biased and one-sided resolutions at the United Nations, 
including a recent U.N. Security Council resolution on the 
situation in the Middle East which failed to mention Israel's 
right of self-defense.
    And in response to the recent absurdity that a country that 
slaughters girls and women for failing to wear their head 
scarves properly, Iran, would chair the U.N. Human Rights 
Council Social Forum, the U.S. has rightly boycotted this 2-day 
meeting.
    My colleagues and I have also long raised concerns about 
the problematic context--content in textbooks used by UNRWA, by 
UNRWA schools in the West Bank and Gaza where biased and 
discriminatory curriculum is determined by the host government. 
We will continue to insist that this content be removed.
    At the same time, many U.N. agencies provide essential 
services, such as vaccines for children, and other critical 
services around the world, including in countries where neither 
the host government nor any alternative can or will provide 
those services.
    The U.N. General Assembly last year approved an Israeli-
sponsored resolution condemning Holocaust denial. And agencies 
like UNESCO support Holocaust education and programs to counter 
anti-semitism, which we can agree are important and worthwhile.
    UN agencies are imperfect. And in certain cases they are 
even seriously flawed. At the same time, the United States 
tends to have more influence when we have a seat at the table.
    So, I am looking forward to hearing what we can do to push 
for reform, to fix the flaws, and ensure that intolerance, 
incitement, and bias against Israel, the Jewish people, or any 
people, will not be permitted.
    Thank you. And I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Bera.
    Dr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
    This is a challenging time in the world right now. And I 
have been to Israel twice in the last few months this past 
summer. I have been to Sderot, have had lunch at some of the 
kibbutzes in the past that were attacked.
    You know, for those of us that believe in Israel's right to 
exist, for those of us that believe in Israel's right to defend 
itself, but also firmly believe in a two-State solution, and as 
the only path to peace and stability, it seems so far away 
today.
    You know, I talked to one of my Palestinian constituents 
last week who has lost relatives and friends in Gaza. I hear 
the same anguish and pain that I heard after October 7th from 
my Jewish constituents in their deep grief and deep loss. And 
that is the tragedy here.
    Israel has a right to prosecute a war against Hamas. They 
were attached, and they have a right to defend themselves, they 
have a right to make sure this never happens again, they have a 
right to dismember, dismantle and, to the best extent, 
eliminate Hamas. But, you know, when you see tragic loss of 
innocent civilian life you also feel that pain.
    And I do support President Biden's call for a humanitarian 
pause to get food, water, medicine in to civilians that, that 
need that. Again, that is not talking against Israel's right to 
defend itself; that is not talking about against Israel's right 
to exist; that is an American position and we will firmly 
support that position.
    But when you think about a two-State solution, when you 
think about a future, is a future ever possible at this 
particular point in time where Palestinians and Israelis can 
live side by side, we have got try to hold on to that 
possibility, otherwise I fear, you know, my Israeli friends 
will never be able to live in peace. And certainly, you know, I 
do not know what occupation looks like in Gaza. I worry about 
that.
    So, challenging time. We will stand with Israel. But this 
is a time where I would hope Arab nations and others around the 
world work with us to find peace, find a path forward where 
Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side but, again, a 
place where Israelis can feel comfortable that the heinous 
attacks of October 7th will never happen again.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. Mr. Schneider.
    Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 
Chairman and Ranking Member for having this hearing.
    Let me in advance thank the witnesses not just for your 
testimony today, which of course I know will be informative, 
but for your work, long work in addressing the issues we face, 
in particular, Mr. Neuer, your work on the U.N. and the long 
historic bias we have seen. Grateful for all of you being here.
    We were able to host last month, we were visited by Irwin 
Cotler, another strong voice from Canada. And he talked about 
the attack on October 7th. It is insufficient to call it 
attack. The massacre, the invasion into Israel of thousands of 
terrorists seeking to kill, torture, rape, kidnap innocent 
people with the intention, declared intention of the 
destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jews.
    And I may not get the words exactly right, but the idea he 
shared is that what happened on October 7th is 
incomprehensible. If you try to watch the videos--good news by 
the way, taken by the attackers--and it is impossible. He said 
it was incomprehensible but it was not impossible because we 
saw it happen. We know what happened.
    I was looking at the response from the United Nations, and 
the tragedy is it is not incomprehensible, it is totally 
expected. It is what they have been doing for literally 
decades. And I think that is what we are here to talk about 
today.
    And, specifically, when we talk about UNRWA, with I think 
everyone on this panel I have had the privilege of visiting 
Israel at different times. Ms. Manning and I had a chance to 
talk to young students in Ramallah, students who shared the 
dreams that our kids have in the United States, that kids in 
Israel have, wanted to be doctors, and engineers, and 
scientists, and change the world for the better.
    And then the question was asked of them, What do you think 
of the Israelis? And their answer tone and view changed 
completely. And they began to describe to us the very things we 
see and know are being taught in the schools, in the UNRWA 
schools.
    The education of our kids is the most important thing that 
we do. It not only determines their prospects for success as 
adults, determines the prospects in the future of the country 
educating those children. Decades of educating children to hate 
is how you achieve a situation like October 7th when people 
literally killed children in front of their parents, killed 
parents in front of their children. Literally burned people 
alive.
    And that is why I think the conversation we are about to 
have today is so important. The need for peace is greater today 
than it has ever been. The challenge for peace in the immediate 
moment seems all but impossible. But the important is to have 
the conversations today.
    When it comes to the time for questions I am going to ask 
you why are there refugee camps in Gaza after 75 years? We will 
talk about that. It does not make any sense.
    But, imagine after this war is over, after Gaza is free 
from the control of Hamas, a genocidal, nihilistic terrorist 
organization seeking the destruction of Israel, when the Gazans 
are free to rebuild their society and their community, and 
instead of tunnels and terror cells they are building a shiny 
city like Doha or Abu Dhabi, giving their kids the prospects of 
a future, like I said, we all want for all of our children. 
That is what we need to see.
    And with respect to calls of a cease-fire. If you watched 
the news today, Israel has encircled Gaza City, has taken 
control from Hamas from the perimeter. And what is the first 
thing that happens? The first thing that happens is Israel 
allows civilians to flee to safety in the south.
    Why are they fleeing now? They are fleeing now because they 
are able to. They did not flee before because Hamas prohibited 
it. And that is what we need people to see.
    So, I heard their dream for the future. And I continue to 
pray for the safety of all the civilians.
    I will say that those who were silenced, silent on October 
7th, their silence then drowns out any protest they may have 
today. We have to be clear in our condemnation of what Hamas 
did, in our focus on a peaceful future. But it cannot happen 
until Hamas is defeated.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much.
    Without objection, testimony that is being submitted for 
the record by Duvi Honig, who is the founder and CEO of the 
Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, will be made a part of the 
record.
    Mr. Smith. And also testimony by Debbie Soffen, who has 
been providing me and my staff for years information on UNRWA. 
And I thank her for that.
    That will be made a part of the record as well.
    Mr. Smith. And I do want to recognize Marcus Sheff, who is 
here, from Impact SC. We look forward to your testimony in a 
future hearing. Because I read your reports, they are very, 
very incisive. And I thank you for it.
    And we did invite Deborah Lipstadt, who is our Ambassador-
at-large. And she had a genuine conflict of interest and could 
not be here. So, the invitation is open, and I know she will 
avail herself of it and will come at our very next hearing, 
which will be very, very soon.
    So, I would like to introduce Hillel Neuer, who is 
Executive Direct of U.N. Watch, a human rights NGO in Geneva, 
Switzerland. He is also an international lawyer, diplomat, 
writer, and activist.
    He has testified often before the United Nations and the 
U.S. Senate and the House.
    Mr. Neuer taught international human rights at the Geneva 
School of Diplomacy, and served as Vice President of the NGO 
Special Committee on Human Rights in Geneva.
    He is frequently quoted as an expert. And I sure he is. I 
read his website all the time on the United Nations and human 
rights by leading newspapers, including The Wall Street 
Journal, Telegraph, Le Monde, New York Times, and has appeared 
in debates on CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera.
    Without objection, his full bio, and all of our witness', 
will be made a part of the record.
    Mr. Smith. And then we will hear from Jonathan Schanzer, 
who is Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for 
Defense of Democracies, where he oversees the work of the 
organization's experts and scholars.
    He is also on the leadership team of FTD's Center on 
Economic and Financial Power, a project on the use of financial 
and economic power as a tool of statecraft.
    Jonathan previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst 
at the U.S. Department of the Treasury where he played an 
integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist 
financiers. He has held previous think tank research positions 
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and The 
Middle East Forum. He has written hundreds of articles on the 
Middle East.
    We will then hear from Jonathan Lincoln, who is the 
Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization. Prior to 
joining CJC he worked with the United Nations in a variety of 
capacities since 2005.
    Most recently, Jonathan served as the Senior Coordination 
Officer for the U.N. Special Coordinators Office based in 
Jerusalem, working on the coordination of U.N. and 
international development assistance to Palestinians in Gaza 
and the West Bank.
    Previously, from 2012 until 2017, he was Senior Political 
Officer at the UN's Department of Political Affairs in New York 
where he converted--covered political developments in North 
Africa and supported U.N. interventions in Algeria, Libya, 
Morocco, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.
    Mr. Neuer, the floor is yours.

  STATEMENT OF HILLEL C. NEUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, U.N. WATCH

    Mr. Neuer. Thank you.
    Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, members of the 
committee, thank you for inviting me to testify at this 
important hearing. I have come here from Geneva, from the 
Headquarters of the United Nations Human Rights Council, to 
report to you on how that and other key U.N. bodies, as well as 
high U.N. officials, are engaged in the systematic demonization 
of Israel, even in the aftermath of last month's massacre by 
Hamas.
    Mr. Chairman, the United Nations was founded in the wake of 
the Nazi atrocities. This year marks the 75th anniversary of 
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was created in 
response to barbarous acts which had outraged the conscience of 
mankind.
    One month ago, on October 7th, Hamas sent thousands of 
terrorists to infiltrate into Israel. They broke into more than 
a dozen communities, massacred entire families, committing 
horrific and sadistic acts. They slaughtered 260 young people 
at a music festival. On that day in total, Hamas murdered more 
than 1,400 people.
    ``There are moments in this life,'' said President Joe 
Biden, ``when pure unadulterated evil is unleashed on this 
world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this 
weekend. This was an act of sheer evil.''
    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak likewise said, ``The 
attacks in Israel shocked the world. Over 1,400 people murdered 
one by one. The elderly, men, women, children, babies in arms 
murdered, mutilated, burned alive. We should call it by its 
name, it was a pogrom.''
    Mr. Chairman, one would expect the United Nations likewise 
to speak clearly and denounce barbarous acts which have shocked 
the conscience of mankind, yet, this is not what has been 
happening. Instead, over the past month, despite some 
condemnations of Hamas, the overwhelming majority of statements 
by U.N. bodies and officials have been pointing the finger at 
Israel, expressly or by application.
    The most excited and emotive declarations by the UN's 
highest officials describing suffering in Gaza are directed at 
Israel. Never does the U.N. blame Hamas for launching the war, 
for embedding themselves inside hospitals, homes, schools, and 
mosques. There are almost no such posts about the massacre of 
October 7th, about millions of Israelis subjected even now to 
rocket attacks, hundreds of thousands of Israelis displaced, 
more than 200 hostages being held by Hamas. All of these are 
not being championed in the UN's dramatic social media and 
statements. The target is always Israel.
    Now, often this is done by misrepresenting basic facts, 
such as falsely accusing Israel of bombing a hospital when the 
culprit was actually the Islamic Jihad; falsely characterizing 
Israel's legitimate self-defense aimed at targeting terrorists 
as ``collective punishment'' or other crimes; creating false 
moral equivalence between such self-defense and the terrorists; 
misusing numbers of Gaza dead and not telling us the source of 
the data is Hamas; not telling us how many of those dead are 
terrorists, including those killed in Israel; and pretending 
that proportionalities about comparing death tolls when, in 
fact, it is about using proportional means to achieve a valid 
military objective.
    The U.N. Charter guarantees the equal rights of nations 
large and small. Yet, nowhere is this principle more violated 
than when it comes to the UN's treatment of Israel.
    At the U.N. General Assembly last year there was one 
resolution on Iran, one on Syria, one on North Korea, and 15 on 
Israel. Zero resolutions were adopted on China, Venezuela, 
Zimbabwe, and 180 other countries.
    At the UNGA any resolution targeting Israel is passed by 
automatic majority. This was on display 2 weeks ago when the GA 
adopted an Arab-drafted resolution calling for a cease-fire 
after outrageously it rejected a Canadian amendment that would 
have condemned Hamas for the massacre and demanded the release 
of over 200 Israelis hostages, including children, babies, and 
elderly grandmothers.
    So, the text adopted by the GA failed to even mention the 
word Hamas, failed to recognize Israel's right and duty to 
defend its citizens against terrorism.
    Now, at the World Health Organization, every year its 
annual assembly deviates from global public health for a 
special debate singling out Israel. There is no such focus on 
Syria where hospitals are repeatedly bombed by Syrian and 
Russian forces, nor on North Korea, one of the worst health 
systems in the world. On the contrary, the WHO recently elected 
North Korea to its executive board.
    Since the Hamas massacre, the vast majority of statements 
by the WHO have targeted Israel. Hamas is seldom mentioned. The 
director, Dr. Tedros, is posting numerous statements falsely 
implying that Israel targets hospitals. He fails to say that 
Israel's military abides by the law of armed conflict, extends 
enormous efforts to avoid harming civilians. While Hamas' 
strategy, on the contrary, is to embed itself inside hospitals, 
homes, schools, and mosques, to use Gaza civilians as human 
shields.
    So, on October 17th, Dr. Tedros rushed to quote on Twitter 
to strongly condemn the attack on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in 
Gaza. ``Early reports indicate hundreds of deaths and 
injuries,`` he wrote.
    He called for Israel's evacuation order to be reversed in 
that area. And he ended with the hashtag,bNotATarget.
    Now, in truth, Israel never targeted or even attacked that 
hospital, and there were no hundreds killed. The U.S., France, 
Britain, and Canada all confirmed Israel's analysis showing the 
explosion was caused by a failed rocket attack--a failed rocket 
launched by Islamic Jihad. Dr. Tedros never corrected his false 
accusation, never deleted his tweet.
    Likewise, 2 days ago he posted a call for a cease-fire 
without any mention of the word Hamas. Israel's right to self-
defense to stop Hamas from carrying out their stated intentions 
of one of their top officials to repeat the massacre of October 
7th was nowhere mentioned.
    At the UN's Human Rights Council most of the world's serial 
abusers get a free pass. Many sit on the council, including 
Qatar, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. Last month they reelected the 
regimes of China and Cuba. None have ever been censured.
    Last week when the Human Rights Council opened its social 
forum, the chair was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
    Now, while dictators are honored, a democracy is 
scapegoated. The only country in the world with a standing 
agenda item at the council is not China, which denies basic 
human rights to 1.5 million people, as you well know, Mr. 
Chairman, nor is it Iran, which beats, blinds, and poisons 
women and girls for protesting, and which sponsors Hamas 
terrorism. Instead, the agenda item is on Israel.
    From the council's creation until today it has adopted more 
resolutions on Israel than on Iran, Syria, and North Korea 
combined.
    In May 2021, after Hamas and the Jihad fired 4,000 rockets 
at Israeli civilian centers, they created at the council a 
Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel. It is the first that 
has no end dates. It is mandated to report in perpetuity. Its 
unprecedented scope includes a mandate to examine root causes 
of the conflict, which include alleged systematic 
discrimination based on race.
    As chair of the inquiry the council appointed Navi Pillay, 
someone who has signed petitions lobbying governments to 
``sanction apartheid Israel.'' She is the chair.
    Human Watch has documented her bias in a legal request that 
we submitted to Ms. Pillay demanding that she recuse herself. 
She ignored our petition.
    Another commissioner is Miloon Kothari. Last year he gave 
an interview where he ranted about the Jewish lobby and 
questioned Israel's right to be a member of the U.N. He was 
condemned by numerous countries, and even U.N. officials, for 
anti-semitism, yet he remains in his post.
    Not surprisingly, in the inquiry's most recent press 
statement on October 16th they create a false moral equivalence 
between Israel and Hamas, refusing to treat Hamas as a 
terrorist organization, refusing to affirm Israel's right to 
self-defense.
    In a recent Al Jazeera interview, Navi Pillay effectively 
explained away Hamas' atrocities as somehow inevitable. And she 
made false comparisons with Nelson Mandela.
    Now, other officials need to be examined.
    Last year, the council named Francesca Albanese as its 
Special Rapporteur on Palestine. The mandate is to investigate 
only Israel's violations. U.N. experts are obliged to be 
objective. Before she was appointed, I informed the counsel 
that Albanese has repeatedly equated the suffering of 
Palestinians with the Nazi Holocaust, and accused Israel of war 
crimes, apartheid, and genocide.
    In a 2014 Facebook post she said America is ``subjugated by 
the Jewish lobby.'' Still, the council went ahead and appointed 
her. Ever since, Albanese has used her U.N. post to legitimize 
terrorism.
    Last November she addressed a Hamas conference where she 
said, ``You have a right to resist.'' This is a U.N. human 
rights expert encouraging Hamas last November.
    Six days ago she led six other supposed U.N. experts to 
accuse Israel in attempting ``genocide.'' This insane charge 
was also made a few days prior by Craig Mokhiber, the outgoing 
head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in New York, in a 
manifesto that he published as an open letter to the U.N. where 
he implied he was quitting as an act of conscience.
    Now, this supposed moral protest was covered immediately by 
The Guardian and Al Jazeera. What they did not report was that 
Mr. Mokhiber actually had to leave his job now, that he was 
under an investigation since March, after we exposed his litany 
of social media posts describing Israel in terms of infinite 
evil.
    Finally, we need to address UNRWA, which in 2022 alone 
received $344 million in U.S. funding.
    Under the slogan ``Peace Starts Here'' UNRWA tells donor 
states that they educate Palestinians about human rights and 
peace, that they promote stability. Yet, today we have released 
a new report, ``Hate Starts Here: How UNRWA Teachers 
Indoctrinate Palestinian Children and Incite Anti-semitism.'' 
It can be found at unwatch.org.
    Our last report documented how UNRWA staff regularly call 
to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify 
terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and incite 
anti-semitism. We have identified over 100 UNRWA teachers and 
staff found to promote hate and violence in social media.
    Our new report today examines how UNRWA staff reacted to 
the Hamas massacre. As soon as news of the slaughter broke, 
they immediately celebrated it on Facebook. ``Allah is Great, 
Allah is Great, reality surpasses our wildest dreams,'' posted 
UNRWA Gaza teacher Osama Ahmed.
    UNRWA principal Iman Hassan justified the massacre as 
restoring rights and redressing grievances.
    Rawia Helles, Director of Khan Younis Training Center, 
featured in an UNRWA video, glorified one of the terrorists as 
a hero and a prince.
    UNRWA English teacher Asmaa Rafiq Kuheil called to 
``sculpture the date,'' adding the emoji of a heart.
    UNRWA School Administrator Hmada Ahmed posted, ``Welcome to 
the great October.''
    Finally, there is an UNRWA official Mohammed Al-Shaikh 
Ali--he features on our report on page 16--he recently posted 
the following: ``Anyone who talks about taking refuge in Sinai 
is a traitor. Anyone who tries to flee to the south should be 
treated the way we ought to treat traitors.''
    Mr. Chairman and others, we have someone identifying 
himself on Facebook as an UNRWA official with prominent photos 
of him receiving UNRWA awards, calling on Hamas to execute 
Gazans who want to go south to flee for safety to get away from 
Hamas.
    In closing, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, on the 
75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
key bodies and officials of the United Nations are exploiting 
and distorting the language of human rights and the basic 
concepts of international law in order to cast Israel as a 
racist and genocidal State, as the manifestation of infinite 
evil, even as it is trying to defend itself from one of the 
most horrific mass terrorist attacks of our time.
    At a moment when the world needs moral clarity and 
leadership, the U.N. has failed. Its actions only incentivize 
Hamas to continue their strategy of using Palestinians as human 
shields, and maximizing casualties. The United Nations will 
never live up to its founding premise so long as this pathology 
endures.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Neuer follows:]

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    Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, Mr. Neuer, for that 
testimony. Dr. Schanzer?

   STATEMENT OF JONATHAN SCHANZER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR 
      RESEARCH, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES

    Mr. Schanzer. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, 
distinguished members of this subcommittee, on behalf of FDD I 
want to thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I want to 
thank my fellow panelists here as well for their leadership.
    [Disturbance in the hearing room.]
    Mr. Schanzer. OK, anyway, thank you for the opportunity to 
testify. The UN's anti-Israel bias, as you just heard, is out 
of control. It's not just a problem of anti-semitism, and it 
hasn't just diverted resources from other serious problems 
around the world. It has created the conditions for a regional 
war that is now threatening the Middle East. In other words, 
the U.N. has actually undermined its own mission of protecting 
the rules based international order.
    In my written testimony, I take aim at several U.N. 
organizations that waste taxpayer funds or exhibit a demented 
obsession with Israel. But no organization exemplifies the UN's 
failures better than the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, 
otherwise known as UNRWA. The agency was originally created to 
assist Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war that the Arab 
states raged against Israel and subsequently lost.
    Early on, however, it was clear that UNRWA viewed the 
Palestinians as clients. They refused to permanently resettle 
them, and then they became the rationale for additional funding 
year after year. Over time, UNRWA's clients grew old and passed 
on, but that was bad for business. So, UNRWA expanded the 
definition of Palestinian refugees to include the descendants 
of refugees.
    So, as a result, UNRWA's registry has ballooned from 
700,000 in 1948 to 5.9 million today. Mathematically 
impossible. Despite the fact that only few of the original 
refugees are alive today, the UNRWA's roster continues to grow. 
And all of them claim the so-called right of return to lands 
inside Israel. In other words, UNRWA has extended the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict deliberately and indefinitely.
    UNRWA today also identifies 2.3 million Palestinians in 
Gaza and the West Bank as refugees. I'll remind you, these are 
people living in the Palestinian territories, so this hardly 
qualifies them as being refugees. UNRWA today has a whopping 
30,000 employees, and in case you're wondering, the U.N. High 
Commissioner for Refugees serves more than 90 million people 
around the world with 19,000 on staff.
    So, it's almost as if the U.N. is trying to say that the 
Palestinian issue is more important than any other problem 
anywhere around the world. UNRWA employees have been exposed as 
members of Hamas, the terrorist group that slaughtered 1,400 
Israelis in cold blood on October 7th. This might explain how 
UNRWA's educational materials refer to Israel as the enemy, 
teach math by counting martyred terrorists, and include the 
phrase jihad is one of the doors to paradise in grammar 
lessons.
    Now, of course, there are some that might argue that right 
now is the wrong time to criticize UNRWA, given that there is 
an actual refugee crisis that is going on in Gaza right now. 
So, let me be clear, criticizing UNRWA need not ignore the 
needs of destitute Palestinians or those in crisis, and it need 
not ignore the intentions of well-meaning relief workers, some 
of whom have died during the current Gaza conflict.
    UNRWA may yet have an important role to play in this 
crisis, but UNRWA must begin to acknowledge its serious 
problems, and it must begin to enact meaningful reform. The 
agency, however, continues to deny its dysfunction. In fact, 
UNRWA has an office, I believe right here on K Street, that 
tries to convince legislators such as yourselves that it is 
doing a great job.
    If you ask me, this sounds like a lobby. So, now what? 
Congress has some hard work ahead. The first step is to 
actually apply refugee status to only people who are refugees 
from 1948 and 1949, this would right size UNRWA's mission right 
off the bat. From there, an impartial board of directors must 
be installed to conduct effective oversight. UNRWA actually 
does not have one, they do not have oversight of themselves.
    After that, there should be a full screening of UNRWA 
employees for terrorist affiliations, we know there are many. 
Then educational material must be scrubbed of anti-semitism and 
incitement against Israel. We've heard already that our friends 
from Impact SC are here, and they've done a great job of 
exposing a lot of what is in those materials. Finally, there 
needs to be plans for the phasing out of UNRWA over time.
    It may not be now, given the crisis that we're watching, 
but there needs to be a plan for handing off the mission of 
UNRWA to the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. There should 
be only one agency that deals with refugees worldwide, the 
Palestinian one has failed. I should also just note that I 
think that shutting down that D.C. office might also be a good 
idea.
    Before I conclude, I would like to add a few words about 
the U.N. International Forces in Lebanon, otherwise known as 
UNIFIL. The agency's mandate, as you probably know, is 
preventing non-State actors from acquiring weapons in Lebanon. 
Yet it did nothing for 17 years while the Iran backed Hezbollah 
amassed an arsenal of some 200,000 rockets, as well as 
precision guided munitions, lethal munitions, and drones.
    Since October 8th, the day after the massacre in Southern 
Israel, Hezbollah has fired more than a dozen anti-tank 
missiles at Israel every day. A full blown war could erupt at 
any moment. And I think it's fair to ask at this point whether 
the U.N. failed, or whether it was a partner in the current 
crisis. Either way, Washington must seriously consider ending 
UNIFIL's mandate.
    Something else can be created if a mechanism for dialog 
between Israel and the Hezbollah backed government in Lebanon 
as needed. But change is desperately needed. I'll end here. Mr. 
Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing. I thank you for 
allowing me to speak today, and I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Schanzer follows:]

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    Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, Dr. Schanzer. Mr. 
Lincoln?

  STATEMENT OF JONATHAN LINCOLN, INTERIM DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR 
          JEWISH CIVILIZATION AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

    Mr. Lincoln. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Wild, 
members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify. 
With your permission, I'll summarize the written testimony. I'm 
not here to defend every aspect of the U.N. system, far from 
it. But based on 15 years working with the United Nations, 
including in Gaza, Jerusalem, and Ramallah, also on post 
conflict arrangements in 2006 after Israel's war with 
Hezbollah, I'm in a position to perhaps help explain the 
political and operational environment on the ground.
    To start with of course, as many have mentioned, the scope 
and brutality of the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel, 
and the kidnaping of some 240 Israelis including children and 
the elderly by Hamas has forever changed the country, its 
relations with the world, and brought the longstanding conflict 
with the Palestinians into a new era.
    With the war now entering new phases, Palestinian civilians 
in Gaza are facing a calamity of historic proportions. The 
United Nations, and UNRWA in particular, are not just the best 
placed entities to provide the urgent, lifesaving assistance 
needed on the ground, they are the only option. The numbers are 
no doubt familiar, but they are staggering. More than 10,000 
reported killed, including more than 4,000 children.
    Of course, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, there 
are some 725,000 internally displaced persons at 149 U.N. 
facilities. These numbers grow as Israel calls on the 
population to flee the areas of heaviest fighting around Gaza 
City. Medical supplies, fuel, food, water are running low. 
Facilities for sewage treatment, water desalination have either 
been damaged, shut down, or are working at reduced capacity.
    In coordination with Israel, aid has started to flow from 
Egypt, but in insufficient quantities according to the UN's 
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Secretary 
Blinken and the Administration have been calling for 
humanitarian pauses, which are the least of what is urgently 
required. There is no other way to ensure increased aid, other 
than with United Nations, and in particular, UNRWA support.
    UNRWA is for all intents and purposes, the State. It cannot 
be compared to any other U.N. agency, no other U.N. agency 
functions in that way. It plays a vital stabilizing role in the 
context of the fighting, and of course will do so with regard 
to any day after scenario. The alternative is chaos, and 
possible systems collapse posing a danger first and foremost 
for the Palestinian civilians, but clearly for Israel as well.
    From an operations perspective, UNRWA is considered a 
reliable partner for many donors, and has always maintained a 
close and relatively trusted relationship with the Israel 
Defense Forces with regard to its operations. Eventually, in 
the context of post conflict arrangements, there will be a need 
to review, and in some cases I would even go further than what 
the others have said with regard to an overhaul concerning the 
structure, political, operational shortcomings of the United 
Nations and UNRWA in particular.
    This must include an examination of anti-semitism and bias 
against Israel. But to be sure, efforts to de-fund UNRWA, as 
happened from 2018 to 2021, have failed, as the agency managed, 
with relative ease, to make up for the shortfall with other 
donors. It's hard to imagine a different result, especially in 
the current context. The existing agreements between the U.S. 
and UNRWA need to be expanded and strengthened.
    In addition to the concerns about bias presented here 
today, many donor countries have additional concerns about 
UNRWA's management, accountability framework, that was raised 
today as well, its financial stability that need to be 
addressed. Replacing UNRWA with other U.N. agencies is 
unrealistic, if not impossible, due to its unique, entirely 
unique operational structure and direct assistance model.
    Substantial change can happen only in the context of a 
multi-lateral approach between the U.S., European Union, Gulf 
States, and other donors. The more connected the post conflict, 
and any effort to reform the U.N. are to the renewal of a 
viable peace process, the greater the chance of success.
    In conclusion, the late Kofi Annan famously stated quote, 
``A United Nations that fails to be at the forefront of the 
fight against anti-semitism and other forms of racism denies 
its history and undermines its future. That obligation links us 
to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel, which rose, 
like the United Nations itself, from the ashes of the 
Holocaust.'' He also said ``When we seek justice for the 
Palestinians, as we must, let us firmly disavow anyone who 
tries to use that cause to incite hatred against Jews in Israel 
or elsewhere.''
    Current U.N. leadership and parts of the system have 
certainly failed to grasp the magnitude of the October 7th 
attacks for Israel, and much of the Jewish world, and in doing 
so, have failed to live up to these standards. But despite its 
shortcomings, the U.N. is far too important an organization for 
the U.S. to disengage from. This is both for the sake of 
Palestinians, Israelis, and the world.
    For now, the priority must be to support urgent relief and 
lifesaving assistance to civilians in Gaza. There will also 
soon be an opportunity to make the U.N. a more effective 
organization, and one that can better live up to the legacy of 
Kofi Annan. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lincoln follows:]

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    Mr. Smith. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimoneys. 
To begin the questioning, you mentioned a moment ago how Dr. 
Tedros has not in any way, shape, or form retracted his false 
statements. Just for the record, I've met with Dr. Tedros when 
he was the minister for health in Ethiopia, and he often lied 
on behalf of Meles, who was then the head of State there when 
they had cholera outbreaks.
    So, he had a very checkered background going into that 
position as director general of the World Health Organization. 
He got his job by way of the Chinese Communist Party and Xi 
Jinping, he was their candidate. And we saw that there was a 
great deal of disinformation, if not outright lying, when COVID 
broke out, as he did the work of the Xi Jinping's dictatorship 
in putting out a false narrative.
    So, I am no great fan at all, I supported the Brit who ran, 
who was all about reforming the WHO. But, you know, again, 
these people need to be held to account when they make 
statements, and for him to smear Israel, and not retract it, 
and frankly offer a fulsome apology, again goes to his 
integrity, and integrity matters. And I've been shocked at the 
fact that he has not come forward and said wait, I got it 
wrong, let me just correct that, and apologize to the Israelis.
    Nothing of the sort, just goes on to the next 
disinformation campaign. So, you might want to speak to that. 
The issue of diversion of aid, we know that so much of the aid 
from the European Union, as well as from us, gets diverted by 
Hamas. What should have gone into infrastructure went into 
tunneling, and even a lot of the aid, we believe, that is being 
sent to UNRWA is diverted in other ways.
    It's hard to say because there's no independent 
accountability whatsoever. And, you know, Mr. Lincoln, maybe 
you could speak to the issue of if a UNRWA employee took a pro-
Israeli position, and said we want nothing to do with anti-
semitism, what would happen to him or her should they take that 
position?
    One, they wouldn't get the job in the first place, but say 
they hit it. And they say it's about time we got to tolerance, 
and treated our Israeli, and our Jewish friends with respect. 
What would happen to that person? Would they last the day? 
Would they be--would terrible things happen to them? And on the 
textbooks, you know, I have met with the lobby forces, they've 
come around over the years for UNRWA.
    And they're very good at putting pretty much what we saw 
throughout the 80's and 90's when it came to communist 
dictatorships. I took on Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania in the 
Securitate, and every year the lobbyists in K Street would 
bring, because they wanted most favored nation status, and they 
had page after page of nice bullets of lies. And you would look 
at it and say--but it worked.
    They kept MFN for years, most favored nation status, even 
though they were doing horrible things, in that case, to 
Christians in Romania as part of their dictatorship. My point 
is a lobby firm, and a lobby effort done here, and elsewhere, 
can put a gloss on the most egregious human rights abuse. So, 
diversion, if you maybe could speak to that issue of funding.
    And what is taught? I've had briefings and hearings in the 
past. I had one witness once read from the textbooks in 
English, and it was not only anti-Jewish, and anti-Israel, it 
was also anti-American, and it went page, after page, after 
page of that. They tell us that they cleanup the textbooks, and 
we hear, you know, you do not get a 15 year old who is 
fanatically anti-Jewish and anti-Israel without starting at a 
very young age to inculcate that hate into that little boy and 
that little girl, and it works.
    You know, I've worked on the Charles Taylor issue, I've had 
hearings with the special prosecutor with regards to David 
Crane here in this room, with what Charles Taylor did to hype 
up the young people to cutoff arms and do horrible things, 
that's child abuse of the worst kind, and Hamas, and the PLA 
does it every single day. And maybe you could clarify for the 
record.
    With regards to the content, the U.N. does not say what 
goes into those books, or the U.S., or the donor nations, it 
comes from the PA if I'm not mistaken. And again, that's 
highlighted again in the testimony in the most recent report 
that was put out. So, I just want to underscore that. A hand 
off of UNHCR, you indicate, I think, Mr. Lincoln, you do not 
think that would happen.
    I mean UNRWA is so flawed, I mean if this was racism based 
on color of someone's skin, surely, and I was one of those 
republicans who supported apartheid sanctions during the Reagan 
Administration, and for a while I was pretty much alone in that 
position, finally we all came to that position. So, you know, 
because that was based on racism. Well, here we have a group 
that is all about racism against Jewish people.
    We've got to find some other entity it would seem to me. 
Because reform, and the falseness of the reform in the past is 
numbing. Also, if I could pay to slay, if that isn't an 
indicator of, I mean we have Taylor Force, an American, who in 
2006 was killed with a knife, ten others were wounded. And what 
does his family get as he's languishing in prison, what do they 
get, and all others?
    They get a stipend, a lot of money from the Palestinian 
authority. I mean I still, my mind boggles at how cruel that 
is, and that's backed by Abbas, who has not gotten rid of pay 
to slay. I mean the U.N. has been silent on that one for far 
too long as well. So, if you could maybe speak to the 
textbooks, and I said this yesterday in a meeting we had with 
the ADL.
    The famous song You've got to be Taught from South Pacific, 
Rodgers and Hammerstein, hatred is taught. And it's being 
taught with aggressiveness every single day to the youngest of 
Palestinians, and that is child abuse of the worst kind. 
Because they grow up loaded for bear to kill Jews, and to end 
the State of Israel. They do not just come by that when they're 
15, they grow into it, and UNRWA is the major conduit to that.
    Mr. Neuer. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the WHO.
    Mr. Smith. Yes.
    Mr. Neuer. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the WHO, it is 
indeed shameful that Dr. Tedros has neither retracted nor 
deleted his false tweet accusing Israel of attacking a 
hospital, that is a horrific accusation, and it's false, and 
never happened. You mentioned the role of China in the WHO, 
that is significant, has never been properly addressed in 
Geneva, where I'm based.
    The WHO, the previous director was also China's candidate, 
literally China was campaigning for her, she was their 
candidate. And they have substantial influence, you know even 
symbolically, two of the good will Ambassadors of the WHO, one 
is James Chao, who works for Chinese State TV, and is a paid 
propagandist of the Chinese regime. He's a WHO good will 
Ambassador.
    During COVID he was publishing a lot of stuff praising 
China's methods of dealing with COVID. So, outright propaganda, 
we exposed him, we had a hundred NGO's complain about him, 
nothing happened. Another good will Ambassador is Peng Liyuan, 
she is the first lady of China, the wife of Xi Jinping, she's a 
WHO good will Ambassador. In 1989 she's a singer, she was 
serenading the perpetrators of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, 
she's a WHO good will Ambassador.
    So, WHO has a lot to answer for. You spoke about UNRWA, two 
issues, the aid, and the education. On the aid, it's hard to 
get information on aid being diverted, but UNRWA itself a 
couple weeks ago reported that both fuel and medical equipment 
were removed from one of their warehouses and taken by the 
health authorities, which is Hamas, and they deleted their 
tweet an hour or two later.
    But Haaretz reported, which Haaretz is a newspaper that is 
extremely critical of the Netanyahu government, and generally 
supports UNRWA. They reported that according to their sources 
this theft of U.N. humanitarian fuel and medical equipment did 
happen. According to the Israel Broadcasting Authority's 
Channel Eleven, 36,000 liters of fuel were taken.
    That is fuel that can run a hospital for a week and a half, 
it can run a water desalination plant for a long period, stolen 
by Hamas terrorism. UNRWA education, and we released our 
report, Impact SC has their report, and they talk about 
graduates of UNRWA who have committed terrorist attacks. And 
this is over the past 20 years, and they cite numerous 
graduates of UNRWA schools who commit terrorist attacks.
    So, we as the donor states, because all of our countries, 
whether you're American, Canadian, Swiss, French, British, 
we're all paying for UNRWA. America is the largest donor. We're 
told that it's an investment for peace. What UNRWA never says 
is of the 3,000 or so terrorists who infiltrated into Israel, 
how many of them were UNRWA graduates?
    One of them apparently had an UNRWA certificate from a 
vocational school that was found in Israel, and it was 
published on the internet, and this person had it on their 
person, this terrorist. So, UNRWA does not reveal those 
statistics, but obviously they're substantial. So, it's a 
question whether UNRWA is really educating for peace. You 
asked, Mr. Chairman, about what would happen if a U.N. official 
would say I oppose anti-semitism.
    Well, we've never seen it, so it's a valid question, and I 
hope that our colleague will answer it. But, you know, 
unwittingly certain things happen. A couple years ago the 
director of UNRWA in Gaza, a German national by the name of 
Matthias Schmale, no friend of the Jewish people, no friend of 
Israel, someone who tolerated lots of anti-semitism when he was 
head of UNRWA in Lebanon, he was interviewed on TV.
    And they asked him, can you tell us about Israel's attacks? 
This is in May 2021 ``can you tell us about Israel's attacks on 
Gaza?'' And he said yes, but you know, they've been very 
precise, they're only hitting there, the terrorists, and 
haven't been hitting us, civilians, UNRWA. And he did not 
realize what he was saying, but he effectively acknowledged in 
very clear terms that Israel's attacks are precisely aimed at 
the terrorists.
    And Israel uses quotes, and publishes quotes that the 
director of UNRWA confirms what we've been saying. Immediately 
he became persona non-grata in Gaza because he just said the 
truth. He was not trying to praise Israel, but he just said the 
truth. Became persona non-grata, suddenly there were protests 
sprang up outside his office, he had to leave Gaza, he was 
fired, he had to get another job.
    So, that is a partial answer to your question. Finally--no, 
I'm going to leave it there. Thank you.
    Mr. Schanzer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make 
note when we talk about the WHO, every year during their annual 
conference they devote a significant chunk of time just to 
excoriating Israel. This is part of their annual process, even 
at the height of the pandemic, there was a full day dedicated 
at the WHO conference to talking about Israel, as if that had 
anything to do with the global pandemic.
    So, you just get a little bit of a sense of the priorities 
of this particular U.N. agency. I would also note that right 
now, we all heard about the Al-Ahli Hospital, and the attack, 
an errant rocket by the Islamic jihad that created the 
explosion there. What we're not talking about yet, but what we 
will be talking about very soon is the Al-Shifa Hospital, which 
is based in Gaza City.
    Underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital is the Hamas command 
center. It is several stories deep, we believe that there could 
be Israeli hostages held there, we believe that there is fuel 
that's been diverted there, we believe there are rockets down 
there. And of course there is the command center that Hamas 
uses for whatever is left of its fighting force in Gaza right 
now.
    How is it that the WHO has not come out and condemned Hamas 
for what we already know exists beneath this hospital? This 
would be the time that the WHO should be speaking out, and it 
makes one wonder why it is that they exist in the first place 
if they cannot come out and speak about something as abhorrent 
as that. Now, as far as diversion of aid, we are hearing right 
now, the best reports that I'm getting from Gaza from Israel is 
that the aid that is coming through to the south, which is what 
the international community has carved out.
    It is being diverted to the north, where Hamas' military 
command center is. It is happening in the underground tunnels. 
UNRWA has not said a thing about this. There is, and I think as 
you just heard from Hillel, this is a certain amount of self-
censorship, right? The story of Matthias Schmale, is that how 
you pronounce his name? Yes, we remember that he actually, I 
mean he ended up having to leave Gaza, he was persona non-
grata.
    There is a lesson in there that UNRWA cannot speak out 
about these sorts of things if they want to maintain the 
access, right? And so, what they've done is they've prioritized 
the mission over the revelation of a lot of key details that I 
think the world needs to know about. UNRWA has to stop that 
self-censorship.
    And by the way, I can just tell you, as just an anecdote, a 
few years ago when I went to visit the southern communities 
around the Gaza strip, we actually were able to go into some of 
the tunnels that had already been exposed, and you could see 
that there were the bags of cement with the UNRWA logo littered 
on the floor of these tunnels. So, you get a sense of where the 
building material may have come from.
    UNHCR, I do believe that this is the only way forward. I 
know there will be resistance to it. But the point is, is that 
for the legitimate refugees that need to get the assistance, 
let's work through UNHCR. For those that are destitute, for 
those that are in need of services that right now UNRWA is 
providing, let's move them over to the Palestinian Authority.
    Why are we still using the U.N. when these are basic 
services that any other government should be providing? It 
makes no sense, why do the Palestinians have this, and no other 
people do? The textbooks, I'm going to leave that to people who 
follow this a lot more closely than I do. The excuse though, 
that these are textbooks that come from other places and 
therefore they do not have influence.
    That is absolutely not something that anybody should 
accept. What is taught comes down to the teachers, it comes 
down to the staff, and of course we know that many of the staff 
in UNRWA have an affiliation or an affinity for Hamas that has 
to change.
    Mr. Lincoln. Thank you. Just a quick maybe word on a couple 
of these points. On the aid diversion, from 2017 to 2021 I was 
the manager of something called the Gaza Reconstruction 
Mechanism, which was a mechanism that was created in the wake 
of the 2014 war, which to date was the most destructive in 
Gaza, of course pales in comparison to what's happening now.
    But essentially we worked with the Palestinian Authority, 
and with the Israeli authorities to facilitate the rebuilding 
after 2014. The mechanism was functional, and in fact even 
after May 2021, the Israelis moved to actually try and 
strengthen it as part of their response. So, just to say that 
that accounted for the bulk of the reconstruction materials 
that came in after 2014 for the express purpose of rebuilding.
    And it had to do with U.N. doing end use monitoring, et 
cetera, by no means a perfect system, but there were no 
complaints from the Israelis about that, and about the 
diversion. It's understood that the cement and other materials 
come from other sources, including a completely unregulated and 
unchecked border between Egypt and Gaza that has been open 
since 2018, just as one example, so that's important to 
mention.
    Also, just out of interest, interestingly, and it was of 
great annoyance to me as a U.N. official working with the U.N. 
Special Coordinator's Office at the time, UNRWA maintained its 
own mechanism, direct mechanism with the Israelis on the entry 
of materials. Again, not something that was raised by the 
Israeli security establishment as an issue.
    Later on of course, as part of its now, these efforts that 
have come under great scrutiny on the part of the Netanyahu 
government to try and support the economy, and particularly, 
try and engage indirectly with Hamas, there were efforts to try 
and support the economy. And this included creating certain 
economic conditions on the ground. But this came from, again, 
from the Netanyahu government, from the Israeli government.
    And so, there were definitely excess materials on the 
ground. Now, whether or not Hamas used any of this for its 
tunnels, whether they were able to smuggle the goods in, I have 
no idea myself. We were only able to account, and pretty well, 
for the materials that came in for the U.N. and internationally 
funded projects. Just on the employees, UNRWA needs to 
investigate this and act swiftly if these----
    Mr. Smith. If you'd suspend.
    Mr. Lincoln. Sorry.
    Mr. Smith. UNRWA investigate? How about an outside, 
independent0minded body? I mean, here, in this place, 
everything is about checks and balances. So, everything, House, 
Senate, Republican, Democrat, GAO, which does independent 
analysis----
    Mr. Lincoln. To bring it all together, to combine that with 
the textbooks, and again, I am no expert on education 
curriculum, I have not worked in that in the past. UNRWA says 
that in cooperation with the U.S. and other donors it takes 
measures to address racism, and bias. I understand that there's 
some skepticism here.
    If they are insufficient, I would imagine that a coalition 
of the top donors, which includes the United States, European 
Union, Germany, as just the top three could influence the 
required change. It's a question of political will more than 
anything, and it needs to be done in a multilateral fashion 
just because of the nature of UNRWA and the way it works. There 
should be no obstacles within the U.N. to this, I would be 
surprised.
    Mr. Smith. Can you tell us how you account for young people 
being so anti-Jewish, and anti-Israel who have gone through the 
UNRWA schools? Is UNRWA anti-semitic?
    Mr. Lincoln. I would say that you have to understand what 
UNRWA is. UNRWA----
    Mr. Smith. I know what it is.
    Mr. Lincoln. Is taking, is providing services to seventy 
percent of the population of Gaza.
    Mr. Smith. Including schools.
    Mr. Lincoln. UNRWA, I think we need to focus more on the 
problem, which is Hamas. UNRWA is deeply flawed, it is not 
Hamas.
    Mr. Smith. Your view on the pay to slay?
    Mr. Lincoln. In terms of----
    Mr. Smith. Which is PLA?
    Mr. Lincoln. There are a host of issues that are of deep 
concern regarding the governance of the Palestinian Authority.
    Mr. Smith. Can you condemn that? I mean killing Jewish and 
Americans, and then committing terrorism, and then getting paid 
for it by the government.
    Mr. Lincoln. Again, I'm putting it just in--of course 
condemn that. But just putting it into the context of a broader 
necessity for reform. Within the Palestinian Authority there 
have been many voices that are calling for this, and in 
particular I would draw your attention to an article by Salam 
Fayyad in Foreign Affairs, former Palestinian prime minister.
    Who has outlined a number of the vital reforms that are 
required in order to reinvigorate the Palestinian Authority if 
there is ever going to be any sort of future peace process, or 
day after scenario that stabilizes the situation. Sorry, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Smith. If a UNRWA teacher were to be pro-Israel, what 
would happen to that person, and do you know of any who show a 
tolerance, at least toward Jewish people?
    Mr. Lincoln. I do not know any UNRWA teachers, and I cannot 
answer the question, Mr. Chairman. But, you know, I do know 
that any of these, you know, horrible instances that have been 
raised by these reports should be dealt with immediately.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. Ms. Wild?
    Ms. Wild. OK, well, I'm going to take up where you just 
left off. Dealt with in what manner, these horrible instances 
that have been outlined, tell us.
    Mr. Lincoln. Teachers need to be fired.
    Ms. Wild. OK. I want to go back to something that is 
actually beyond the scope of your testimony, Mr. Lincoln, and I 
apologize in advance for that. But my colleague, Ms. Manning, 
raised it in her--I think it was Ms. Manning raised it in her 
opening remarks, and it's one that I think--thank you, by the 
way, for your 15 years on the ground, and for the time that you 
spent in Gaza and the West Bank, and the work that you've done.
    I think that that gives you a firsthand view, that it makes 
you a very knowledgeable witness, and we can benefit from that. 
But my question is why are there still refugee camps in Gaza?
    Mr. Lincoln. As I mentioned in my testimony, it's a bit 
strange to say, but the easiest way to get rid of UNRWA and 
consign it to history is of course in the context of a 
negotiated two State solution. This was certainly what the 
framers of the Oslo process perhaps naively, perhaps wishfully 
thought when they formed this process around 30 years ago.
    But ultimately the status of refugees has always been 
considered one of the final status issues related to the peace 
process between Israel and the Palestinians. In terms of the 
existence of refugee camps on the ground in places like West 
Bank and Gaza, of course these refugee camps actually have the 
appearance more of neighborhoods or towns than anything else. 
They've been there on the ground, as mentioned, for some 
seventy-four, seventy-five years.
    But in terms of the--it's more an issue of the status of 
these people pending a political resolution to the Israeli 
Palestinian conflict. This is, for better or for worse, the 
mandate that has been given by the United Nations.
    Ms. Wild. OK, I understand that's your view. The idea that 
the refugees of 1948 and 1949 are continuing to be served by 
UNRWA, I think is preposterous. And so, what we're talking 
about is successive generations of people who are essentially 
born into refugee status, is that what we're talking about?
    Mr. Lincoln. Yes.
    Ms. Wild. OK. And you said that seventy percent of the 
population of Gaza is provided services by UNRWA?
    Mr. Lincoln. Around 1.5 million beneficiaries in Gaza.
    Ms. Wild. You also made reference in answer to my question 
about why there are still refugee camps, which you described as 
neighborhoods, fair enough, but they're neighborhoods 
consisting of people who are registered refugees, yes?
    Mr. Lincoln. Correct.
    Ms. Wild. And you described it as being part of the final 
political process of creating peace in the Middle East, which 
who knows whether that will ever come. But I'm not here to 
argue with you by any means, you are here as our witness, but I 
want you to shed some light on why it is that Israel, which was 
willing to accept this two State solution, is now suffering 
from the effects of the anti-semitism that even you acknowledge 
exists in the United Nations, and in UNRWA.
    And I'm just going to leave that there, you do not need to 
actually answer that, that's more of a rhetorical question. But 
I am deeply concerned about the anti-semitism that we see in 
the United Nations, and U.N. agencies. You speak glowingly, and 
I would agree with you on the role of former U.N. Secretary 
General Kofi Annan, and his fight against anti-semitism.
    You quoted his statement, which I thought was a beautiful 
one. But what I'd like to know from you, since you've obviously 
studied the United Nations, and you've studied Secretary 
General Annan's shepherding of it, what can be done to 
eliminate that anti-semitism as he called for so many years 
ago?
    Mr. Lincoln. Thank you, thank you for the question.
    Ms. Wild. The softball question.
    Mr. Lincoln. Sure, no, absolutely.
    Ms. Wild. Not really, not really.
    Mr. Lincoln. Leadership matters in any organization, it 
matters at the United Nations as well. And Kofi Annan's words, 
although they were written some time ago, echoed very strongly 
throughout the system. And also set an example for the member 
states, and for the member State bodies. It will never, you 
know, the sort of dichotomy between the United Nations as both 
the stage in the member State bodies and the actor is one that 
the stage unfortunately is a reflection of the world, and a 
reflection of at least opinions of states.
    So, when we talk about these entities for example, Special 
Rapporteurs, Human Rights Council, you know, as Hillel and 
others have very rightly, and very strongly brought up some of 
the deep concerns about how they function. Again, when we say 
that these are U.N. opinions, U.N. thoughts, or somehow U.N. 
resolutions, it's important to understand where they come from.
    And the leadership that was demonstrated by not just Kofi 
Annan, but other secretary generals in this regard, and Kofi 
Annan of course had no problem calling this out in a very 
similar way that we heard from the colleagues here today. And 
he lamented it not only for the anti-semitism, and for the 
concern that it is, but also that it brought us no closer to 
peace, and it ultimately did nothing for the Palestinians and 
their search for self-determination as well.
    Ms. Wild. When is the last time the United Nations had a 
secretary general who called out anti-semitism? I'm not trying 
to----
    Mr. Lincoln. Are you asking me?
    Ms. Wild. Yes, I'm not trying to give you a trick question, 
I'm just curious if you know.
    Mr. Lincoln. Antonio Guterres has made some statements to 
that effect. I think definitely speaking, definitely from a 
historical perspective Kofi Annan sets the standard, and then 
of course it was continued by his successor, Ban Ki-moon. You 
have seen similar statements, especially during visits of the 
current secretary general to Israel, in which he was of course 
hosted by Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was on the ground 
supporting him that trip, where he made some very clear 
statements, I do not have them at hand.
    So, you do hear this, but again, I think that the standard, 
and the ability to relate it specifically to the ongoing 
conflict, and to separate some of these issues out was 
definitely set by Secretary General Kofi Annan.
    Ms. Wild. I'm going to ask one other area, and then I'll 
pass to my colleagues, but I may come back and ask some more. 
Obviously your position is that we need to work to reform and 
improve UNRWA, not abolish it. And I'd be interested to know if 
you have any specific thoughts about what we do to improve and 
reform it. I'll just end there.
    Mr. Lincoln. Sure. I think that the best place to start 
with regard to UNRWA is to sort of understand that it's this 
creation of the General Assembly, and it's, to me, the root of 
a number of these flaws are that it falls between the cracks 
with regard to accountability in general, and this is what we 
heard from some of the other colleagues as well. I do see the 
secretariat, the secretary general in particular being able to 
take on more of a role.
    There's also the, and I'm sure the colleagues would have a 
lot to say about it, but within the Department of Peace 
Building and Political Affairs, there is also the Division of 
Palestinian Rights within. And again, with a view to clarifying 
accountability frameworks, who is in charge, who is in charge 
of UNRWA? And then also with a goal to try and sharpen its 
humanitarian and development roles on the ground.
    I think would go a long way to addressing a number of the 
key shortcomings of the agency, including some of the issues 
that the colleagues raised, very real, and serious issues that 
the colleagues raised today. In my opinion this cannot be done 
bilaterally, the United States has tried both ways. Either as 
the biggest donor, to exercise the leverage in that respect, or 
to de-fund.
    Neither will work, it's a multi-lateral entity, this is the 
United Nations, we need to work with allies, and there is a lot 
of common ground. But if we do it just solely based on one 
particular issue, or one particular set of issues, then it will 
likely be less successful is my view.
    Ms. Wild. Sorry, I said that was my last, I have one last. 
So, with your focus on improving the actual humanitarian 
rebuilding efforts on the ground in Gaza, my question to you is 
how does that get done with Hamas present?
    Mr. Lincoln. Two sets of issues. One is I can tell you from 
my experience how we did it after the 2014 war, and you're 
hearing----
    Ms. Wild. If you think it's applicable now, sure.
    Mr. Lincoln. Yes, because you're hearing a lot of the same 
things, and again, we do not know how this particular conflict 
is going to end, we do not know. And what will be on the 
ground----
    Ms. Wild. Let's even talk about prior to October 7th, OK?
    Mr. Lincoln. OK.
    Ms. Wild. So, before this conflict started, UNRWA was on 
the ground, but not providing the focused level of humanitarian 
support that you think is optimal, right? And I guess my 
question is, so how is that--I mean let's talk about before 
October 7th.
    Mr. Lincoln. It is largely because of Hamas, because of 
Hamas' presence that UNRWA is actually strengthened on the 
ground. Because a lot of donors would prefer to give to a U.N. 
agency that has some degree of accountability rather than 
working with ministries that are some have closer ties with 
Hamas than others. The problem has always been that, and we saw 
this, and it's applicable to the current context, and it's a 
lesson learned for the future.
    After 2014 you saw a reinvigorated sense from the 
Palestinian Authority that they were going to play a role in 
the reconstruction on the ground. This was what the Gaza 
reconstruction mechanism was all about, and this was what the 
political efforts were. Because of Hamas' continued existence 
on the ground, and because of its own internal divisions, and 
its own political problems within the Palestinian body politic 
between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas de facto 
government, in Gaza it broke down.
    And the engagement of the Palestinian Authority wavered 
over time, because they felt that it was working too much to 
support, or sorry, not to support necessarily, but to take the 
Hamas government off the hook with regard to governance.
    Ms. Wild. I'm going to stop you there. Mr. Schanzer, you 
want to intervene?
    Mr. Schanzer. Yes, I want to just point out something, and 
it should be obvious, but maybe it isn't. UNRWA helped 
perpetuate Hamas rule starting in 2007 when Hamas took over the 
Gaza strip by force in a brutal civil war in which they toppled 
the Palestinian Authority. Hamas remains, has been the 
sovereign basically for 16 years. It failed to provide basic 
services to its own people because surprise, terrorist groups 
do not care about providing basic services----
    Ms. Wild. Mr. Lincoln, do you disagree with what he just 
said? Sorry.
    Mr. Lincoln. It's not just UNRWA, it's, you know----
    Ms. Wild. No, what he just specifically said. Do you 
disagree with that?
    Mr. Lincoln. That terrorist groups are not interested?
    Ms. Wild. No, before that. What----
    Mr. Schanzer. That UNRWA helped perpetuate Hamas rule.
    Ms. Wild. That.
    Mr. Lincoln. I do not think that that's completely 
accurate. I think it's far more nuanced.
    Ms. Wild. OK, I'm going to lead to my colleague, Mr. 
Schneider.
    Mr. Schneider. Yes, I'll yield too.
    Mr. Smith. And frankly, we'll go to a member of the 
committee, Ms. Manning.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you very much. Mr. Lincoln, UNRWA is 
meant to provide certain basic services to the population that 
it serves, such as education and healthcare. However, in 
meetings with members and staff, some UNRWA officials seem to 
believe that they are there to perpetuate the right of return. 
In your view, what is the proper role of UNRWA?
    Mr. Lincoln. UNRWA is not there to perpetuate the right of 
return. If some of the individuals are from the organization 
are stating so, then that's not correct. Of course there has 
been over time a politicization of its mandate exactly as you 
have laid out. And again, this is something that has been 
perpetuated through the Palestinian Authority's textbooks, and 
other means.
    Ms. Manning. So, what should we be doing to focus UNRWA on 
what its mandate is, and not what its mandate should not be?
    Mr. Lincoln. As I laid out in my testimony, I believe that 
a multi-lateral effort toward looking at the shortcomings of 
the United Nations with regard to this conflict in general, 
which includes UNRWA, is required. I think that also just on a 
broader sense, there are many other issues. The current 
iteration of the United Nations on the ground stems back from 
the Oslo peace process from 1993 and 1994. There are aspects of 
it that no longer make sense.
    Ms. Manning. So, let me go a step further, how would you 
assess UNRWA, UNESCO, the U.N. Human Rights Council, other 
agencies in terms of their fidelity to the UN's own principles 
of neutrality and tolerance?
    Mr. Lincoln. I'm not familiar with all of them, we're 
talking about some actors on the ground, some member State 
bodies whose positions are defined by states like UNESCO. So, 
it's a little bit difficult to compare all of those together. 
The problem, as I mentioned, and I think that again, we're 
talking about somewhat of a systemic problem, is that in 1994 
there was a division of responsibility more or less for the 
peace process.
    The United States was in charge of the negotiations, the 
European Union and others, including the United Nations, were 
asked by the parties and the United States to engage on the 
ground, and support the development of Palestinian 
institutions, and support the Palestinian people. Now with the 
peace process collapsed, especially in light of the current 
conflict, the United Nations has the appearance, less of a 
conflict resolution mechanism and more of an advocate perhaps 
of one side.
    This needs to be updated because of the situation. But 
again, if and when, and you hear this also from the 
Administration on the need to reinvigorate a peace process in 
the wake of all of this horrible carnage that we see on the 
ground. You can better believe that the U.N. will be asked to 
play a role, what role that is, whether it's a circumscribed 
role, whether it's a greater role or not of course depends on a 
number of factors, including how the war continues and how it 
ends.
    Ms. Manning. So, there were remarks that were made by a 
Hamas political wing leader that were shown on TV on the news 
where he stated that it was the responsibility of Hamas to 
fight against Israel, and to protect its fighters with their 
underground tunnels. And in response to questions he said that 
they did not have a responsibility to allow the people, the 
Palestinian people, to get shelter from attacks in those 
tunnels.
    That the responsibility of the Palestinian people was 
solely held by the United Nations. Can you comment on that, and 
can you also help us understand, has there ever been a 
comprehensive review of the population that UNRWA serves to 
identify how many people actually meet the U.N. high 
commissioner for refugees' definition of a refugee?
    Mr. Lincoln. Just on your last point, I'm not familiar with 
that aspect. And again, I should clarify for the committee. I'm 
not, and have not ever been a staff member of UNRWA, I worked 
for a different part of the U.N. But I will say that the 
comment that you mentioned from the, I believe it was Mousa Abu 
Marzook from Hamas, this is a very common perception held not 
just by Hamas, but by Palestinian political bodies in general.
    And it's primarily a misunderstanding of the UN's role on 
the ground. Of course, there are a number of U.N. agencies that 
operate similar to how U.N. agencies operate anywhere in the 
world, that support systems on the ground to provide services 
to the population, and in the West Bank and Gaza you have 22 of 
them. UNRWA is a little bit different. And I think that again, 
if we go to the heart of it, UNRWA's mode of operation and its 
sort of direct service model is what sets it apart.
    And in some ways is what is at the root of some of the 
issues that a wide array of donors have been concerned with for 
many years.
    Ms. Manning. So, you would agree that the comment made by 
that Hamas leader of the political wing is wrong? That it is 
the responsibility of the elected government to take care of 
the Palestinian people who live in Gaza?
    Mr. Lincoln. That's correct, and of course in a context 
like Gaza, and as in many other places in the world, the work 
of U.N. agencies is often conflated with the work of 
governments.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, thank you. Mr. Schanzer, what are 
the best ways we can now support targeted humanitarian 
assistance to make sure that it gets to the people of Gaza who 
are actually the victims of Hamas?
    Mr. Schanzer. It is a good question. During the war itself, 
you know, what we have right now is the southern part of the 
Gaza Strip, which has been sort of cordoned. The problem right 
now is diversion from the south to the north. And 
unfortunately, there is probably going to need to be some sort 
of military solution to destroy those tunnels so that the aid 
stays in the south and does not get diverted to Hamas and the 
north. I do not know how else to do it, because UNRWA is not 
stopping it, nor are the people on the ground. So there is a 
huge problem I think. I cannot even tell you what the 
percentage is of the goods that are coming through that are 
being passed underground to the north. But it is a serious 
problem right now.
    Ms. Manning. And does UNRWA have the ability to stop the 
confiscation of those goods by Hamas?
    Mr. Schanzer. This is what we were talking about. I mean, 
first of all, you do not see people walking around sort of 
armed, right, from UNRWA. They are not there to confront 
anybody. That is not their job, right. Their job is to just 
simply provide services to the people that they deem to be 
qualified as Palestinian refugees, which, of course, has 
ballooned beyond any reasonable expectation.
    But the question really is whether UNRWA can speak out 
about it. And again, I mentioned this during the prepared 
remarks. There is a tendency among UNRWA staff to want to sweep 
these sorts of things under the rug in order to continue their 
mission. So, in other words, in order to continue to provide 
the goods and services that they want to provide to the people 
of Gaza, they will pretend not to see these sorts of crimes 
taking place. And this makes UNRWA complicit in everything that 
Hamas is doing. And that is why it needs to be dismantled.
    Ms. Manning. Mr. Neuer, what has the U.N. done to condemn 
Hamas and call for the release of the 240 hostages, including 
citizens of dozens of countries? These are not just Israelis. 
These are not just Americans. These are citizens of dozens of 
countries. What has the U.N. done to condemn that, to call for 
the release of the hostages, and frankly, to work for the 
release of the hostages?
    Mr. Neuer. Thank you, Member of Congress. I have heard a 
number of U.N. statements that have condemned Hamas' actions. 
But these really have been the tiny minority. And they have not 
had the vigor and prominence and energy that the UN's other 
statements on the situation have had. So there have been 
certain statements. But they really have been the tiny 
minority.
    The bulk of their statements, as I mentioned in my initial 
remarks, have been focused at pointing the finger at Israel, 
expressly or by implication. Certainly the U.N. has tremendous 
ability and leverage to press for the release of the hostages. 
The Secretary General has a bully pulpit. The other U.N. 
agencies are present on the ground in Gaza and in the 
territories. So they actually have enormous opportunity to 
speak out, to press Hamas. And it has certainly not been their 
priority.
    So one can find statements here and there, including by Dr. 
Tedros. But sometimes they were only in reaction when they were 
criticized by Israel for not having spoken out. So I certainly 
think U.N. leaders, including Guterres, including the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, who should be in 
the region now, should be taking much more significant action, 
if they have been doing anything, to see that the hostages are 
released.
    Ms. Manning. Mr. Lincoln.
    Mr. Lincoln. Thank you. Just to respond, although some of 
his statements might leave a little bit to be desired, 
Secretary-General Guterres I think in every single one of his 
statements has mentioned the hostages and not just mentioned 
the hostages but called for their immediate and unconditional 
release. And he used the word now repeatedly in his last 
statement. So he----
    Ms. Manning. Now, are there additional steps he could be 
taking?
    Mr. Lincoln. With regard to those steps, again, the United 
Nations Envoy, the Special Coordinator, the office that I used 
to work for, is engaged, you know, I do not know to what degree 
in the sort of broader discussions that are taking place 
between, with the U.S. Administration, Qatar, and others on the 
ground. But from what I understand, and again I, you know, just 
am getting information from press reports like everybody else. 
Again, the U.N. is playing, you know, that supporting role. 
But----
    Ms. Manning. But he----
    Mr. Lincoln [continuing]. To what degree----
    Ms. Manning. He hasn't put together a task force or called 
special meetings or emergency sessions to discuss the freeing 
of the hostages.
    Mr. Lincoln. I have not heard of that. But I imagine that 
the U.S. is firmly in the lead on this issue right now.
    Ms. Manning. Mr. Chairman, if you would indulge me for one 
more question. Thank you.
    Mr. Neuer, like many on this panel, I strongly support the 
Abraham Accords. In fact, we have the father of the Abraham 
Accords Caucus with us, one of them, with us today. And we all 
believe that this could be transformative for the region. Since 
they were signed, has there been any positive movement in terms 
of the voting patterns of these countries that are part of the 
Abraham Accords or in their approach toward Israel at the UN?
    Mr. Neuer. Thank you. That is a question actually I get 
often asked by different audiences, a very important question.
    I would say in terms of voting the Abraham Accords 
countries, such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, 
have for the most part not changed their voting, with one 
exception. A year or two ago, Bahrain was absent during a vote 
against Israel, and the Palestinians were upset about that. And 
I think some went to the Bahraini Ambassador to complain about 
that. So that was maybe one instance. But in general, we have 
not seen voting changes. And these countries vote with the Arab 
world consistently against Israel, which is unfortunate.
    However, there have been a number of instances that are 
less than voting but which are significant actions that have 
showed a change of tone. I will speak from my experience in 
Geneva.
    At least once, and I believe already twice, there have been 
statements made, for example, by the Deputy Ambassador of the 
United Arab Emirates, who took the floor at the U.N. in Geneva 
to give a statement on behalf of all the Abraham Accords 
countries, the Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, American, and 
Israel, a joint statement dealing with some technical matters. 
But that was something that for me was unprecedented, to see an 
Arab country take the floor and give a joint statement with 
Israel on something positive, which was a very welcome 
development.
    So there have been a few statements and other atmospherics 
I would say both in New York and Geneva. And certainly 
bilaterally those countries have improved their approach toward 
Israel in various other meetings and so forth.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
I appreciate it. And thank you to all of our witnesses today.
    Mr. Smith. I yield to my good friend and colleague, Brad 
Schneider.
    Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, I want 
to thank the witnesses for being here today and your patience 
throughout this hearing.
    Maybe to just demonstrate that I paid attention in Sunday 
school but also to make a historical point, because I do want 
to talk about history, in synagogues around the world this week 
two things are going to be universal. On the one hand, there 
are going to be armed guards outside every one of those 
synagogues for fear of anti-semitism and violence. We saw it in 
Pittsburgh in the horrific attack that killed people as they 
prayed. But we are now seeing it around the world. And you are 
going to have that security. And that is part of what we are 
talking about here.
    But inside those synagogues, every single one, they are 
going to be reading from the Torah. And the Torah portion they 
will be reading from is Chayei Sarah. And it is an ironically 
named section of the Torah, the five books of Moses, because 
Chayei Sarah means the life of Sarah. But it starts with the 
death of Sara.
    And why it is interesting in the context of this hearing, 
upon Sarah, the wife of Abraham, dying, Abraham buys in the 
Torah, it tells the story of Abraham buying a place to bury his 
wife. Mr. Neuer, you are nodding your head, so I think I am 
going to ask this question. Where is that place?
    Mr. Neuer. It is in Hebrew called the Ma'arat ha-Machpelah 
in Hebron. And it is, indeed, I read the Torah last week in 
advance of this week during Minchah Shabbat and saw how lengthy 
that portion is, describing when Abraham purchases that portion 
of land in Hebron.
    Mr. Schneider. There was a deed. That is not what I am here 
to go through. My point I want to make is that the Jews have 
connection to this land. Hebron, for those who aren't aware, is 
a city in the West Bank. Jews lived in that city from the time 
of Abraham until 1929. I do not know. Does anyone want to 
answer what happened in 1929? Mr. Schanzer?
    Mr. Schanzer. A pogrom.
    Mr. Schneider. A pogrom. Arabs massacred the Jews of 
Hebron. Those that weren't killed left. We can talk about all 
those things. And I am not using it to make one side or the 
other.
    My point is that Jews have lived in the land of Israel for 
3,000 years. And I think that is an important thing to note. 
These are not colonialists who came from Europe. In fact, today 
many of the Jews, the majority of Jews who live in Israel can 
trace their roots not to Europe but to countries like Libya and 
Iraq, Yemen, other places. But they have a connection that 
dates back 3,000 years.
    Now, you go through the history, talk 1917. When I say 
that, we are talking about the Balfour Declaration. I can talk 
about 1947, and while I pause there for a second, because in 
November 1947, Mr. Lincoln worked at the U.N. What happened in 
November 1947?
    Mr. Lincoln. The General Assembly passed the Resolution 
181.
    Mr. Schneider. Which General Assembly?
    Mr. Lincoln. The U.N. General----
    Mr. Schneider. The United Nations General Assembly, 
partitioning the land for a Jewish State and an Arab State. And 
what happened was the Jews of the time, though that State did 
not include Jerusalem, did not include Hebron, the Jews said 
yes and the Arabs said no.
    So jump ahead a few months, May 15, 1948, Jews declared 
their State when the British left and turned over the mandate. 
That is the State of Israel. Palestinians who were offered a 
State instead declared war. There is a pattern here that I am 
going to get to in a second. The war that ensued, that 
proceeded over the years 1947 to 1949, defined what we consider 
the borders of Israel today, an armistice line.
    In 1956, there was another war. Israel occupied territory 
and returned that territory. In 1967, importantly, there was 
another war between Israel, Egypt, Syria. Israelis said to King 
Hussein of Jordan please do not attack, if you do not attack 
us, we will not attack you. But King Hussein felt the pressure 
from the Arab world and attacked. The outcome of that was 
Israel control over the West Bank and Gaza. It is important to 
get us to where we are today.
    But there was a conference of the Arab League in Khartoum, 
famous for three responses. Mr. Schanzer, you are shaking your 
head, so I will turn it to you. What were the three responses?
    Mr. Schanzer. They were the three noes, no recognition, no 
diplomacy, no peace.
    Mr. Schneider. Israel offered to return the West Bank and 
Gaza. And the Arabs said no, not once but three times.
    I remember very well when Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem, 
made peace with Israel, a peace that stands today. I remember 
September 1993 when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed the 
Oslo Accords on the White House lawn. A year later Israel 
signed a peace agreement with Jordan.
    As my colleague talked about, we have the Abraham Accords, 
the Abraham Accords, which for the first time--and I have been 
talking about this a lot. And these aren't my words. They are 
the words of Tal Becker, one of the negotiators. He said the 
Abraham Accords recognize that both Israelis, or both Jews and 
Arabs belong to the same land. Jews, going back thousands of 
years, Arabs, going back thousands of years, they belong to 
this land.
    And what the Abraham Accords recognize is that by embracing 
each other, by recognizing the humanity and the connection that 
both have to the same place, both can elevate the place and 
their peoples. And that is what the Abraham Accords were about.
    And that is what was happening as Israel was making 
progress with Saudi Arabia. And there were certain groups and 
states that said no, we cannot do this, namely Iran and its 
proxies. The attack on October 7th, the heinous attack on 
October 7th had as much to do about scuttling the progress 
being made with Saudi Arabia as anything else.
    And that is why it is so depressing to me that the U.N. has 
been virtually absent in its role. And, Mr. Lincoln, you have 
talked about this. The U.N. could be doing so much. But it has 
failed to step up at a time of great need.
    If I come back to what we are talking about and we have 
said here, Mr. Lincoln, you said UNRWA is the only option. My 
colleague, Ms. Wild, asked why are there refugee camps in Gaza. 
I ask the same question. Why are there refugee camps in Gaza? 
Israel did not occupy Gaza in 1948. Egypt did. And yet the 
Palestinians were left to be in squalor in camps.
    Israel controlled Gaza from 1967, not until October 2023, 
but until August 2005. In August 2005, Israel left, not leaving 
a single soldier or civilian inside Gaza and turned complete 
control over to the Palestinian Authority. And, Mr. Schanzer, 
you pointed out very clearly in the civil war, a brutal civil 
war in which people were thrown off of buildings and executed 
in front of their families, Hamas took over Gaza. And those 
that weren't killed from Fatah left to go to the West Bank.
    But since 2007 when Hamas took over, Israel hasn't 
controlled Gaza. Egypt hasn't controlled Gaza. The U.N. hasn't 
controlled Gaza. And yet there are still refugee camps. I think 
the number I saw is 1.7 million of the 2.2 million people who 
live in Gaza are considered refugees. How is that possible in a 
place controlled by first the Palestinian Authority and then 
Hamas since 2005 that these people are still refugees? I think 
that is the question we have.
    And, Mr. Schanzer, you said it very well. Hamas is 
empowered by the fecklessness of UNRWA. I think UNRWA has to 
go. But I think the work UNRWA is charged to do has to be done. 
So I am not calling for the immediate elimination of UNRWA. 
What I am saying is let's find people who are willing to do the 
necessary work to help and lift up the people of Gaza to take 
them out of the squalor of refugee camps, to put them into 
cities and communities with schools, hospitals, playgrounds, 
jobs that will give them the same thing we want for all of our 
kids.
    So, Mr. Neuer, I will ask you, what is it going to take to 
make sure that the services UNRWA is supposed to be providing 
get provided in a way that does not threaten Israel and lifts 
up the Palestinian people?
    Mr. Neuer. Thank you. You know, I think that, well, first, 
I agree with everything that you just said. And one of the 
challenges is that although my colleague, Mr. Lincoln, said 
that UNRWA is not meant to promote the right of return, that is 
certainly not what the entire spectrum of Palestinian factions 
believe. They have said continuously that they see UNRWA as 
having a political purpose. So, while the U.N. says it is a 
humanitarian agency, for the Palestinians, it is a political 
purpose and it is to sustain their grievance.
    And there have been Israelis who thought, and I mean the 
Israeli establishment, who thought that UNRWA was a solution 
because it provided short-term stability. But the message of 
UNRWA is indeed return, that all the Palestinians will go back 
to undo Israel.
    And I think what we saw on October 7th was if we thought 
that UNRWA was providing short-term stability, it may have, it 
seems very likely to have promoted the idea that when 
Palestinians get aid, whether it is cement, they are not going 
to build the playgrounds that you mentioned, the homes, the 
hospitals and schools in Gaza, because that is not their home. 
What they are told, and we saw it with the 3,000 terrorists who 
infiltrated to Israel, they have been told that their home is 
in Tel Aviv, in Jaffa, in Haifa, and so forth, going back to 
1948, to undo Israel.
    So I think there is a core problem with UNRWA. The 
Palestinians see it as something that sustains their political 
grievances. And on October 7th, I think we saw what it leads 
to.
    How we are going to make change on the ground going forward 
to see that aid will not get diverted, I do not have the 
answer. I think we are going to have to see what the situation 
looks like. Obviously, the Palestinian Authority is being 
mentioned. Let's not forget that Abbas just about a month ago, 
maybe a bit more, was condemned by the international community 
for justifying Hitler. So the PA is no great solution. But 
Israel may have to pick between several bad solutions.
    So we are going to have to wait to see what happens on the 
ground. But I do not know how we are going to prevent aid from 
being diverted certainly as long as Hamas is alive and 
functioning.
    Mr. Schneider. Mr. Lincoln, you mentioned Salam Fayyad. 
Before I asked you what he did before. What's he doing now?
    Mr. Lincoln. I do not know.
    Mr. Schneider. He is a professor at Princeton----
    Mr. Lincoln. OK.
    Mr. Schneider [continuing]. Isn't he? You mentioned the 
name Salam Fayyad. And many of us who have been around this 
place for a long time will start nodding our head. And many of 
the people who have been watching the situation in Israel start 
nodding our head. What was Mr. Fayyad's position in the PA?
    Mr. Lincoln. He was prime minister.
    Mr. Schneider. He was the Prime Minister of the PA. What 
did he focus on during his time as prime minister?
    Mr. Lincoln. Institutional reform.
    Mr. Schneider. Creating the institutions of democracy and 
governance that would lift up the Palestinian people. What 
happened?
    Mr. Lincoln. He left after he was more or less pushed out 
by President Abbas.
    Mr. Schneider. He was pushed out. And that is the challenge 
we face.
    So, Mr. Neuer, you talk about the PA, which I believe if we 
are going to see a future, it has to be one that involves the 
PA in Gaza. Abbas is a problem. There are two Abbas' right. 
Mahmoud Abbas is a problem. Mansour Abbas, the Israeli Abbas, 
is a hero. If you--thank you. If you have watched what he has 
said and the courage he has demonstrated, the moral clarity 
that he has demonstrated, and by the way, Mansour Abbas is a 
Israeli Arab who identifies with the Islamist movement but 
believes that Jews and Arabs can live together, Jews and 
Muslims can live together.
    And I believe that, too. I have spent my entire life 
focusing on ways to find peace and looking for stories, this is 
where I am coming to you, Mr. Schanzer, and stories that may 
challenge some of our assumptions. So you wrote about a 
personal experience this summer. I hope your leg is better. But 
you hurt your leg. You had to go to the hospital in Israel. Do 
you want to share a little bit about that story?
    Mr. Schanzer. Sure. Thank you. My leg is doing much better, 
not 100 percent better but better.
    The story is that I had been traveling. I was tired. I was 
jet lagged. And I took a bad fall and broke my leg. Had to go 
to Shaare Zedek hospital on a Friday night. And five out of six 
of my doctors were Israeli Arabs. And they were incredible 
people, incredibly warm people, incredibly professional people. 
I still to this day believe that they set it 100 percent the 
way it was supposed to. That is how I have been able to make 
the progress that I have.
    But actually what was even more remarkable after that, I 
went back to my hotel that night. And when I checked out of the 
hospital, they did not have crutches. They just do not give out 
crutches at Israeli hospitals. I never knew that before, never 
had a reason to know that before. Yes, just actually the nurse 
told me just go ahead and hop, which was kind of remarkable.
    But at any rate, I woke up the next morning in a bit of a 
panic because I needed to get home. And so I asked the people 
downstairs at the front desk if they could get me crutches. And 
they said they could not. They did not know what to do because 
it was Shabbat in Jerusalem where nothing is open.
    So, after hitting a few brick walls, I called a friend of 
mine in East Jerusalem, an Israeli Arab. And he called a friend 
in Ramallah. And his friend walked into a pharmacy, bought my 
crutches, took them through I am guessing four or five 
checkpoints in the West Bank, and dropped them off to me so 
that I could get on a plane and go home.
    And that episode taught me a lot about the people-to-people 
connections that I think is really what we probably need to be 
focusing on right now. There is obviously a lot of terrible 
news out there about, you know, the Israeli military and Hamas 
and Iran and all of the actors that have thrust the Middle East 
into really a terrible crisis. But at the end of the day, if 
this is ever going to start to work, we are going to need those 
people-to-people contacts.
    Mr. Schneider. I am going to close with another story. We 
need to keep the hostages in our mind and call for the 
immediate, unconditional release of every one of those 
hostages.
    One of those, who has a Chicago connection, is Hersh 
Goldberg-Polin. Hersh's story is he was at the concert. He fled 
the concert and ended up taking shelter in a bus stop, which 
is, in Israel bus stops are bomb shelters. And there were about 
40 young people in this bus stop when the terrorists came.
    And with them was a Bedouin, who happened to be taking 
shelter as well in this. As the story is related by Hersh's 
mother, Rachel Goldberg, at the U.N. by the way, and if you 
haven't seen it I commend the speech she gave at the United 
States. She tells the story about this Bedouin who steps out 
and says it is all my family in here. Doesn't know these 
people. Doesn't who they are. Just knows that they are in 
danger. And this Muslim sees these people as his brother or 
family and says this is my family, we are OK.
    And the terrorists then, as Rachel tells the story, 
proceeded to beat this person. We do not know what happened to 
him, if he survived or was killed. Threw grenades into the bus 
stop. Most of the people were killed. Hersh lost his arm, was 
able to tie off a tourniquet, and has been taken hostage into 
Gaza.
    I am one of the founders of the bipartisan, bicameral 
Abraham Accords Caucus. If you look at my record, I have spent 
much of my time in Congress and long years before that striving 
for peace between Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors and 
the broader region. I believe it is possible. I believe that we 
need to see the humanity of the people in Israel, the people in 
Gaza, the West Bank, and the entire region.
    War puts civilians at the center. War is the victims. 
Through the course of the past month, one of the things that 
reminded me was a scene from M*A*S*H. It was my favorite TV 
show. And Hawkeye made the comment war isn't hell, war is war, 
and hell is hell. He was asked, well, what do you mean by that. 
And he says in hell there are only sinners, but in war it is 
the innocent people, the people who want nothing but to live, 
to raise their children, to look to a future, who have no voice 
in deciding whether or not Hamas was going to violate an 870-
day-old cease-fire with a horrific massacre of 1,400 innocent 
people in Israel and holding the population of Gaza as human 
shields as Israel does what it must to secure its border and 
rescue its hostages.
    Mr. Schanzer, thank you for your story, because what we 
know is that good people striving for peace can find a way to 
help each other, to go through difficult challenges in the 
pursuit of making a difference in someone else's life. I pray 
we get to a peace in Gaza as soon as possible.
    But there will be no peace as long as Hamas holds 240 
people hostage, no peace as long as Hamas continues to see over 
the population of Gaza as they have since 2007, and no peace as 
long as Hamas is able to threaten Israel with their vision of 
the destruction of the State and the murder of Jewish people. 
We need the U.N. to step up.
    Mr. Chair, thank you for having this hearing and making 
sure we can get this message out. Madeleine Albright said a 
long time ago, I heard her say it is, as bad as the U.N. is I 
can only imagine how much worse the world would be without it. 
I pray we can replace UNRWA with groups, governments, people 
who can do the important work and can stand up to the 
terrorists and the people who are holding the Palestinian 
people back. With that, I yield.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. Thank you, Brad, so very much.
    Let me just ask a couple of final questions and then thank 
you for your time but above all for your expertise and 
leadership.
    The first, and I mentioned this earlier about the 
Washington Free Beacon story and you mentioned Francesca 
Albanese as well, an article by Charles Hilu. And she points 
out, he points out I should say, that this Special Rapporteur 
for Palestinian Territories has said Israel has no right to 
self-defense and talks about how it is contrary to Article 51. 
It does not include the right to defend itself against Hamas.
    And without objection, I would ask that this article be 
made part of the record because it just highlights, you know, 
you are supposed to just sit there and allow people to be 
slaughtered without taking an effort to counter it, which is 
what Israel is doing. So I am wondering how all three of you 
might respond to Albanese's what I think is a very, very 
horrible statement that she has made.
    Second, I remember when Yasser Arafat, it was discovered 
that he had hoarded all kinds of finances, moneys. The IMF even 
found that he had $900 million that had been donated he put 
into his own bank accounts between the year 1995 and 2002. And 
now we find, and I would ask unanimous consent without 
objection, that this article, Hamas Top Three Leaders Are Worth 
a Staggering $11 Billion. Now, at a time, as Brad said, you 
know, and others have said and I am saying it too, you know, 
people are living in squalor and poverty, at or below poverty 
level in Gaza, how is it that these three individuals are worth 
a staggering $11 billion? Why isn't that money being conveyed 
to the people in Gaza and elsewhere, other Palestinians? Your 
thoughts on that, because I think that is outrageous.
    And again, it follows the line of Arafat. I mean, when that 
came out about him, I did not expect that. You know, I did not 
like a lot of his policies, but I never thought he was hoarding 
money and making money from donations that were coming in.
    Let me ask you again, do UNRWA schools--Mr. Lincoln, if you 
could answer this--do they promote violence against Jews? Do 
UNRWA schools promote violence against Jews? I remember when 
Ms. Soffen years ago brought to my attention a pep rally that 
had been held where UNRWA teachers, like we do a football game 
and have a pep rally, they were celebrating suicide bombers and 
applauding and, you know, very loudly, the students were all 
getting worked up about putting on the vest to kill Jews. I was 
appalled by it. Your thoughts on that, if you would.
    And then finally, I am going to request another GAO report. 
And I know we will get a number of members in a bipartisan way 
to join me in it. There was one done in 2018 and 2019. It did 
not get to the point, I mean, State kept the information that 
they did not share about the textbooks, for example. And, you 
know, that was disappointing. I think there has to be absolute 
transparency even with our own government and the United States 
knows about this. But even in the United Nations, you know, 
there was concerns about what was raised as well. So we will be 
asking for that.
    And I do want to again thank, I only did it very quickly 
before. You know, I am the author of the bill that established 
the, it is H.R. 221, the Special Envoy for Combating Anti-
semitism. Deborah Lipstadt now is the leader as the Ambassador 
at large. But Rob Davidson, who is sitting right there, that 
bill with 87 cosponsors, and Brad who just left was one of the 
cosponsors as well, that language for almost 2 years in the 
Senate we could not get it out. He got it out. So I want to 
thank him publicly at this hearing for doing that, because I 
was frustrated. We all were, all the cosponsors, beyond words 
that it was being held up in the Senate. So thank you, Rob, for 
doing that.
    But on those questions, if you could, yes, Mr. Lincoln.
    Mr. Lincoln. Thank you again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Perhaps on the Special Rapporteur, problematic and 
unhelpful to say the least. Again, this is part of a general 
dysfunction that you see with regard to this conflict that I 
think that is something that, again, in the context of a 
renewed, maybe reinvigorated approach to the United Nations 
that can be dealt with. But again, these are the comments of a 
Special Rapporteur coming from the Human Rights Council. So I 
think we just need to narrow it down on the root of that 
problem. These are not the statements of an official from the 
U.N. Secretariat, for example. So we just need to----
    Mr. Smith. UN system.
    Mr. Lincoln [continuing]. To put that into context.
    Mr. Smith. But it is the U.N. system and----
    Mr. Lincoln. It is a member State, members states 
appointed. I think we need to get to the root of it. We have a 
diplomatic service. We have a State Department that needs to 
engage with the different entities that are making these votes 
and making these appointments.
    Mr. Smith. Actually, I think that is a distinction without 
a difference when you talk about it. I mean, when the average 
person and even somebody who is very well acquainted----
    Mr. Lincoln. Of course.
    Mr. Smith [continuing]. With all this hears that, that 
becomes like a, you know, that is coming out, she is the 
Special Rapporteur.
    Mr. Lincoln. No, of course.
    Mr. Smith. And from Human Rights. I mean, to me that is 
appalling that she would say that.
    Mr. Lincoln. The article on Hamas, I am not aware of that. 
I would, interesting to read it. It is very shocking. I share 
your sentiments.
    In terms of, again, on the education curriculum, I am not 
an expert. I know nothing of the education curriculum. I do 
know that this is a decades-long discussion that we have been 
having here. And I have suggested that through a multilateral 
engagement, again, with the top donors of UNRWA that their, and 
a concerted effort on changing these textbooks to me would seem 
possible. It seems----
    Mr. Smith. And I would say----
    Mr. Lincoln. It seems we have never tried that.
    Mr. Smith. You have to have people to monitor the 
classrooms, because the teachers themselves are so full of hate 
toward Jews that even if you had the right textbooks it would 
be conveyed. Thank you.
    Mr. Lincoln. Thank you.
    Mr. Schanzer. I will just address two things that you put 
into that multifaceted question. Maybe it is just instructive 
to just read a small passage from my written testimony about 
Francesca Albanese. She blamed Israel for a Palestinian 
terrorist attack that left six Israelis and one Ukrainian dead 
in February 2023. In July, she released a report where she 
dismissed Israeli security needs, called for punitive actions 
against Israel, and justified terrorism against Israelis. And 
this, of course, won the praise of Hamas. She wrote that 
Palestinians continuously rebel against their prison wardens. 
And she justified the October 7th attack, framing it as a 
response to Israeli aggression.
    I could go on. But the point is that we knew her ideology 
before she was appointed to this position. And, I mean, she has 
said back in 2014 that she believed that the United States was 
``subjugated by the Jewish lobby.' ' This is the person that 
was just named and is in this position of power. She needs to 
be removed. And I think----
    Mr. Smith. Fired----
    Mr. Schanzer. Yes, 100 percent. There is no reason to keep 
her. I do not care what the process was of getting her into 
that chair. She needs to be moved out of it.
    Now, as for the $11 billion, I have seen a lot of reports 
on this. I am a former terrorism finance tracker. That number 
has gone up significantly over the years. For a while, it was 
at the tens of millions. And then it was hundreds of millions. 
And now we are up to billions.
    The key to all of that, if you want to know how these guys 
even maintain bank accounts, they live in Qatar, a major non-
NATO ally that has a huge amount of lobby power that they 
deploy here on Capitol Hill. The Qataris have been exposed 
during this most recent conflict. We can see them for exactly 
who they are. They try to play arsonist and firefighter. They 
host a large headquarters of Hamas in their country. And now 
they are trying to work with the United States and use their 
good offices to try to get the hostages released.
    I do not buy it for a minute. They are part of the Hamas 
axis. And they need to be called out. I would even suggest here 
that they be stripped of their major non-NATO ally status here 
in the United States.
    Mr. Neuer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Concerning Francesca 
Albanese, I certainly agree that she needs to be removed. She 
is in violation of the U.N. Human Rights Council's own code of 
conduct regarding special rapporteurs. They are meant to be 
impartial and objective. And she is nothing of the sort. She 
has even acknowledged it at various points.
    Now, it was said by my colleague on the panel that she is 
not a member of the Secretariat. She is appointed by the 
Council. And that may be true. Certainly, I believe she should 
be removed. But the problem that she demonstrates is also found 
regrettably within the Secretariat itself.
    I mentioned in my remarks the case of Craig Mokhiber, who 
is based in New York but had been previously in Geneva and 
previously also worked for the Secretariat in Gaza. He is 
someone on his social media accounts, who was supposed to be a 
neutral U.N. official, that is his solemn commitment, 
repeatedly accused Israel of apartheid and genocide, ethnic 
cleansing, you name it, portrayed Israel as evil. He is a 
leading member of the U.N. Secretariat in New York.
    And in addition, I would say that in the current conflict 
we are seeing members of the Secretariat based in East 
Jerusalem, based in Gaza, who are extremely partisan. I have 
spoken with members of U.N. Secretariat who are appalled to see 
how many of their colleagues are not neutral in the slightest, 
people who have been in other duty stations who did not see the 
same kind of levels of partisanship. And that is something that 
needs to be investigated.
    Finally, I would say that, you know, U.N. officials, you 
know, regarding whether Israel has the right to self-defense, 
Albanese said Israel does not have the right to self-defense. 
We have seen repeatedly how certain U.N. officials have created 
a separate interpretation of international law for Israel. 
There is international law how it works for the world and then 
for Israel. And the notion that Israel does have a right to 
defend itself from a Hamas massacre of thousands of its own 
people is absurd.
    And likewise, we saw for many years that after Israel left, 
Israel took out every one of its soldiers, every one of its 
civilians from Gaza, they were still accused of being, of 
occupying Gaza, which again is absurd. This happened in no 
other place in the world. So there is like a special 
international law that is used just to target Israel.
    And we have seen U.N. officials recently, the Secretary-
General, it is true that he has spoken out on the hostages. But 
if you look at his statements that are seen by millions on his 
tweets, on his Instagram posts, his social media, the vast 
majority, if not all of them, are focused on Palestinian 
suffering, where Israel is blamed expressly or by implication. 
The statements about the hostages which he has made do not get 
by far equal amount of prominence. It is not where his 
emotional energy is invested.
    And what we do see is that U.N. officials have repeatedly 
said yes, 1,400 people were massacred by Hamas, but now 
thousands of Palestinians are killed. And, you know, that 
argument was made before. It was made actually in the Nuremberg 
trials. When the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi death squads that 
moved around in Europe and killed a million Jews and a million 
others, when they were brought to justice at Nuremberg, they 
said, one of their arguments was the Dresden defense, say yes, 
we may have done these killings, but you, the allies, you 
killed civilians when you bombed Dresden and other cities.
    And that was wholly rejected by the Nuremberg court. The 
notion that, which this Nazi defendant was trying to make that 
the deliberate and purposeful killing of civilians was equal to 
the taking of civilian lives that is undesired, unintended, and 
unavoidable was absolutely rejected. Those are completely two 
different things. And that is the essence of civilization is to 
distinguish between those two.
    And sadly at the United Nations we are seeing this 
scandalous Dresden defense being brought up again and again to 
equate the purposeful, deliberate killing of civilians, which 
is a crime, to equate it with to taking civilian lives, as I 
said, that is undesired, unintended, but unavoidable. That 
should be rejected completely.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Just one final question to 
you, Mr. Lincoln. You heard Dr. Schanzer and Hillel Neuer say 
that Francesca Albanese ought to be fired. Do you agree?
    Mr. Lincoln. As I said, I found her statements deeply 
problematic. And so, you know, if this was, you know, again it 
comes to the question of accountability. So I do not even know 
how you go about firing. You would have to ask the Human Rights 
Council to do----
    Mr. Smith. But if you had the ability to do it.
    Mr. Lincoln. If I had the ability, yes, absolutely.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you so much. Anything else you would like 
to add before we close? Thank you so very, very much. And thank 
you for this time commitment you have given, which you do all 
the time, but for the sake of our subcommittee.
    This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX
                                
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