A few days ago an Israeli air strike killed a member of a Palestinian
missile team that had been firing rockets from Gaza. Now the United
Nations has come out with an unusual statement of bewilderment and
utter shock as the truth has come out. The dead man, Awad al-Qiq, was
a U.N. employee and headmaster of a top prep school in Gaza. He was
also the chief rocket-maker for Islamic Jihad.
Mr. Al-Qiq =97 not surprisingly, a science teacher =97 worked for one of
the schools run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Now that he is out of the rocket
business, the employment of such a "respectable" individual by the
sole U.N. agency devoted to Palestinian refugees deserves an
explanation.
In a new re****t by the Global Research in International Affairs Center
by this author and Professor Barry Rubin, "UNRWA: Refuge of
Rejectionism," the case is made that this group is a major cause of
the continued Arab-Israeli conflict, the incitement of a whole
generation of Palestinians to terrorist violence and even the
suffering of the refugees themselves.
The re****t's recommendation is simple and workable: UNRWA should be
dissolved and its functions divided between the far more effective and
depoliticized U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the
Palestinian Authority (PA).
Since Hamas came to power in 2006, Palestinians in the new Islamic
state of Gaza have been crying out for more and more UNRWA aid.
Historically, UNRWA has been the main vehicle for the perpetuation of
the Arab-Israeli conflict in the United Nations. Where once it was
charged with resettling Palestinians, its explicit mandate in recent
decades has been to maintain them in the camps where Arab states left
them some 60 years ago. Education, health and limited vocational
training are provided, just enough to keep Palestinians as "refugees."
UNRWA is an apparatus that maintains the status quo =97 a huge
bureaucracy with no incentive to move toward a resolution of the
Palestinian refugee problem. This arrangement is ripe for abuse.
As one of the largest employers in the host countries with Palestinian
refugee camps, UNRWA is staffed mainly by local Palestinians =97 more
than 23,000 of them, with only about 100 international U.N.
professionals. The pattern of hiring within the served population is
unique in the U.N. system. By contrast, UNICEF (to cite one example)
avoids employing locals who are also recipients of agency services,
considering it a conflict of interest. UNRWA bureaucracy has created
an infrastructure for Palestinian dependency. Refugees, now in their
third generation, rely on the services UNRWA provides and have no
incentives to plan or implement solutions that may endanger their
livelihood by rendering UNRWA's services obsolete.
It was under the leader****p of former UNRWA Commissioner Peter Hansen
that the organization's complicity with terror was openly exposed. In
a statement to the Canadian Broadcasting Cor****ation, Mr. Hansen
admitted: "I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll
" and I don't see that as a crime."
As Hamas' genocidal agenda has become impossible to cover up, UNRWA
has now resorted to professions of shock and promises of "zero
tolerance." For some UNRWA's affiliation with terrorism is not a
detraction but an added value that shows "diversity." As Ra****d
Khalidi, Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University,
notes, "humanitarian and charitable institutions throughout Palestine
employ personnel regardless of sectarian or political affiliation and
offer services on a similar basis. Thus, UNRWA, NGO-run institutions
[and] public hospitals and clinics, for example, employ members of
different political groups such as Fatah, the [Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine], Hamas and Islamic Jihad, without reference
to their belonging to a specific group."
As we look for ways to crack down on terrorism and terrorist activity,
looking at UNRWA is a good start. American taxpayer dollars fund
approximately one-third of UNRWA's operating budget. UNRWA provides
food, medicine, economic aid, jobs, radical education, political
op****tunities, and even logistical assistance to Hamas and other
extremist groups. UNRWA's budget, which exceeds $365 million, is
funded by many nations, but the United States and other Western
nations are the largest contributors.
Cutting off UNRWA's budget would be detrimental to Hamas in Gaza,
which would be forced to either provide services to Palestinians or
admit it has no intention of doing so. It would also send an im****tant
message to the United Nations, which perpetuates the Palestinian
refugee problem and lends legitimacy to groups like Hamas through
UNRWA's continued existence.
Transferring UNRWA's services to other agencies, notably the High
Commission for Refugees, which has a long and productive experience,
would be another im****tant move. And lastly, actually having the
Palestinian Authority take responsibility for the social services if
it is to truly govern the Palestinian people would send a signal to
all parties that a future state of Palestine would be prepared to live
in peace with its neighbors and itself.
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