By Joshua Arnold

Terrorists in Rafah have been operating out of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) central compound, according to video footage the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) released Tuesday. The footage contained “Hamas terrorists firing at civilians from within a UNRWA facility next to UN vehicles in Rafah,” described Foreign Minister Israel Katz, leading him to conclude, “UNRWA is an arm of the terrorist organization Hamas.”

There’s plenty of evidence pointing in that direction. “UNRWA is a U.N. agency that’s supposed to deliver aid,” said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on “Washington Watch” Thursday. But “they hire local folks to do it, and they’ve hired people that are really Hamas sympathizers. … We found tunnels under UNRWA’s headquarters. Now you’ve got video evidence of the compound being used for military purposes.”

In fact, Israeli intelligence revealed that more than a dozen UNRWA employees personally took part in Hamas’s brutal October 7 raid on Israel. The U.K.-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) had previously linked UNRWA to the October 7 violence by November 2023.

In addition to first-hand participation in terrorism, UNRWA also supports Gaza-based terrorist groups by funneling money and supplies to them, teaching their extremist ideology in UNRWA-run schools, and allowing terrorists to operate out of UNRWA facilities (the IDF carried out a precision strike Tuesday that killed 15 terrorists hiding in an UNRWA school).

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argued that the entire U.N. is complicit in UNRWA’s support for terrorism because they have not acted to correct the misbehavior. After Israel revealed on Tuesday that terrorists were using UNRWA facilities, what the U.N. Security Council should have done was “meet and tell Hamas to quit using U.N. facilities to hide behind and facilitate their attack against Israeli troops,” said Perkins. That hasn’t happened because the U.N. is on the terrorists’ side.

Israel’s critics love to generate outrage by presenting only one side of the story, creating misleading headlines like, “Israel bombs UN school.” Those reading for headlines, or those reading to reinforce their anti-Semitic prejudice, might conclude from that headline that Israel murdered hundreds of defenseless Palestinian children — when in fact they killed 15 terrorists.

“If you came from Mars in the last two weeks, and you were watching international news, you would think Israel is just on a quest to kill all the Palestinians,” Graham exclaimed. But quite the opposite is true. “The reason so many Palestinians have been killed is Hamas wants them killed. Hamas uses the Palestinian people as human shields against Israel. They put weapons in mosques and schools and build command centers under hospitals, and they put their own people in harm’s way.” That’s why, Graham concluded, “There’s no substitute for victory here.”

An Israeli victory is one outcome the Biden administration is scrambling to prevent. Last week, after Congress passed a bipartisan package to send weapons to Israel, the Biden administration unilaterally decided to withhold that critical aid, on the theory that civilians might die. “Israel would stop killing anybody if Hamas surrendered. And, if Israel withdrew, Hamas would keep killing Jews,” Graham responded. “Understand: Hamas is the problem here. Give Israel the weapons they need to win the war they can’t afford to lose.”

“The answer is not to deprive Israel of weapons. They need to beat the terrorists. You don’t want to reward terrorists who put civilians in harm’s way by restricting the ability of the victim, Israel, to fight back,” Graham declared. “The weapons that we’re talking about are 2,000-pound bombs that can be converted into precision-guided munitions called JDAMs, and they’re necessary to get to the tunnels. You need a bomb that big to go down to where these cowards are hiding.”

“Joe Biden is basically trying to tell Israel, ‘Let me run the war for you,’” said Graham. “And here’s my response to Israel: say ‘no.’” He pointed out that the Biden administration is the same one that “withdrew from Afghanistan and still thought it was a good idea. They’re letting Russia run amok. … If I’m Israel, I’ve got to make these decisions” and not “let Biden and his team take over this war.”

“What right do we have to tell Israel how to fight their war?” Perkins queried in response. “It’s inexplicable what this administration is doing to our key ally, which is a stabilizing force in the Middle East.”

In fact, Perkins added, the Biden administration seems “to be more interested in helping their adversaries. The U.S. military anchored a temporary pier on Gaza’s coast.” The U.S. military began shipping supplies into Gaza via a floating pier on Friday. Graham professed skepticism about how the pier will be used. “Look at UNRWA,” he said. “How was it used? It’s a U.N. organization designed to help the Palestinians that was used to help Hamas.”

“Israel is in a world of hurt. Wherever they turn, there’s a radical Islamic group wanting to cut their throats. They’re in a fight for their life,” Graham urged. “What do you expect Israel to do? What is proportional? What is the right response when people want to destroy you and slaughter your family because of your religion? What’s the right response? I think the response is do what you have to do.”

“Israel was attacked viciously on October the 7th,” Graham continued. “Hamas wants to kill all the Jews. Hezbollah wants to kill all the Jews. The Ayatollah wants to wipe out the Jewish state. And, if you watch television, Israel is the bad guy. You can’t make this up.”

Israel’s enemies in the war are not only America’s enemies — including multiple, officially designated terrorist organizations — but also the enemies of the people of Gaza. It is Hamas putting Gazan civilians in harm’s way. Yet the Biden administration seems to believe these terrorist groups — our enemies — over Israel — our ally. Now the U.S. is directly shipping aid to Gaza, most of which will likely end up in the hands of terrorists, while we deny our ally the very munitions they need to avoid civilian casualties.

One would expect this perverse favoritism from the anti-Semitic U.N. But when did it come to characterize American foreign policy?

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.