Guest Post from ArabDigest.org: UNRWA

UNRWA Summary: US halts support for UNRWA. UNRWA and its activities. Likely political consequences. In September the US announced that it was ending all funding for UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, describing it as “irredeemably flawed”. Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, said “You’re looking at the fact that, yes, there’s an endless number of refugees that continue to get assistance, but more importantly, the Palestinians continue to bash America.” The US had earlier reduced its contribution, and as early as January Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, had advocated a “sincere effort to disrupt” UNRWA. The immediate political purpose was in line with Israeli policy to take the Palestinians’ right of return off the bargaining table. The UN regretted the decision, thanking the US, traditionally the largest single contributor to UNRWA, for its support over the years and describing UNRWA as providing essential services to Palestinian refugees and contributing to stability in the region. The head of UNRWA, the Swiss Pierre Krahenbuhl, said the refugees “cannot simply be wished away”. A donors meeting later in September produced pledges of an additional $118 million, leaving UNRWA with a deficit of $68 million. Later UN statements described the “severe catastrophe” with which UNRWA was dealing in Gaza where cuts had left millions without electricity, including some hospital emergency rooms, and efforts, so far successful, to keep classrooms open for the rest of the school year. David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, had earlier described the Palestinian diaspora as “refugees who never spent a day of their lives in Israel”, which is of course true of many of them, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who left Israel in 1948 and 1967. In a more balanced statement Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel and now a professor at Princeton said “What the Trump administration is doing, in one sense, is long overdue, which is to hold up a mirror to the international community and say: Is this what you really intended?”, adding that the administration’s approach was ham-handed because the question of refugee status was one that should be settled in negotiation. UNRWA is a very large agency indeed, employing over 30,000 staff, 99% of them Palestinian, with a budget of the order of $1 billion. It runs nearly 700 schools with over half a million students and has over 3,000 health staff. It has awarded nearly 400,000 microloans totalling $440 million to stimulate employment and economic growth. It works in 59 recognised refugee camps, and with Palestinians outside camps (the camps are administered and controlled by the host government, not by UNRWA). Its services include education, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, health care and emergency assistance. It was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, who now number more than 5 million. It is supported but not governed by an advisory commission which includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and 24 countries which are major contributors, with Palestine, the EU and the Arab league as observers. Its mandate, next due for renewal in 2020, does not include helping refugees to end their refugee status by integration, resettlement or repatriation (UNHCR which deals with refugees in the rest of the world has such a mandate). Over the years it has been involved in many emergencies and many controversies. These include accusations that it perpetuates dependency, that it has failed to protect Palestinians, that it has tolerated or encouraged anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel (for example through school books), that in Gaza it has been exploited or controlled by Hamas, and that it has failed to control its funds. Israel has often criticised UNRWA, but has not been interested in abolishing it. One commentator described the relationship as “an uneasy marriage of convenience between two unlikely bedfellows that has helped perpetuate the problem both have allegedly sought to resolve.” The UNRWA website has a summary of current activity. In Gaza, with 1.3 million refugees (even in Gaza not all the 1.9 million population are refugees), it has 12,500 staff in over 300 installations. In the West Bank there are over 800,000 refugees, 19 camps. In Syria 438,000 Palestinian refugees remain, among the worst affected by the civil war; almost 60% have been displaced at least once. Cash assistance has reduced the number in absolute poverty from 90% to 74%. UNRWA currently has access to 10 of the 12 camps. 40% of UNRWA classrooms have been lost and almost 25% of health centres are unusable. UNRWA has lost 18 staff members killed and 26 missing or detained. In Lebanon there are 450,000 refugees, 10% of the Lebanese population, about 53% living in 12 camps. Lebanon has the highest percentage of refugees living in abject poverty. Many Palestinian refugees have fled Syria and entered Lebanon. In Jordan there are more than 2 million refugees, most of them with full citizenship (not the case in the other host countries), 18% of them in 10 camps. Again about 10,000 Palestinian refugees have fled Syria for Jordan, most of them in abject poverty and with a precarious legal status. UNRWA and its problems were discussed at length in an 18 November article in the Washington Post “Right of return or time to move on?”, with no clear answers. UNRWA was not set up to solve the Palestine problem and will not do so. The US decision to stop funding it will not destroy it. If it were destroyed the result would be greater suffering for the Palestinians and greatly increased cost to Israel of the continued occupation. The immediate political effect of the US action combined with other US actions especially on Jerusalem is to shatter the myth that the USA is qualified to act or indeed wishes to act as an evenhanded mediator.