The Israeli Knesset recently passed a law banning UNRWA – the UN Relief and Works Agency – from operating in Israel and banning Israeli officials from cooperating with this UN agency.
The impetus for this action was the revelation that some UNRWA employees were complicit in the massacre of October 7 and other terror activities in Gaza. Israel released a list of 108 UNRWA employees who had been identified as being Hamas terrorists. This was a small portion of much larger list that could not be released for security reasons.
https://www.jns.org/knesset-bans-unrwa-in-israel-outlaws-all-official-contacts/
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While this law does not in any way affect the ability of other countries to deal with UNRWA, there is a possibility that it might stimulate investigations of this agency in various quarters. It is too soon to know if this will happen (I myself am hardly optimistic). Meanwhile several nations – most notably the US and the EU – have protested Israel’s move.
Complicity of UNRWA with Hamas has been documented – in these instances and dozens of others:
https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/06/05/idf-destroys-unrwa-school-revealed-to-be-terrorist-hideout/
But these instances are often shrugged off or identified as isolated cases. In the main, UNRWa has gotten a free pass from the world. Should we be surprised?
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The picture of UNRWA that is most broadly painted is one of a humanitarian organization that provides enormously important assistance to poor suffering Palestinian Arab refugees in a number of locales. This was the situation for many decades before the current war, although now the focus is on Gaza.
So, goes mainstream thinking, terrorists managed to infiltrate; that is bad, and some corrections are necessary. But it is not a reason to cut off associations with UNRWA. That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. UNRWA is needed.
I maintain, however, that if one looks closely at this agency, it becomes apparent that UNRWA is not only deeply emmeshed with Hamas, it has also played a significant role in generating Palestinian Arab terrorism.
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We must begin with its founding at the end of 1949. UNRWA was established, to provide direct relief to some 600,000 to 700,000 Palestinian Arab refugees. According to UNRWA, refugees are “persons whose regular place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 [i.e., right after the establishment of Israel], and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”
One of the myths perpetuated over the years is that these Arabs were driven out by Israel in the course of the War of Independence. The reality is that a considerable percentage of them fled of their own volition (expecting that they would be able to return soon when the Arab armies were victorious) or were advised by their leaders to do so. The example of Haifa is frequently cited. Jewish leaders begged the Arabs to stay, but the Arab leaders said they had been ordered out by the Arab Higher Committee, chaired by the grand mufti from his exile in Cairo.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-nakba-obsession#
Here you have personal testimonies of some who left:
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=25624
They went to Egypt-controlled Gaza, Jordanian-controlled Judea & Samaria [West Bank], as well as to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Over the years, the UNRWA mandate, determined by the UN General Assembly, was expanded beyond providing “direct relief” to providing humanitarian and developmental assistance and protection to the Palestinian refugees “pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.” This last phrase is all-important.
Refugee camps were established in the areas to which these Arabs fled; in all today there are 59 recognized camps. Years ago, these camps were recognized as UNRWA camps. Today UNRWA claims otherwise: UNRWA does not run the camps and has no administrative role, it merely improves infrastructure as needed and provides necessary services inside the camps for the “refugees,” including education, health care, social services, and microfinance projects.
Only a portion of the “refugees” recognized by UNRWA (perhaps one-third) are in the camps; others live in adjacent areas and avail themselves of services within the camps.
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Now this is where it gets interesting:
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, was established a year later, at the end of 1950. It operates in over 130 countries.
Its mandate is to provide vital protection for people forced to flee conflict and persecution and those denied a nationality. The goal is to assist them in voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country.
Where it is possible, it is recognized as desirable to assist refugees in repatriating to the country from which they had originally come. But it is recognized that this is not always possible. Then the goal is to help them become established in another country – either where they are currently residing as stateless individuals or in a third country where they can attain citizenship and start new lives. According to UNHCR, “durable solutions” are sought to that end: to help the stateless to “find a place to call home so they can rebuild their lives.”
https://www.unhcr.org/what-we-do
Once a stateless individual is established in a new country, he or she is no longer a refugee. What is more, the status of “refugee” is not transferable through the generations.
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The first question to ask, then, is why responsibility for tending to the needs of Palestinian Arabs who fled from Israel was not transferred to UNHCR. Why a separate agency just for Palestinian Arabs, when no other people in the world has a separate agency to tend to its refugee needs?
The answer is political, whatever rationale might be presented – and it is malignant. For UNRWA is not mandated to help the Palestinian Arab refugees find new homes and start new lives. It is to sustain them in their limbo status until they can “return” to the villages in Israel from which they came. This is simply not tenable, and many of these places do not even exist any longer.
What is more, according to UNRWA (and only UNRWA), the status of “refugee” is transferable through the generations via the father. Thus does the number of “Palestinian refugees” in the UNRWA records grow. Today UNRWA has six million refugees on their books – this is from the 700,000 who were recognized in 1948. The vast majority of these were never in Israel; we are looking at the grandchildren of those who left Israel. Some relatively small number of these “refugees” have made new lives for themselves in places such as the US and Canada, and yet they are still on UNRWA’s books as “refugees.”
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In order to increase the pressure on Israel, UNRWA claimed that the Palestinian Arabs refugees had a “right of return” to the “homes and villages from which they had come.”
A key was adopted as the symbol of that “right.”
The claim for this right rested upon words in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III). As it was passed by the General Assembly, however, in legal terms this resolution was only a recommendation. General Assembly resolutions are not binding in law. A UN GA resolution cannot confer a “right.”
The entire claim was actually based on one single clause within section 11 of that resolution:
“…refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date…”
It is possible to immediately see a catch, as it was recommended only that those wishing to live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to return. That would have been a dubious proposition in 1949, at the end of a war between Arabs and Jews, and undoubtedly became even more problematic over the years.
Most significantly, when the resolution is read carefully, it becomes clear that return is not the only recommendation made with regard to the situation of the refugees. The resolution established a Conciliation Committee, which was instructed to “facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees…”
Repatriation (return), then, was only one option for resolving the situation of the refugees. Resettlement was another.
“Right of Return”—which UNRWA promoted – is simply a lie.
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Yet Palestinian Arabs believed what they were told: that they had a “right” that was being denied them by Israel. Imagine the mindset of Palestinian Arabs who were identified as “refugees” and left to manage in a limbo status, with scant prospect of starting a new life elsewhere. This situation, created by UNRWA, fostered hatred of Israel and was counterproductive to all goals of peace in the Middle East.
But creating this situation was hardly the end of UNRWA’s involvement in fomenting hostility to Israel amongst the Palestinian Arab “refugees.”
The agency was actively involved in promoting this mindset in its schools and its camps.
Ten and fifteen years ago, Hamas recruited in UNRWA high schools in Gaza. Hamas “martyrs” were celebrated with posters in the schools. The UNRWA curriculum is rife with incitement against Israel.
https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA-Education-Textbooks-and-Terror-Nov-2023.pdf
See this blood-chilling video – produced by the Center for Near East Policy Research (https://www.cfnepr.com/205640/Movies) – to the end. It documents the messages that have been taught to Palestinian Arab youngsters in UNRWA schools and day camps. This particular video was shot some years ago. Some of the kids you see here, spouting hatred, are undoubtedly amongst the Hamas forces Israel is fighting today.
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And so, the Israeli government is to be lauded for taking a long overdue stand against UNRWA, whether this sits well with UN secretary-general António Guterres or not. (Hint: It really does not.)
There are a number of other situations in which we are – thankfully – standing up for our own interests, as well. For example:
Last week, the Knesset passed into law a measure intended to prevent the opening of consulates in Jerusalem that are intended to service Palestinian Arabs in Judea & Samaria. Advanced by MK Ze’ev Elkin (United Right) and Dan Illouz (Likud), the bill is an amendment to Basic Law: Jerusalem the Capital of Israel.
This was passed in order to prevent a new campaign for countries to establish consulates in eastern Jerusalem that in fact will serve as embassies to the PA. The fact that they would be established in eastern Jerusalem carries with it implications of a divided Jerusalem.
llouz said, ”We will not allow anyone, including our greatest allies, to establish a representation [office] that will serve an imaginary Palestinian state – and especially not in Jerusalem!
“The purpose of the bill is to protect Jerusalem, prevent its division, and preserve our sovereignty. It is our duty to keep Jerusalem united.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-805132
The US is not pleased. Said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, “We continue to believe that opening a US consulate in Jerusalem will be an important way for our country to reach out to and support the Palestinian people.” Precisely! Not from our sovereign territory.
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Just days ago, legislation aimed at barring the Palestinian Authority from filing legal petitions at Israel’s High Court of Justice passed its first reading. It has now returned to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. Committee chair Simcha Rothman advanced this legislation which strips entities that transfer funds associated with terror — including the Palestinian Authority’s stipends to imprisoned terrorists and their families — from approaching the High Court.
“The purpose of the bill is to correct an anomaly according to which elements hostile to the State of Israel…are considered to have the right to stand before the High Court when they come to petition against the policies of the Israeli government.”
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Last week there was an intense campaign by the US to negotiate a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon that would halt fighting before the election this Tuesday. Envoy Amos Hochstein was in the area once again doing his “thing,” but it was a pathetically obvious gambit designed to make the Democrats look like peacemakers as Americans went to the polls.
In spite of multiple statements from Blinken about how well the deal was progressing, it has now fallen apart irrevocably. As details of the US-proposed deal are made public, one must ask how Biden and company could ever have imagined that Israel would agree to it. There was, first, an Israeli demand that we have access to Lebanese airspace, should Hezbollah, which was supposed to move beyond the Litani River, start moving south again. It was rejected; Israel was expected to rely on UNIFIL and the Lebanese army to monitor the situation.
“It was totally unrealistic because of the onus it places on the Lebanese army to solve these problems,” said one Western diplomat.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/398494
According to a draft of the proposal that was released, Israel would have been required to leave Lebanon in one week, while Hezbollah would have had several weeks to move north.
Diplomats now concede that Israeli fighting against Hezbollah will continue for many weeks.
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The tension here in Israel is enormous, and it could hardly be otherwise:
We are waiting for the US election. Israeli Jews understand clearly that it is critically important for Trump to win. Polls are tight but place him ahead – beyond the margin of error in most swing states, according to one poll.
At the same time, we are waiting, once again, for a missile and drone attack from Iran. Reports are that it may emanate from Iraq. Many sources said it would come after the election, so as to not benefit Trump. But then there were reports that it would happen before the election, which would mean in the next two days.
Allegedly the decision to attack was made by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after he reviewed the extent of the damage caused by Israeli’s attack – which was “too large to ignore.”
The Americans have sent a message to Iran indicating that this time they will not be able to restrain us, with regard to the what we might hit when retaliating. Last time we hit only military targets but, significantly, took out radar and early-warning systems. This might be the opportunity to do the damage to Iranian nuclear facilities and oil production that can turn the tide, finally.
Defense Secretary Austin has ordered the deployment to the Middle East of additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several B-52 long-range strike bombers.
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With it all, our nation is in mourning because of the number of soldiers we are losing and civilians injured and killed as Hezbollah continues its barrage of rockets and drones in the north. We keep going because we must.
We know, we know, that we will prevail in the end, emerging stronger than ever.
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I always call for prayer at the end of my posting, and it continues to be especially pertinent at this time.
Express great gratitude to the Almighty for what we have been able to achieve.
Then, please, pray with a full heart for the continued strength and courage of Israel’s leaders as they make the hard decisions, for the safety and effectiveness of our soldiers in battle as they fight a righteous war, and for the rescue of the hostages at last.
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©Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
