10/04/2004: "Terrorists? Here? Working for us?"

This makes me feel sooooooo much better about the work of the UN:

Israel said Sunday that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) supports Hamas and demanded the UN investigate the agency and its head, Peter Hansen.

Hansen has "for years has expressed anti-Israeli, biased, unrestrained positions and statements," Dan Gillerman, Israel's UN ambassador, told Israel Radio.

Israel released a picture which it says shows a UN vehicle being used to move a rocket for the militants.

The UN said the picture showed a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

Hansen said he believes there are Hamas members on UNRWA's payroll, but they have to follow UN rules on remaining neutral.

"Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another," Hanson told CBC TV.

"We demand of our staff, whatever their political persuasion is, that they behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality," he said.

Hanson is the leader of an organization that has essentially colluded with terrorists for years by allowing them free run of the refugee camps. That being the case, both his inability to see a problem with having Hamas members on his payroll, and his blas� declaration that not every member of an organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel is a "militant," makes perfect sense.

(Thanks to Damian Penny for the link.)