US media is reporting that a senior official of a US-funded United Nations organization gave a speech before the UK charity known as INTERPAL. According to the Washington Free Beacon report:
October 29, 2105 A senior official with a US-funded United Nations organization has come under scrutiny for delivering a speech this week before an anti-Israel organization that has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US Treasury Department for providing funds to the terror group Hamas.
Chris Gunness, spokesman for the US taxpayer-funded UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which operates Palestinian refugee camps known for promoting terrorism against Israel, delivered a speech earlier this week before Interpal, a UK-based charity organization, which is listed as a specially designated global terrorist organization for funneling money to Hamas.
Gunness’ appearance fueled accusations by many in the pro-Israel community that UNRWA is a biased organization that abuses the more than $200 million it receives annually from the United States.
UNRWA employees, including teachers at its Palestinian schools and others, have been caught making anti-Semitic statements, promoting hatred of the Jewish state, and accused of participating in terrorist training.
Gunness’s appearance before the Hamas-tied organization comes amid an effort on Capitol Hill to suspend UNRWA’s funding and hold it accountable for its ties to terror groups and incitement against Israel.”
While UNRWA did not promote the event, pictures of Gunness speaking before Interpal appeared on Twitter earlier this week.
Gunness talked “about little Mohammad, who was blinded when an Israeli shell hit his home in July 2014,” according to a tweet by Interpal.
Another user noted that the “UNRWA man tells the story of a child who froze to death [because]of slow pace of reconstruction in Gaza.”
When asked about the event, Gunness directed UNRWA’s Washington, D.C., spokesman to submit a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.
Read the rest here.
According to a NEFA Foundation report authored by the GMBDW editor, INTERPAL is perhaps the most important of the charities comprising the Union of Good, a coalition of charities headed by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi which helps to raise funds for Hamas. The Union of Good was banned by Israel in 2002 and was designated a terrorist entity by the United States in 2008. INTERPAL itself had been designated by the US in 2003. Our predecessor publication discussed the 2009 UK Charity Commission’s order that INTERPAL sever its ties with the Union of Good, likely only a formality given that Essam Yusuf, the former head of the Union of Good is still the Managing Trustee of Interpal. The US has attempted to persuade the UK. government to do something about INTERPAL but the UK. appears reluctant to anything which in their view would further antagonize its Muslim population.
In July 2012, the GMBDW reported on the relationship between UNWRA and the Human Appeal International (HAI), another UK charity known to have been part of the Union of Good (UOG).
In July 2009, we reported that UNWRA was scheduled to attend an international conference sponsored by the Palestinian Return Center (PRC) in London, a part of the Hamas support infrastructure in the UK.