So now we have it from the horse's mouth. The United Nations employs Hamas members as officials. A brief reminder: Hamas is the terror organisation that even the EU has banned, because it is so demonstrably beyond the pale. It is the terror organisation whose charter not merely commits it to the destruction of Israel but contains gross libels of a paranoid and demented nature against the Jews. It is, quite simply, an enemy of humanity. Yet according to the Times, this what Peter Hanson, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency, told the Canadian Broadcasting corporation:

' "Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime,” he said. “Hamas as a political organisation 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. We demand of our staff, whatever their political persuasion is, that they behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality." '

Not only does he admit that the UN employs members of a murderous death cult, but he airily dismisses it as of no consequence. 'Not every member is a militant?' But this is a terrorist organisation, for heaven's sake, which all decent people should shun, if not actively fight. Nor is this all. According to Ha'aretz, the Israelis have arrested no fewer than 13 UN officials suspected of participating in terror activities in the Gaza strip:

'"We have in our hands a list of 13 detainees who are to be indicted, they are UN people with suspected links to terrorism," [Israel Defense Forces chief of operations Yisrael] Ziv said." '

A measure of circumspection is required here. The Israelis appear to have jumped the gun in claiming that a rocket had been loaded into a UN ambulance in Gaza; they appear now to be retreating from that claim. So maybe the 13 suuspects will also turn out to be flaky. We'll see; the capacity of the Israelis to shoot themselves in both feet in making their case to the world cannot be underestimated. But the fact remains that UNRWA has for years presided over refugee camps which have been turned into terror factories under its nose. At the very least, Hanson's comments are simply totally unacceptable and indicate an astounding complicity with terror within UNRWA. Even Kofi Annan has apparently now got the wind up about this:

'UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is dispatching a four-man investigating team to probe the Israeli allegations. Annan promised Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gilerman that the crew will depart for Israel on Tuesday. Annan told Gilerman that the UN is treating Israel's allegations "very seriously," adding that, "If necessary, the UN will reach certain conclusions." '

This has the makings of a major scandal. Is the truth about the UN and terrorism about to emerge at long last?