It’s the kind of fawning coverage that most publicists can only dream of.

In her December 21 article for CBC News entitled: “In Gaza, thousands of aid workers risk their lives on mission to ensure the well-being of others,” Kris Reyes, a foreign correspondent, profiled the work of The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, better known by its acronym, UNRWA, in glowing terms.

Reyes wrote that “UNRWA is an agency that operates in Gaza and other parts of the region, dedicated entirely to assisting Palestinian refugees. With 13,000 aid workers, it is the territory’s largest humanitarian provider. Its work includes operating schools and health facilities.”

More accurately, UNRWA serves the Arabs who left Israel during the Jewish State’s 1948 War of Independence, but also the millions of descendants from that group, who cannot reasonably be called refugees.

Reyes portrayed UNRWA as an organization that operates on the front lines of the Israel-Hamas war, and which is paying the consequences. She quoted one UNRWA employee who shared with her a list containing the “names of her colleagues who have been killed since Israel launched its air and ground war on Gaza.”

Yet nowhere in Reyes’ entire article did she ever address any criticisms against UNRWA, as significant as they are.

Unlike all other refugees around the world who are served by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Palestinians receive exclusive treatment at the hands of UNRWA, leading to criticism that the organization has little incentive to seek to find solutions benefitting Palestinians in the Middle East, given that its entire raison d’être and budget are dependent on perpetuating the problem, not solving it.

Organizational incompetence is hardly the worst allegation leveled against UNRWA. A 2009 report by James Lindsay, a former general counsel for the United Nations agency, said the organization’s failure to re-settle Palestinian refugees was due to a “political decision” because “it seems to favor the strain of Palestinian political thought espoused by those who are intent on a “return” to the land that is now Israel.”

This “right of return” of millions of Arabs would immediately spell the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic country.

By leaving Palestinians in a perpetual state of victimhood, UNRWA continues to not only rob them of a future; it also has widely documented links to Palestinian Islamic terrorist organizations, including Hamas.

A November 2023 report prepared by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education found extensive evidence of anti-Israel and antisemitic incitement in UNRWA textbooks.

The report highlighted instances of UNRWA staff celebrating Hamas’ October 7 massacre in southern Israel, glorification of violent jihad against Israel, and the delegitimization and erasure of Israel at large.

UNRWA’s involvement with terrorism is not incidental; the connections have been called a “systematic problem,” and in the face of such widespread evidence, earlier in December, the lower house of the Swiss parliament voted to cancelthe funding it was providing to the United Nations agency. Though the move was shortly overruled by the upper house in a 23-21 vote, the lower Swiss parliament’s decision reflects a growing unease with UNRWA’s terrorism connections.

The criticisms against UNRWA are neither minor in number, nor are they minor in consequence. They allege that the agency – a recipient of international largesse, including tens of millions of dollars a year from Canada – actively seeks to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Yet nowhere in her article did Reyes ever acknowledge UNRWA’s controversy or even the accusations leveled by its accusers, providing readers with a sanitized and ultimately false picture of an organization that is not only doing little to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians, it is actively a perpetrator in helping to ensure the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This article, in our view, violated the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices and corrective action must be undertaken by our public broadcaster.

HonestReporting Canada has filed a complaint with CBC News and we encourage you to send complaints to CBC Editor-In-Chief Brodie Fenlon at: Brodie.Fenlon@cbc.ca