The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, which serves Palestinian “refugees,” is constantly complaining of budget deficits. No matter how much money it sucks out of the United States, European Union countries and other donors, it is never enough. It is always pleading for more money, which it is continuing to do today with another one of its special appeals. It is time to stop throwing good money after bad to this dysfunctional UN agency.
The UNRWA General Fund, which supports core essential services and most staffing costs, operates with a large deficit. UNRWA emergency programs and key projects, also operating with large deficits, are funded through separate funding portals.
The budget for UNRWA’s core activities (general fund) for 2013 was approximately $663 million. On top of that were monies pledged and earmarked for special emergency funds. The United States is by far the largest contributor. The U.S. contribution totaled $294,000,000 in fiscal year 2013. Since its inception, U.S. government contributions to UNRWA have amounted to approximately $4.6 billion. The neighboring Arab countries, despite all their bluster about the plight of the Palestinians and expressions of “solidarity” with them, contribute a pittance by comparison.
In its latest cry for help, UNRWA has warned in a report to the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, that “unless funding for the full amount of the Agency’s General Fund shortfall of US$ 101 million is secured by the middle of August, the financial crisis may force the suspension of services relating to the Agency’s education programme. This would mean a delay in the school year for half a million students attending some 700 schools and 8 vocational training centres across the Middle East.”
UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl expressed grave concern that the “measures may be required at a time when the Agency’s services remain essential to Palestine refugees, their rights and their dignity, and when education has been globally recognized as essential to overall human development.”
The only real solution to UNRWA’s problems is to put it out of its misery and merge its operations with the general UN agency serving all legitimate refugees.
UNRWA is about as old as the United Nations itself. The General Assembly created it in 1949 as a temporary relief agency providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian Arabs, who had left their homes in Israel in 1948. There were somewhere between 600,000 and 760,000 such refugees at the time. General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV), under which UNRWA was established, contemplated that “constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.” It called on the newly established UNRWA to “consult with the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available.”
More than sixty-five years after UNRWA’s establishment as a temporary relief agency, it has become a permanent UN fixture, far larger than any other United Nations sponsored humanitarian relief agency
In a subsequent resolution which the General Assembly passed in 1950, it instructed UNRWA “to establish a reintegration fund which shall be utilized...for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief.” A Palestinian refugee was deemed to be someone who had “lost his home and his means of livelihood” during the war launched by Arab/Muslim countries when Israel declared independence.
Over the years, UNRWA, as a result of shifting General Assembly mandates, abandoned its mission to attempt resettlement of the refugees in neighboring countries and “their removal from relief.” Palestinians deemed refugees would continue to live and be educated with UNRWA support until, in the words of a former Commissioner-General of UNRWA, “a just solution to the refugee problem” was achieved. “Just solution” is UNRWA’s euphemistic way of referring to the so-called “right of return.” Moreover, recognizing that it would wither away as a separate refugee agency devoted only to Palestinians as the number of original refugees remaining alive continued to decline, UNRWA first expanded the definition of “refugees” to include the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those whom had left Israel. The definition was later further expanded to encompass all future generations of descendants.
More than sixty-five years after UNRWA’s establishment as a temporary relief agency, it has become a permanent UN fixture, far larger than any other United Nations sponsored humanitarian relief agency. Palestinian refugees represent less than 18% of the world’s refugees, yet UNRWA is the only UN agency devoted to just one refugee group – the Palestinians - spending approximately one third of all UN resources earmarked for refugees.
Today, a fifth generation of Palestinian Arab “refugees” is served by UNRWA. Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants registered with UNRWA now number around 4.9 million, and are scattered throughout Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank. UNRWA thrives on maintaining and serving a permanent and growing “refugee” constituency, in numbers far beyond the actual total of refugees who left their homes at the time of Israel’s creation. Instead of seeking to assimilate the original refugees and the generations of their descendants in the neighboring Arab states, as Israel has done for Jews expelled from their homes in those same Arab states after 1948, UNRWA perpetuates the narrative that the millions of Palestinians labeled “refugees” have an inherent right to return to the areas encompassed by pre-1967 Israel. Until they can fully exercise their so-called “right of return,” UNRWA intends to continue their status as refugees.
Except for Jordan, the neighboring Arab states have refused to provide permanent homes and citizenship for their fellow Arab Palestinian “refugees.” Jordan, which hosts more than 2 million registered Palestine “refugees,” has become home for the largest number of Palestine “refugees” of all of the UNWRA fields, according to UNRWA’s website. But it is highly questionable whether UNRWA should be responsible for the bulk of Palestinians living in Jordan, which has granted citizenship to many of them. Jordan unconscionably refuses to pay for its own Palestinian citizens’ essential needs, including education. It dumps those responsibilities onto UNRWA, which eagerly obliges in order to continue to justify its bloated budget.
According to UNRWA’s report of General Fund actual expenditure by field of operation and by program for 2013, UNRWA spent $134,519,000 for the Jordan operation, including $95,320,000 on education alone. The shortfall that UNRWA is now complaining about would be virtually gone if Jordan assumed the responsibility to pay for much of the basic services for its own citizens that UNRWA is paying for today.
The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees states that its protections of persons who are deemed refugees do not apply to “a person who is recognized by the competent authorities of the country in which he has taken residence as having the rights and obligations which are attached to the possession of the nationality of that country.” (Article 1 E) Under the terms of this UN Convention, Palestinians whom have resettled in Jordan, and enjoy the protection of its laws as Jordanian citizens, should no longer be deemed “refugees” under the jurisdiction of UNRWA. Jordan’s majority population is after all Palestinian. But UNRWA continues to pay for those refugees whom have become Jordanian citizens anyway, and then pleads a shortage of funds.
Aside from misallocation of UNRWA resources to Palestinian citizens of Jordan, UNRWA is wasting money on its educational program, which is reported to constitute over half of UNRWA’s general budget. Its schools have taught propaganda from Palestinian Authority textbooks. Here are some excerpts:
“The Zionist terrorist organizations forced thousands of Palestinians to leave their country under the threat of arms, which brought about the emergence of the refugee problem.” (National Education, Grade 7 (2011) pp. 20-21)
“The number of the Palestinians in the world is close to nine millions… Four and a half millions live in the Diaspora outside of Palestine… Most of them are refugees who wait to return to the motherland after having been expelled from it…” (National Education, Grade 4, Part 1 (2011) p. 43)
“The [refugee] camp is not considered an original home for the Palestinian refugee. Rather, it is a temporary place where he has been forced to live. All the Palestinians wait for the return of every Palestinian to his city or village from which he was made to emigrate.” (Islamic Education, Grade 6, Part 1 (2011) p. 69
“‘A morning of glory and liberty, watered by the martyrs’ blood…’ – the hope for the liberation of Palestine.” (Reading and Texts, Grade 9, Part 1 (2011) pp. 20-21, 24)
Hamas has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT), and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the U.S. government. Yet, according to a U.S. government report, UNRWA, to which the U.S. contributes more money than any other UN member state, uses a terrorist screening list that does not include Hamas, Hezbollah, or most other militant groups that operate in UNRWA’s surroundings.
“UNRWA is unwilling to screen its contractors and funding recipients against a list supplied by only one U.N. member state,” according to the report, even if that member state is UNRWA’s largest contributor.
A former UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen admitted, without any show of concern, “Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.”
Hamas members or supporters work in the UNRWA schools in Gaza. A group affiliated with Hamas, known as the Islamic Bloc, has controlled the teachers’ section of the UNRWA union in Gaza, enabling the Islamic Bloc to run its indoctrination programs in the UNRWA schools that U.S. taxpayers are being asked to help fund. UNRWA schools use classroom materials which contain maps in which Israel has been erased.
Under pressure from Hamas, UNRWA suspended its human rights curriculum in its Gaza schools last year because Hamas did not think it focused enough on Palestinian victimhood and their so-called right of return. Now things seem to have been resolved to Hamas’s satisfaction.
Hamas Education Minister Osama al Mizini proclaimed:
“The Hamas Charter is part of the program that we teach—insurrection, faith, and education. The charter outlines our reason to fight. It represents our principles for liberation. Hamas’ relationship with UNRWA is good, very good! We assist UNRWA and Hamas cooperates with UNRWA on many levels. Now a direct connection exists between UNRWA and Hamas.”
UNRWA is a dysfunctional agency. Originally set up to serve the temporary humanitarian needs of a dislocated population, it has perpetuated itself by perpetuating the “refugee” status of millions of Palestinians, a status which is handed down from generation to generation. It continues to spend money on Jordanian citizens who are not considered refugees entitled to the protections accorded to persons of such status under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. It wastes money on propaganda and indoctrination in UNRWA-run schools, spoon fed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
It is long past time that UNRWA shut its doors and transfer its operations to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), serving only those Palestinians who qualify for refugee status under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees under a strictly defined mandate and with tight budget controls. The goal of “permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief” should be re-instated as the primary mission, rather than maintenance of refugee status maintained for millions of Palestinians until they can exercise their so-called right of return. Schools should not be used for hate-filled indoctrination, nor the curriculum skewed to serve a political propaganda agenda.
In the meantime, UNRWA’s latest appeal for more than $100 million in special additional funding should be treated in the same way as the boy who cried wolf.
