Rutgers University lecturer Hamid Abdeljaber and UNRWA official Adnan Abu Hasna spoke at a Hamas-affiliated organization’s webinar on Wednesday.

The webinar, titled “UNRWA after the ban law and the arrival of Trump: Dangers and coping mechanisms,” was a discussion of the aftermath of an Israeli law banning the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, in light of some of its employees taking part in the Oct. 7 attacks and its facilities being used to attack Israel and hold hostages.

The webinar was organized by Association 302 for Palestinian Refugees, a Lebanon-based group led by Ali Hweidi, who is also a leading official for Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, a group designated by Israel as a Hamas front.

It was aired live on the Facebook page of the European Palestinian Information Center, whose chairman, Amin Abou Rashed, was arrested in the Netherlands for sending millions of Euros to Hamas.

In addition, a Hamas official in Lebanon, Ahmed Al-Hajj, was one of the speakers in the webinar.

Abdeljaber, a lecturer at Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies, journalist and former press officer at the U.N., went by the name Abdelhamid Siyam in the webinar. 

He evoked antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control of politics and institutions in his remarks.

“In the year 1975, when the [United Nations General Assembly] resolution was adopted that Zionism is a form of racial discrimination and racism, the Zionists decided they would first work to cancel this resolution,” Abdeljaber said. “Secondly, they would work to control the joints of the United Nations from the inside.”

“Consequently, many agencies, programs and funds inside the United Nations were controlled … converting some other organizations or programs or websites for the benefit of the Zionist entity,” he added.

Among his examples of U.N. officials corrupted by Zionists was Alice Nderitu, the rapporteur on prevention of genocide. Nderitu has said she was dismissed by the U.N. for refusing to accuse Israel of genocide, in contrast with Abdeljaber’s claim that Israel controls the institution.

Another example was Pramila Patten, the U.N. rapporteur on sexual violence, who wrote a report on Hamas’ rape of Israelis as part of the Oct. 7 attacks. At a press conference in his capacity as a reporter for Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a publication owned by Hamas sponsor Qatar, Abdeljaber accused the report of being “only a validation of the Israeli narrative.” The report was criticized in Israel for not directly linking Hamas to the sexual violence that day.

Abdeljaber also wrote a recent Al-Quds Al-Arabi article glorifying the Hamas “resistance” as having “strength, steadfastness and adherence to their dignity, even if that entails a price to be paid” and yielding positive results for the Palestinians.

Dory Devlin, assistant vice president for news and media relations at Rutgers, said in a statement to Jewish Insider on Sunday that Hamid Abdeljabar is no longer employed as a lecturer and last taught courses there in spring 2024.

“Rutgers condemns antisemitism in the strongest terms possible, and we always will do so. Our strong Jewish community is a point of pride for the university,” Devlin said.

Abu Hasna, a media advisor for UNRWA, admitted on the webinar that there was “real information” about the agency’s employees taking part in the attacks on Israel.

Yet, he claimed that “at the end of the day, we at UNRWA were one of the victims of what happened on Oct. 7.” 

Abu Hasna accused Israel of “exploiting” the attacks to retaliate against UNRWA. He accused Israel of paying $150 million to tarnish UNRWA’s image, conflating the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s planned public diplomacy budget with a recent Israel-backed international ad campaign on UNRWA’s ties to terrorism. He said that the advertisements in Times Square and European capitals put pressure on UNRWA.

The UNRWA official cited the U.S., Sweden and Switzerland cutting off funding, Italy skipping a planned payment and the Netherlands reducing its contributions to the agency as “dangerous” developments.

“There are elections in Europe. If populist right wins, the next day support for UNRWA will stop,” he warned.

Al-Hajj, a Hamas media official, also lamented the ad campaign against UNRWA, which he said turned the agency “into a problematic issue. It lost its international consensus.” 

The Hamas official noted that under the Biden administration, Europe and the U.S. had similar positions regarding Israel, while under President Donald Trump’s administration, “the American and Israeli visions are almost identical.” 

Al-Hajj called to “exploit the differences of opinion between Europe and the U.S. over the Palestinian issue to save UNRWA from being defunded and dismantled.”

This story was updated on 2/23/2025 to include comment from a Rutgers spokesperson sent after publication.