Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Is the UNRWA political?
The UNRWA has been subject to political headwinds since its inception and especially during periods of heightened tension between Palestinians and Israelis.
While it is a UN organisation and thus ostensibly apolitical, it has frequently been criticised by Palestinians, Israelis as well as donor countries, including the United States, for acting politically.
The UNRWA performs state-like functions across its five fields, including education, health and infrastructure, but it is restricted in its mandate from performing political or security activities.
Initial Palestinian objections to the UNRWA stemmed from the organisation's early focus on economic integration of refugees into host states.
Although the UNRWA officially adhered to the UN General Assembly's Resolution 194 that called for the return of Palestine refugees to their homes, UN, UK and US officials searched for means by which to resettle and integrate Palestinians into host states, viewing this as the favourable political solution to the Palestinian refugee situation and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this sense, Palestinians perceived the UNRWA to be both highly political and actively working against their interests.
In later decades, the UNRWA switched its primary focus from jobs to education at the urging of Palestinian refugees. But the UNRWA's education materials were viewed by Israel as further feeding Palestinian militancy, and the Israeli government insisted on checking and approving all materials in Gaza and the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.
While Israel has long been suspicious of the UNRWA's role in refugee camps and in providing education, the organisation's operation, which is internationally funded, also saves Israel millions of dollars each year in services it would be obliged to deliver as the occupying power.
Since the 1960s, the US — the UNRWA's primary donor — and other Western countries have repeatedly expressed their desire to use aid to prevent radicalisation among refugees.
In response to the increased presence of armed opposition groups, the US attached a provision to its UNRWA aid in 1970, requiring that the "UNRWA take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) or any other guerrilla-type organisation".
The UNRWA adheres to this requirement, even publishing an annual list of its employees so that host governments can vet them, but it also employs 30,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom are Palestinian.
Questions over links of the UNRWA to any militancy has led to the rise of Israeli and international watch groups that document the social media activity of the organisation's large Palestinian staff.
In 2018, the Trump administration paused its US$60 million contribution to the UNRWA. Trump claimed the pause would create political pressure for Palestinians to negotiate. President Joe Biden restarted US contributions to the UNRWA in 2021.
While other major donors restored funding to the UNRWA after the conclusion of the investigation in April, the US has yet to do so.
'An unmitigated disaster'
Israel's ban of the UNRWA will leave already starving Palestinians without a lifeline. UN Secretary General António Guterres said banning the UNRWA "would be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster". The foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the UK issued a joint statement arguing that the ban would have "devastating consequences on an already critical and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, particularly in northern Gaza".
Reports have emerged of Israeli plans for private security contractors to take over aid distribution in Gaza through dystopian "gated communities", which would in effect be internment camps. This would be a troubling move. In contrast to the UNRWA, private contractors have little experience delivering aid and are not dedicated to the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality or independence.
However, the Knesset's explicit ban could, inadvertently, force the United States to suspend weapons transfers to Israel. US law requires that it stop weapons transfers to any country that obstructs the delivery of US humanitarian aid. And the US pause on funding for the UNRWA was only meant to be temporary.
The UNRWA is the main conduit for assistance into Gaza, and the Knesset's ban makes explicit that the Israeli government is preventing aid delivery, making it harder for Washington to ignore. Before the bill passed, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller warned that "passage of the legislation could have implications under US law and US policy".
At the same time, two US government agencies previously alerted the Biden administration that Israel was obstructing aid into Gaza, yet weapons transfers have continued unabated.
Nicholas R Micinski is an assistant professor of Political Science and International Affairs, University of Maine. Kelsey Norman is Fellow for the Middle East, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University. This piece first appeared on The Conversation.
Sections of this story were first used in an earlier article published by The Conversation US on February 1, 2024.
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