Mick Hartley

Ronny Linder in Haaretz looks at UNRWA – "the second most influential organisation in Gaza after Hamas" – and its role in stoking anti-Israel hatred and preventing any resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict:

The agency was established in 1949 after the Israeli War of Independence, in order to provide shelter, welfare and health services for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. A year later, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established to handle all of the world's refugees. However, following pressure from Arab countries, the Palestinian refugees remained the sole responsibility of UNRWA – which to this day remains the world's only refugee agency dedicated to a specific population.

Dr. Einat Wilf, a former lawmaker and co-author of the book "The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace," has in recent years devoted her time to global activity on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and UNRWA's part in it.

"UNRWA was established as a temporary agency because the UN focused at the time mainly on refugees from Europe. There were about 700,000 Arab refugees from the war – they weren't called Palestinians yet – and it was assumed that UNRWA would take care of them by providing welfare services and employment in cooperation with the host countries, would settle all of them and close three to four years later – as happened with the temporary agency that arose at the same time to take care of Korean refugees after World War II."

But unlike Korea, things were more complicated in the Middle East. "The Palestinian refugees themselves refused to be absorbed into the new countries, because they understood that this would mean they had lost the war – and they haven't been willing to accept that to this day," Wilf says.

Not only did the refugees themselves refuse, but the Arab host countries also refused to integrate them, since any absorption would presumably have constituted an agreement about the outcome of the war and ran contrary to the refugees' right of return to Israel.

Not only did the refugees themselves refuse, but the Arab host countries also refused to integrate them, since any absorption would presumably have constituted an agreement about the outcome of the war and ran contrary to the refugees' right of return to Israel.

According to Wilf, UNRWA had good intentions initially. "There were budgets, good people, employment projects. People from the U.S. New Deal program [the 1930s program for rehabilitation after the Great Depression] came here – it was their idea for the Arab refugees to engage in development work in the Arab world."

If the mission of any refugee agency is to resettle people and end their refugee status, UNRWA has failed miserably at this. Over the years, there were changes and simplifications for the terms to receive refugee status and the eligibility of descendants to receive services from the agency. If at first only those who had lost their home and livelihood as a result of the 1948 war were considered refugees (with the definition later broadened to include their children), beginning in 1982, the right to be defined as a refugee was expanded to include every generation of descendants. In other words, even the great-grandchild of a refugee will also be considered a refugee.

Furthermore, unlike the rules applied to other refugees globally, in the case of UNRWA and the Palestinians, even someone who has received citizenship from another country is still considered Palestinian. Therefore, most of the Palestinian refugees in Jordan are considered both Jordanian citizens and refugees according to UNRWA: they live in its refugee camps, receive services from it and at the same time can work in any job, vote and more. In addition, according to UNRWA rules, even someone involved in terror activity or war crimes doesn't lose their refugee status.

As a result, in its 74-year existence, the number of UNRWA beneficiaries has grown from 700,000 refugees on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel to 5.9 million by 2022. This includes 1.6 million people in Gaza, a fourth generation of refugees – which is largely perpetuated thanks to the UNRWA eligibility system.

With the increase in the number of refugees, UNRWA has become a vast organization with a turnover of over $1 billion annually (a sum that is constantly increasing given the rise in the number of refugees) and a huge part of the Palestinian school, health and welfare systems….

But while it is hard to argue with the importance of providing medical assistance or food to the needy, that's not the case when it comes to UNRWA's crowning achievement: education, which accounts for about 60 percent of the budget.

Wilf argues that "the Western idea is to throw money at UNRWA – and if it doesn't help, it won't hurt. But that's a mistake because UNRWA, and mainly its schools, play a dramatic role in turning Palestinians into a people who exist in refugee camps separate from the host countries – and whose organizing idea is the right of return and rejection of the Jewish state."

And hatred of Jews.

In one video, children from various UNRWA schools in the Shoafat and Qalandiyah refugee camps are interviewed. When asked what they learn in their schools, the responses are shocking.

"They teach us that the Zionists are our enemy and we must fight them," says one 12-year-old boy. Another says: "They teach us that [Jews] are bad people. They killed our young."

Another boy says: "I'm ready to stab a Jew and drive [a car] over them." Another says: "We have to constantly stab them, drive over them and shoot them." Yet another adds: "Stabbing and running over the Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians. I'm going to run them over and stab them with knives."

A 6-year-old girl, meanwhile, says: "People love Palestine and they are ready to die for Palestine. I want to fight against them [the Jews] and to defeat them in war."…

A quick perusal of the UNRWA budget demonstrates that it is still over $1 billion annually. Although the budget declined somewhat to $940 million in 2020, it had increased again in 2021 and 2022, to $1.2 billion annually.

And the content? Updated investigations show that the situation has only worsened – including on social media, where words of praise and an eruption of joy from UNRWA teachers regarding the October 7 massacre were found….

"UNRWA is one of the burdens on the diplomatic process and the ability to reach an end to the conflict," says Jonathan Adiri, a high-tech entrepreneur and former IDF liaison officer to the Red Cross and adviser to Shimon Peres.

"Let's take, for example, a 20-year-old man who was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He's considered a Palestinian refugee, has no passport like a normal Lebanese citizen, and has restrictions such as positions he can't fill. All he hears is that some day he'll have the right to return to Palestine – in other words, to the likes of Jaffa, Haifa, Lod or Acre.

"The 1948 war and his refugee status will end as far as he's concerned only when Israel is erased from the map. The most significant symbol in Palestinian society is the key. During the meeting between PA President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month, Abbas wore a pin in the shape of a large key on his lapel. It's a deep-seated ethos. It would be okay if it were a matter of 700,000 refugees who are getting old and dwindling in number, but not when their number is only growing."

Eilat Wilf:

"For years I would go to the UNRWA donor countries and tell them: 'Look, you're sitting here in Brussels and Berlin, and feel so good and believe you're people of peace – and we Israelis will pay for that in blood.' They're funding one generation after another of Palestinians whose sacred goal is to free Palestine from the river to the sea. Only now are people suddenly asking themselves how we got to this situation."

"It's not just about stopping the money. The goal is to tell them why we're doing it. To tell them: 'Look friends, you aren't refugees. Gaza is your home. The West Bank, where you're located – you're staying. Build your future. Stop thinking there will be a return and you'll free Palestine. As long as that's your worldview – we're not with you. On the day you tell us that you understand you aren't refugees and recognize the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and want to live alongside the State of Israel – we'll give you 10 times as much. But until then, we won't continue to fund your ideology, which is based entirely on the rejection of Israel's existence.'

"October 7 is a formative moment, because the world has understood that the large sums of money that were sent didn't buy quiet – it created a greater catastrophe," Wilf continues. "And anyone who says if there's no money, a catastrophe will take place, we're asking – how much more of a catastrophe could there be?"

It's no exaggeration to say that UNRWA has played a crucial role in the continuation of the Palestinian delusion that Israel will be destroyed – and all the Jews with it. No need to bargain or compromise: all they have to do is wait.

At last, though, people are waking up.