UN Hypocrisy And Money Drain In Gaza

In response to a deteriorating security situation in and around Gaza including the resumption of rocket firings into Israel from Gaza, Israel has taken some measured security steps to restrict the movement of people and goods to and from the Gaza Strip. Since March 21st, these restrictions have also included a reduction in the fishing limit from six to three nautical miles.

---

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Gaza, James Rawley, protested Israel's actions in a statement he issued on April 10th. “If these restrictions continue, the effect upon the Gaza population will be serious," Rawley said. "We expect Israel, in any response to unacceptable rocket fire, to exercise maximum restraint and uphold international law, refraining from actions that would be punitive in nature or otherwise adversely impact the civilian population in Gaza."

UN has once again demonstrated its hypocrisy and double standards when dealing with the largely self-inflicted Palestinian situation

With this rebuke of Israel, the UN has once again demonstrated its hypocrisy and double standards when dealing with the largely self-inflicted Palestinian situation. When Gazan Palestinian protesters stormed a UN depot on April 4th to demand reinstatement of a monthly cash allowance to poor families, which was halted from April 1st due to budget cuts, the UN Relief and Works Agency ("UNRWA") stopped food deliveries and closed down many of its aid facilities.

---

---

"Demonstrations during the past week had already forced UNRWA to close many of its facilities,” said the UN Palestinian refugee agency. “With the situation further compounded by today’s actions, all relief and distribution centres will consequently remain closed until guarantees are given by all relevant groups that UNRWA operations can continue unhindered. This is a very regrettable situation for us to be in, as food distributions right now are taking place for some 25,000 refugees every day. But we cannot tolerate these ongoing threats to our staff.” UNRWA reopened its facilities only after it said that it had received assurances "from different local parties'' that its property and staff would be safe. UNRWA said it would close the facilities again, denying relief aid to many thousands of Palestinian refugees in Gaza if more unrest breaks out that would jeopardize UNRWA property or staff . Wasn't UNRWA's response to the actions of a small number of protesters the sort of collective "punitive" response that threatens to "adversely impact the civilian population in Gaza," which Rawley had laid at Israel's doorstep in his April 10th statement? Security of UN staff and property is considered a valid justification by the UN for stopping all food distribution and other relief to Gaza's civilian population, but restrictions on movements to and from Israel to stop weapons smuggling in response to renewed rocket attacks against Israeli civilians is a no-no. Only in the Bizarro World that the UN inhabits does this double standard make any sense. The United States is the largest single-state donor to UNRWA, which was originally set up as a temporary relief agency for the original refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It has morphed into a bottomless money pit to support their descendants, several generations removed—now comprising approximately 5 million Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza. As a result, UNRWA has become an expensive permanent bureaucracy in the bloated UN system, 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, spending one third of all UN resources earmarked for refugees. UNRWA gives these refugees false hope that they will all someday go back to Israel under some sort of “law of return.” Said former UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd: “The refugees don't really want to be citizens of another country. Right now, they are waiting for a permanent, final status solution. Until a UN resolution says that they have the right of return or compensation, they and their descendants will continue in this state.” Since UNRWA’s inception in 1950, the United States has provided the agency with approximately $4.4 billion in contributions, dwarfing the amounts donated from the neighboring Arab countries who also refuse to help re-settle the refugees with full citizenship in their own countries. That includes Jordan, which itself is already a Palestinian-majority country. In 2011, UNRWA’s total budget for its core programs, emergency activities and special projects was $1.2 billion. U.S. contributions in 2011 constituted approximately 25% of the total budget. Aggregate contributions from the Muslim world constituted approximately 15% of the total budget. U.S. contributions totaled $233.3 million for fiscal year 2012 ($125.4 million for the general fund, $103.8 million for emergency funds and special projects). Something is very wrong with this picture, especially considering that there is little real oversight regarding exactly how UNRWA spends the money it receives. For example, UNRWA claims that it screens its staff and contractors every six months for terrorist ties, but its screening list does not include Hamas, Hezbollah, or most other militant groups that operate in UNRWA’s surroundings. Another 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.” When at a September 18, 2009 press conference, I asked Hansen's successor, Commissioner-General Zayad, whether the UNRWA knew how many Hamas-affiliated teachers the agency employed, she replied that “we don’t ask staff recruits about their affiliations.” 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 funding. UNRWA schools use classroom materials that glorify terrorists, and which contain maps in which Israel has been erased.

Hamas control over UNRWA schools

In the latest evidence of Hamas control over UNRWA schools, UNRWA gave in to Hamas's demand that boys and girls be taught in separate classes. When I inquired as to whether this was consistent with the UN's stated devotion to promoting full gender equality, the UN's Deputy Spokesperson said that "equality is access to education, if the girls have access to education." When I followed up and asked if "separate but equal" is consistent with today's notion of full gender equality, he replied that "I went to an all-boys school." When later asked for its position on this issue, UNRWA replied that it had no comment. The UN closes its own aid facilities at the slightest hint of security problems in Gaza, cutting off food distribution to thousands of Palestinian refugees a day, but blames Israel for taking measured steps to protect its own civilians from rocket fire. U.S. taxpayers are paying over $200 million a year to support a UN relief agency devoted only to Palestinian refugees and their multi-generational descendants, which in Gaza is under the thumb of Hamas. If there is any area to save some significant money in this period of sequestration, cutting back on contributions to the UNRWA travesty would be a good place to start.

---