What's New

Resources updated between Monday, April 12, 2021 and Sunday, April 18, 2021

April 16, 2021

An UNRWA in Jenin (File photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

"The United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency is promoting violence against Israel and using educational materials that call for the Jewish state's destruction, according to video evidence and copies of lesson plans being taught to children before and during the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is in charge of providing education to scores of Palestinian children, has done little to root out anti-Semitism and the glorification of terrorism from its official lesson plans, although it has repeatedly pledged to do so.

The Biden administration moved almost immediately to restart U.S. funding for UNRWA despite underlying concerns about the agency's radical educational materials-fears that have been raised by U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in recent years. After aid was resumed earlier this month, UNRWA promised the Biden administration it will root out violence and anti-Semitism, though officials could not explain precisely how the agency would do this after decades of using anti-Israel materials.

A State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon that UNRWA uses the Palestinian Authority's curriculum and works 'to address the problematic content and provides instructions for its staff to educate students about why the content is problematic.' UNRWA, the official said, 'must respect neutrality, exclude anti-Semitism, and oppose violence.'

'The United States is completely committed to working with UNRWA to ensure that any inappropriate material is identified and removed,' the spokesman said. 'Our resumption of assistance will allow us to serve as a partner to UNRWA to uphold the highest level of neutrality and commitment to tolerance in its educational materials.'

The State Department spokesman did not address UNRWA's decades-long failure to better police its content despite the organization's repeated promises to do so.

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UNRWA Caught Teaching Terrorism, Jew Hatred as Biden Admin Resumes Taxpayer Funding Article

Houthi fighters (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Houthis indoctrinating children in Yemen 'with violent, anti-Semitic and extremist material' Document

April 15, 2021

Screenshot of security footage of the rocket fire

Palestinian Terrorists Fire Rocket Into Israel on Israeli Independence Day Document

Boko Haram terrorists (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Islamists kill at least eight in Nigeria's Damasak, hundreds flee to Niger Document

April 14, 2021

The Old City of Jerusalem (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Hundreds Riot in Eastern Jerusalem after Ramadan Prayer, 6 Israelis Injured Document

Sarah Halimi, who was murdered by Kobili Traore

France's highest court on Wednesday found that the killer of a Jewish woman was not criminally responsible and could not go on trial, provoking anger from anti-racism groups who say the verdict puts Jews at risk.

Sarah Halimi, an Orthodox Jewish woman in her sixties, died in 2017 after being pushed out of the window of her Paris flat by neighbor Kobili Traore, who shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic).

The verdict by the court means Traore will not face any trial.

In its decision Wednesday, the Court of Cassation's Supreme Court of Appeals upheld rulings by lower tribunals that Traore cannot stand trial because he was too high on marijuana to be criminally responsible for his actions.

Traore, a heavy pot smoker, has been in psychiatric care since Halimi's death. The court said he committed the killing after succumbing to a "delirious fit" and was thus not responsible for his actions.

Her killing stoked debate over a new strain of anti-Semitism among radicalized Muslim youths in predominantly immigrant neighborhoods.

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the lower court's insanity finding in January last year, drawing a sharp riposte from the country's top magistrates, who invoked the separation of powers.

Macron said there was "a need for a trial" even if the judge decided there was no criminal responsibility.

The handling of Halimi's slaying has been a watershed event for many French Jews, who say it underlines the French state's failures in dealing with anti-Semitism.

"This is an additional drama that adds to this tragedy," said the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) after the ruling.

"From now on in our country, we can torture and kill Jews with complete impunity," added the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Francis Kalifat.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre's director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, called the decision a "devastating blow," which, he said, "potentially creates a precedent for all hate criminals to simply claim insanity or decide to smoke, snort or inject drugs or even get drunk before committing their crimes"

Following Wednesday's verdict, lawyers representing Halimi's family said they intend to refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

"It's a bad message for French Jewish citizens," said the lawyer for Halimi's brother, Muriel Ouaknine Melki.

But Traore's lawyer Patrice Spinosi said that while he could "obviously understand the victims' frustration that there will not be a trial," the law "in its current state" does not allow perpetrators to be tried in such circumstances.

An appeals court said Traore, now in his early 30s, had anti-Semitic bias and that the killing was partly connected to it. But it also accepted the defense claims that Traore was too high to be tried for his actions and he was placed at a psychiatric facility.

French Jews have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists in recent years, most notably in 2012, when an Islamist gunman shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the southern city of Toulouse and in 2015 when a pro-Islamic State radical gunned down four people at a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

Top French court won't prosecute Jewish woman's killer because he was on weed Document

April 13, 2021

The Israeli-owned cargo ship MV Hyperion Ray departing Koper Port in Slovenia, October 2020. (Screenshot: YouTube)

Iran fires missile at Israeli-owned ship near UAE Document

Evin prison (File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Inside Iran's torture prisons: Tehran quick to jail those with pro-Israel ties Document

April 12, 2021

The United States placard at the U.N. Human Rights Council

Biden administration must push to reform U.N. "Human Rights" Council Article

Egged bus (Illustrative/shutterstock)

Three Palestinians arrested for firebombing bus in Jerusalem Document