Macklemore recently pledged $1 million of his net earnings from Ed Sheeran’s tour to six Palestinian-related organizations. He has also announced a spontaneous three-date “Free Palestine” tour in October, with all proceeds benefiting “organizations supporting the Palestinian movement.” Among them is UNRWA USA, the fundraising arm for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

“Palestinian lives are worth protecting,” Macklemore explained. Yes, they are — and that is precisely why the institution he has chosen to support should cease to exist. Macklemore should have done his due diligence. 

Consider how they educate Palestinian children. As documented by UN Watch, UNRWA schools are infested with terrorists. The head of UNRWA’s teachers union in Lebanon, Fateh Sharif, was simultaneously the Hamas commander of that country; the head of UNRWA’s teachers union in Gaza, Suhail-al-Hindi, sat on the Hamas Politburo in Gaza with Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7th massacre. Together, these two Hamas terrorists alone oversaw 10,000 UNRWA teachers — their salaries funded almost entirely by Western countries.

In addition, UN Watch has documented some 400 UNRWA staff who glorified or participated themselves in jihadi terrorism. 

Under pressure in February 2024, when donor states suspended $450 million in wake of similar revelations, UNRWA promised to reform. UN Secretary-General António Guterres invited former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna to determine whether the agency’s neutrality safeguards were “fit for purpose,” and to restore donor confidence. 

Much of the review was tainted, but the final report produced 50 recommendations on how to fix the “neutrality” problems — a euphemism for complicity with terrorism. Donor states, such as Germany, France, Norway, and Canada, insist that all of the problems are now being solved — nothing to see here.

Yet a new report card by UN Watch examines whether the recommendations were actually implemented. Our assessment is that, at most, 13 have been completed. 

The problem is simple: UNRWA is asking Western taxpayers to accept administrative activity as evidence of institutional reform. The agency’s own records show why they should refuse.

And yet Macklemore and Western states continue to donate. They appear not to care at all that they are funding an agency that has employed Hamas commanders. None has ever asked us for information on our detailed findings.

UNRWA claims that it “screens” its employees. Yet its reference for vetting staff is the UN Security Council’s Consolidated Sanctions List, which — most notably for an agency comprised 99 percent of Palestinians—does not include Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Russia and China, two veto-bearing members on the Security Council, would never agree to designate any Palestinian terror group. Accordingly, what reassurance could taxpayers take from a screening tool that omits the very groups at issue?

UNRWA does use other checks and has tested commercial vetting. But its report through June 2026 still described a phased introduction of that commercial tool as dependent on funding. This is hardly an academic concern. In June, USAID’s inspector general referred 101 current or former UNRWA employees for possible suspension or debarment over findings concerning participation in the Oct. 7 attacks, affiliation with Hamas’s military wing, or both. Those referred included school principals and teachers.

On Sept. 24, the State Department barred three more UNRWA teachers from U.S.-funded aid projects for ten years. Their activities included kidnapping Israelis on Oct. 7, allegedly helping hold civilian hostages, and serving in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These are the people UNRWA’s screening was supposed to catch.

Then consider the staff unions. In its first-quarter progress report, UNRWA closed recommendations 42 and 47 after sending a draft revised statute to the unions for consideration. The agency credited its extensive preparatory work — while acknowledging that adoption remained at the unions’ discretion. In other words, it counted the work as finished before the new rules had been adopted. A draft sitting with the people expected to follow it does not change how an institution operates.

Nevertheless, the agency’s second-quarter report combines 40 recommendations labeled “completed” — and one closed as unimplementable — to advertise an “overall implementation rate” of 82 percent. UNRWA discloses the distinction, but then includes the abandoned reform in its headline progress figure. A recommendation that could not be implemented should not improve an implementation score.

The education claims follow the same pattern. UNRWA points to textbook reviews, teacher training, reporting mechanisms and classroom inspections. Those procedures can be useful. But their existence does not demonstrate that hateful material has been removed from lessons. 

A review of the 2025-26 Palestinian Authority textbooks used in schools, including those of UNRWA, found that the materials remained substantively unchanged. The monitoring group, IMPACT-SE, documented continuing antisemitism and glorification of terrorism.

Parents and taxpayers need to know what children are being taught, not simply whether their teachers attended another workshop. They should demand evidence that prohibitions and policies work. A mere policy against hatred cannot protect a child unless someone enforces it.

It cannot be accepted that UN schoolteachers go effectively unvetted, such as the 3,000 UNRWA teachers who celebrated atrocities in real time on Oct. 7, 2023.

Would parents in UNRWA donor states — Germany, Norway, or Canada — leave their children in the care of teachers who openly glorify Hitler and cheer the kidnapping of children? If not, then why are they doing to Palestinian children? 

Taxpayers should demand independently-verified results. Their governments are not. Reform means screening capable of identifying which teachers double as Hamas terrorists, union rules actually adopted and enforced, and classrooms finally freed of incitement and hate. Aid should flow through alternative, vetted providers that can meet those standards, with essential services protected throughout any transition.

Macklemore and others who claim to care about Palestinian lives should read the report card before his concertgoers are duped into handing over millions in the name of supporting peace, when in fact they are funding the hatred that fuels war.

Hillel C. Neuer is the executive director of United Nations Watch in Geneva, Switzerland.