Posted on 03/09/22
| News Source: Washington Free Beacon
The Biden administration has hired the former director of a United Nations agency accused of promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism in Palestinian schools to help oversee refugee issues and U.N. reform at the State Department.
Elizabeth Campbell was hired as deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration last month, according to reports. From 2017 to 2022, Campbell served as Washington, D.C., director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a U.N. agency that runs schools for Palestinian children and has used textbooks that teach anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist views.
Campbell's appointment puts her in the position of working for the same State Department bureau that provides funding and oversight for the U.N. agency she previously helped run.
Rich Goldberg, a senior adviser with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Biden administration's decision to hire Campbell shows it has no intention of demanding accountability from UNRWA.
"That is the height of outrage," said Goldberg, who worked on UNRWA reform issues as deputy chief of staff for former senator Mark Kirk. "It shows the Biden administration has zero agenda to achieve any semblance of reform at that agency."
Under Campbell's tenure, UNRWA was accused of disseminating anti-Semitic and anti-Israel literature. The Trump administration cut the agency's funding, and the European Parliament passed a resolution last April condemning UNRWA for textbooks that teach "hate speech and violence" in Palestinian schools run by the agency.
President Joe Biden restored UNRWA's funding last summer after the agency signed an agreement promising to reform its textbooks and allow oversight from the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, where Campbell will now serve as deputy assistant secretary.