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Lessening UNRWA's Damage
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Critics of the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization tasked with oversight of Palestine
refugees, have tended to focus on its sins. Its camps are havens for terrorists.
Its bureaucracy is bloated and its payroll includes radicals. Its schools
teach incitement. Its registration rolls reek with fraud. Its policies
encourage a mentality of victimhood.
But UNRWA's most consequential problem is its
mission. Over 63 years, it has become an agency that perpetuates the refugee
problem rather than contributing to its resolution. UNRWA does not work to
settle refugees; instead, by registering each day ever more grandchildren and
great-grandchildren who have never been displaced from their homes or
employment, artificially adding them to the tally of "refugees," it
adds to number of refugees aggrieved against Israel. By now, these
descendants comprise over 90 percent of UNRWA refugees.
Further, UNRWA violates the Refugee
Convention by insisting that nearly two million people who have been
given citizenship in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon (and who constitute 40
percent of UNRWA's beneficiaries) are still refugees.
As a result of such practices, instead of
going down through resettlement and natural attrition, the number of UNRWA
refugees has steadily grown since 1949, from 750,000 to almost 5 million. At
this rate, UNRWA refugees will exceed 8 million by 2030 and 20 million by
2060, its camps and schools endlessly promoting the futile dream that these
millions of descendants someday will "return" to their ancestors'
homes in Israel. When even Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas
acknowledges that sending five million Palestinians would mean "the end
of Israel," it's clear that UNRWA obstructs conflict resolution.
Israeli government officials are well aware
that UNRWA perpetuates the refugee problem and full well know its sins. That
said, the State of Israel has a working relationship with UNRWA and looks to
it to fulfill certain services.
Israel's cooperative policy began in 1967
with the Comay-Michelmore
Exchange of Letters in which Jerusalem promised "the full
co-operation of the Israel authorities ... [to] facilitate the task of
UNRWA." This policy remains in very much place; in November
2009, an Israeli representative confirmed a "continued commitment to
the understandings" of the 1967 letters and support for "UNRWA's
important humanitarian mission." He even promised to maintain
"close coordination" with UNRWA.
Israeli officials distinguish between UNRWA's
negative political role and its more positive role as a social service agency
providing assistance, primarily medical and educational. They appreciate that
UNRWA, with funds provided by foreign governments, helps one-third of the
population in the West Bank and three-quarters in Gaza. Without these funds,
Israel could face an explosive situation on its borders and international
demands that it, depicted as the "occupying power," assume the
burden of care for these populations. In the extreme case, the Israel Defense
Forces would have to enter hostile areas to oversee the running of schools
and hospitals, for which the Israeli taxpayer would have to foot the bill – a
most unattractive prospect.
As a well-informed Israeli official sums it
up, UNRWA plays a "key role in supplying humanitarian assistance to the
civilian Palestinian population" that must be sustained.
This explains why, when foreign friends of
Israel try to defund UNRWA, Jerusalem urges caution or even obstructs these
efforts. For example, in January 2010, Canada's Harper government announced
that it would redirect aid from UNRWA to the Palestinian Authority to
"ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." Although
B'nai B'rith Canada proudly reported
that "the government listened" to its advice, Canadian diplomats
said that Jerusalem quietly requested
the Canadians to resume funding UNRWA.
Another example: in December 2011, the Dutch foreign minister said that
his government would "thoroughly review" its policy toward UNRWA,
only later to tell confidants that Jerusalem had asked him to leave UNRWA's
funding alone.
Which brings us to the question: Can the
elements of UNRWA useful to Israel be retained without perpetuating the
refugee status?
Yes, but this requires distinguishing UNRWA's
role as a social service agency from its role producing ever-more
"refugees." Contrary to its practice of registering grandchildren
as refugees, Section III.A.2 and Section III.B of UNRWA's Consolidated
Eligibility & Registration Instructions allow it to provide social
services to Palestinians without defining them as refugees. This provision is
already in effect: in the West Bank, for example, 17 percent of the
Palestinians registered with UNRWA in January 2012 and eligible to receive
its services were not
listed as refugees.
Given that UNRWA reports to the U.N. General
Assembly, with its automatic anti-Israel majority, mandating a change in
UNRWA practices is nearly impossible. But major UNRWA donors, starting with
the US government, should stop being accomplices to UNRWA's perpetuation of
the refugee status.
Washington should treat UNRWA as a vehicle to
deliver social services, nothing more. It should insist that UNRWA
beneficiaries who either were never displaced or who have already have
citizenship in other countries, although perhaps eligible for UNRWA services,
are not refugees. Establishing this distinction reduces a key irritant
in Arab-Israeli relations.
Steven J. Rosen heads the Washington Project
of the Middle East Forum and Daniel Pipes is president of the Forum. ©
2012 by Steven J. Rosen and Daniel Pipes.
Related
Topics: Palestinians This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral
whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of
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