The Trump administration's decision to completely cut funding to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, is both a just and rash decision.
It is just because instead of emancipating Palestinians from their refugee-dom, this agency sustains their refugee status. UNRWA is the only U.N. organization that cares exclusively for one group of refugees. Alongside the genuine assistance it provides in terms of education, health and food, UNRWA also works to ensure it will always remain in existence and helps foster the illusion that a majority of refugees will return to their villages and cities inside Israel proper.
For many years, we have tried to convince our friends around the world to bring about UNRWA's closure, and relinquish the agency's important functions to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. I spoke with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about this on numerous occasions, both in his previous role as High Commissioner for Refugees as well as in his current position. I understood from his response that this would not happen as long as the 134 member-states of the Non-Aligned Movement continue to support UNRWA's existence, as a gesture to the Palestinians. For the Palestinian leadership, the leaders of the Arab world and many of our friends around the world, there is nothing more unifying than paying lip service to the right of return, a right they know full well will never be realized.
The other accusations against UNRWA are partially true. It is not a terrorist organization and it does not support terrorism, even if Hamas' military wing has taken advantage of the proximity of UNRWA's hospitals and schools to stockpile its weapons and even if quite a few of UNRWA's teaching and medical staff, in particular in the Gaza Strip, support the terrorist organization.
There is constant tension between the U.N. aid agency and the Hamas leadership, which is reflected in the dismissal of employees actively identified with Hamas targets as well as educational activities organized by UNRWA that the Islamist organization deems unacceptable, like the organization's "overly liberal" summer camps.
Ever since 1967, Israel has benefited from the existence of this organization, which provides for the needs of some 70% of Gazans and some 30% of the West Bank's residents. There has been friction with UNRWA's representatives, but there has also been collaboration.
In the 2003 Geneva Initiative, it was agreed upon with our Palestinian partners that within five years of signing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, which would include reparations to be provided by an international fund for the Palestinians, an Israeli reference to their suffering and a willingness to take in a symbolic number of refugees, UNRWA would be shut down and the Palestinians would lose their refugee status.
Instead of immediately pulling the plug on its funding to the organization, the U.S. would be wise to announce the implementation of such a move in June 2020, when the UNRWA's current mandate comes to an end, and that until that time, efforts would be made to find other organizations to take on UNRWA's responsibilities. If not, it will be Israel, along with the Palestinians, that will be made to pay the price.
