On May 31, 2021, DEFEND JERUSALEM issued a formal request to the office of the Israeli prime minister to stop all United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) operations inside Israel and that their offices in Jerusalem be shuttered immediately.
The UNDP, according to its official description, works in about 170 countries and territories, with a stated mission of helping to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and build resilience so countries can sustain progress. In Israel, though, the UNDP is based out of offices in the Wadi al-Joz section of East Jerusalem—an office that it classifies as being in “Jerusalem in the Palestinian Territories.” The UNDP operates in the Jerusalem area, the Palestinian Authority in West Bank (including Area C), and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The UNDP treats the sovereign State of Israel as nothing more than an intrinsic “part” of the State of Palestine, and its views that only Muslims and Christian Arabs as having any claim to the land in the attempt to completely delegitimize Jewish and modern history that Israel is a Jewish state. Despite this attempt to erase Jewish rights and Israeli sovereignty, the State of Israel has gone out of its way to support UNDP’s humanitarian and economic activities. Rather than appreciate Israel’s efforts to advance the prosperity of the Palestinian population and advance their economic prospects through the auspices of this UN office, but the contrary is true. The UNDP Jerusalem operation does everything in its power to weaken, undermine, compromise, and delegitimize the State of Israel. Sadly, and dangerously, this is part of their mission statement.
The UNDP is supposed to advance the economic infrastructure inside its prescribed areas—and although it is based inside the Israeli capital, its activities in the area are restricted solely to the Palestinians. But rather than offering true improvement for the local population, the UNDP funds and supports existing frameworks of political and religious power. This included financial investment in the corrupt Palestinian Authority government offices and agencies, as well as religious institutions such as the Latin Patriarchy in Jerusalem. The UNDP states that it operates to advance the “firm standing” (a Fatah term) of the local Palestinians yet it invests in local projects that the Palestinians use to ignite sparks of violence in the Israeli capital. One of the UNDP’s projects is “Village Space,” an insidious effort to enhance the Arab population of East Jerusalem by linking it to the rural areas that surround the city, in an attempt to link the city with Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority.
The UNDP operates in close cooperation with known anti-Israel forces such as al-Quds University and the Waqf religious authority. They use these and other higher learning and religious institutions to help spread misinformation to incite violence inside Jerusalem. The UNDP also assists the Palestinian Authority and Fatah in educating younger children in an antisemitic and anti-Israel and pro-violence curriculum.
The UNDP coordinates much of its day-to-day activities, as well as short and long-term projects with the Palestinian Authority and specifically its Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Fadi al-Hadami, and has taken proactive steps, beyond the scope of their UN mandate, to gobble up properties in Jerusalem with mortgage schemes financed by the Palestinian Monetary Fund.
The UNDP has also set up work and joint projects with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and many other nations. UNDP’s involvement with the PFLP includes financial support.
The UNDP is incredibly busy but none of its Jerusalem-based operations benefit the State of Israel. The UNDP, under the guise of a benevolent body, has proven itself to be a hostile force that endangers Israeli sovereignty and security. As such, DEFEND JERUSALEM has respectfully requested that their operations cease immediately and that their Jerusalem be closed.
