Understanding UNRWA

Understanding UNRWA

07/17/14

Alexander Joffe, Asaf Romirowsky

UNRWA, Palestinian territories

The Palestinian refugee issue has been around since 1948. UNRWA, the United Nations institution dedicated to their preservation, has been in existence since 1950.

With the recent re-approval of UNRWA’s mandate for more than three years, it is worth asking: how long have Western policy makers understood that UNRWA was a tool for Palestinians and Arab states to perpetuate the “refugee crisis” and that Palestinians would never accept anything except repatriation to Israel, an attitude that guarantees hostilities in perpetuity? The answer is, since the beginning. That is why after more than sixty years, British diplomatic documents on UNRWA and the Palestinians are still classified by the Foreign Office.

UNRWA was established to “carry out in collaboration with local governments the direct relief and works programmes as recommended by the Economic Survey Mission.” This mission, under the leadership of former Tennessee Valley Authority administrator Gordon Clapp, had recommended vocational training and regional development as the means to facilitate “reintegration” of Palestinian refugees, either through repatriation to Israel or resettlement in surrounding countries. Arab states clamored for regional development aid, hinted repeatedly that they would accept Palestinians, and throughout the 1950s, billions were poured into aid schemes that improved their infrastructure. But no Palestinians were ever resettled.

The game was apparent early on. In May 1952, the Foreign Office received a remarkable report forwarded by British diplomat Sir Edwin Chapman-Andrews that noted “Everything has been sacrificed to [UNRWA director John Blandford’s] lone effort to “sell” the three-year plan to the Arab states—and SYRIA in particular—while measures which might influence the success of the negotiations are left undone.”

The report lamented UNRWA’s lack of educational and vocational training programs, the lack of a public-relations effort, or any successful agricultural programs in Jordan. Refugee relief was well-organized, but anything related to reintegration was subject to “stagnation, waste and misuse of money and manpower.”

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