Mick Hartley

Seth Frantzman in the JC on the symbiotic relationships between the UN organisations UNRWA and UNIFIL, and the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah:

In both Gaza and Lebanon the UN was supposed to play a positive role, yet in each place massive UN bureaucracies have ended up shielding terror groups and enabling their growth. Unrwa has not worked against Hamas in Gaza, and Unifil has not fulfilled its mandate to prevent Hezbollah turning southern Lebanon into an armed camp.

Unrwa and Unifil are both massive organisations. Unrwa has more than 150 facilities in Gaza with thousands of personnel, and in Lebanon Unifil has more than 10,000 soldiers and dozens of posts and bases in the south of the country….

Hamas grew exponentially more powerful after 2007 by outsourcing civilian needs to Unrwa and various NGOs. While those groups fed and educated people, Hamas built command centres under Unrwa facilities and infiltrated hospitals. Despite Hamas bringing war on Gaza every year or two after 2007, the international community never acted to weaken Hamas and prevent it exploiting the presence of Unrwa and other humanitarian bodies. Instead a symbiotic relationship was enabled. While the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank had to take responsibility for civilians, in Gaza Hamas prepared for war while Unrwa and others took care of civilians. This enabled war, rather than reducing the incentive for Hamas to carry out attacks such as the October 7 massacre.

In Lebanon a similar process unfolded after 2007. Unifil was supposed to work with the Lebanese army to make sure Hezbollah did not return to southern Lebanon. Instead Hezbollah grew ever more powerful. Hezbollah expanded its arsenal from around 13,000 rockets in 2006 to 150,000 by 2023. All this occurred under the eyes of Unifil. Instead of fulfilling UN Resolution 1701, which was supposed to prevent Hezbollah returning to threaten Israel, Unifil appears to have done less after 2006 than it did before the war.

In essence, the UN took control of southern Lebanon and Gaza as two colonies on the border of Israel and in each an Iranian-backed proxy force emerged as a powerful army. Hamas on October 7 and Hezbollah on the same day were more powerful than many nations. Most countries don’t have 150,000 rockets. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn from the disastrous experience of 2006-2023 than seeing the UN’s role in Gaza and Lebanon as being directly entwined with the rise of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Not only does UNRWA perpetuate Palestinians as refugees; it educates them in Jew hatred.