TEL AVIV – Despite repeated promises to stop the incitement, United Nations teachers in the Palestinian territories are glorifying knife attacks against what they term “Jewish apes and pigs,” the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch reported.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has imposed temporary suspensions on some of its Palestinian educators but nevertheless many of them continue to incite to violence, including posting images on social media of Palestinians brandishing blood-soaked knives with epitaphs encouraging the murder of “Zionist and Jewish apes and pigs.”

Last year, UNRWA received a total of $1 billion US in funding, largely from the EU and US.

UN Watch’s executive director Hillel Neuer asserts that the disciplinary action that UNRWA is currently administering is clearly not working. “Giving a slap on the wrist sends the message that it’s business as usual. Instead, those who incite to racism or murder should be fired, under a zero tolerance policy,” he said in a statement.

UN Watch further called for donor countries, including the US and the UK, to establish an independent commission of inquiry to investigate UNRWA’s pervading culture of impunity for perpetrators of racism and incitement.

“The UN and top funders of UNRWA such as the United States government must act immediately to terminate employees who are inciting murderous anti-Semitism and fueling the deadly pandemic of Palestinian attacks against Israeli Jews that have claimed the lives of innocent men, women and children,” said Neuer.

Neuer continued, “It’s time to put an end to the pattern and practice of UNRWA school principals, teachers and staff members posting anti-Semitic and terror-inciting images, a recurring theme that suggests a pathology of racism and violence within UNRWA.”

He also slammed the practice of UNRWA Spokesman Chris Gunness to bury reports of incitement by boycotting newspapers and NGOs that dare to report on them. Gunness spearheaded a campaign to discredit the NGO, turning to Twitter in an “Appeal to journalists: Please don’t turn UN Watch baseless allegations about anti-Semitism into a ‘he said she said’ story. It is a non-story.”

According to Neuer, the educators’ incitement to violence is in “gross violation” of UNRWA’s own regulations. Recent examples on teachers’ Facebook pages include posts of graphic images of the bloodied corpses of Israelis and texts that extol the terrorists as sacred martyrs. One teacher posted an image of a woman wearing miniature knives as earrings and bore the caption, “New accessories for Palestinians.”