From May to July, when users searched for more than 300 terms related to UNRWA, Israeli ads appeared 44 percent of the time when both they and UNRWA USA ads were eligible to appear, according to analytics from the UNRWA USA Google account Ads. Meanwhile, UNRWA ads in the US only appeared in 34 percent of eligible circumstances.
Kronenfeld says the impact of Israel’s campaign is difficult to measure. Her nonprofit has spent tens of thousands of dollars, in addition to staff time, trying to outbid Israel for Google search ad slots. However, UNRWA USA raised as much money in the first half of this year as it did in all of 2023, she says. Its 78,000 donors this year are a record for the organization, founded in 2005.
What Kronenfeld says really worries her is that Americans are being exposed to Israeli propaganda as they try to understand UNRWA’s role in the ongoing crisis. In addition to the search ads, Israel aired video ads in the US via Google that said “UNRWA is inseparable from Hamas” and that it “continues to hire terrorists.” Public misunderstanding may further threaten support from the US government, which until the war was UNRWA’s largest donor.
“There is an incredibly powerful campaign to destroy UNRWA,” says Kronenfeld. “I want the public to know what is happening and the insidious nature of it, especially at a time when civilian lives are under attack in Gaza.”
Israel’s foreign ministry in New York acknowledged but did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story over the past four months.
UNRWA is taking action
Using almost $1.5 billion a year in donor support, UNRWA employs some 30,000 people to educate, feed and care for millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and neighboring areas. Supporters of UNRWA say Israel doesn’t like that the agency maintains refugee status for Palestinians, possibly giving them a better chance of reclaiming occupied land one day.
For decades, Israel has accused UNRWA of standing in the way of lasting peace by protecting Hamas and enabling the US-designated terrorist organization to indoctrinate generation after generation with a hateful ideology.
