Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee heard testimony about how UNRWA is part of the problem in the Middle East, not the solution. Experts testified about UNRWA teachers' support for terror and how UNRWA's entire mission is to prolong misery of millions of Palestinians, not alleviate it.
The entire session can be seen here.
As the world learns about UNRWA staff's complicity with and support of Hamas crimes, supporters of UNRWA are saying that UNRWA provides essential services and therefore must continue to be funded.
They have a point. The cash spigot cannot just be turned off without causing suffering to many people who have relied on UNRWA for their medical needs, education and other services, even if these services go way beyond what any other UN agency does for any other group of people.
In 2017, I wrote a plan on how UNRWA can be dismantled over a multi-year period. If the world would have taken the problem seriously, we would not be in this situation today.
Here is an updated version.
It isn't easy to get rid of an entrenched 75 year old bureaucracy - but with some willpower, it is possible. And getting rid of UNRWA will be good for the entire Middle East.
The first and most important thing that needs to be done is to get rid of the noxious UNRWA definition of "refugee" that helps no one and only serves to perpetuate a permanent state of victimhood. There is only one definition of refugee, that of the Refugee Convention, and that definition should be the only one used worldwide. The myth of the "Palestinian refugee" must be ended.
Gulf states, especially Abraham Accords partners UAE and Bahrain, need to be recruited in this plan to dismantle UNRWA. They are not fans of Hamas and they have never heavily supported UNRWA financially.
These oil-rich states need brainpower and the next generation of workers, and among Arabs, Palestinians are the best educated and hardest working of all Arabs. Dubai and Saudi Arabia want to diversify their economic base beyond oil, and they want to do it if possible with Arab talent. The fit is obvious.
Palestinians have already been instrumental in building much of the Gulf, but they didn't have citizenship rights. It is time for the US to pressure friendly Sunni Gulf states to allow Palestinians from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria - and Gaza! - to immigrate and become citizens. The program would be voluntary for Palestinians but it would be very popular, as past experience with limited granting of citizenship to Palestinians in Egypt and Lebanon show. Every time Palestinians were offered citizenship they eagerly took it. It is an investment that would pay off for everyone.
The Gulf states can in turn pressure the Arab League to rescind its racist decision from the 1950s to not allow Palestinians to become citizens.
In Jordan, the vast majority of Palestinians are already Jordanian citizens. Redirecting the UNRWA budget towards Jordan over a five year period for the purpose of demolishing the camps, building new communities, mainstreaming the UNRWA schools into Jordan's educational system, and naturalizing the Palestinians who aren't citizens, is an idea that is way overdue. Jordan needs the cash, and to get rid of UNRWA it would be worth it to increase the amount given beyond UNRWA's budget for, say, 5-8 years to allow the full integration of Palestinian camp-dwellers into Jordanian society.
There isn't as much leverage in Syria. But the many Syrian refugees of Palestinian origin who are outside the country should be immediately placed under the aegis of UNHCR like other refugees and those who qualify for moving to the Gulf should do so. Of course, the portion of UNRWA's budget dedicated to Syrian refugees should go to UNHCR as well for now. Syria claims to support Palestinians - let them take care of the ones that they have there.
Lebanon is more anti-Palestinian than any other country in the world. (They would protest that characterization but no country treats Palestinians worse.) As it is, UNRWA already exaggerates the number of "refugees" in Lebanon by over 100%. Lebanon should be pressured by the world community and Arab nations themselves to stop putting Palestinians in open-air prisons, allow them the rights to work in any profession and to live wherever they want, to give them real human rights and give them a path to citizenship in the entire Arab world - let them choose where they want to live. Those who have lived in Lebanon for generations must become citizens. Money that now goes to UNRWA can help cash-strapped Lebanon do the right thing.
The Palestinian "refugees" in the West Bank should not exist 25 years after self-rule. The entire UNRWA budget for the West Bank should simply be eliminated. The PLO needs to treat all its citizens equally, and that means taking responsibility for them. Let them beg UNRWA's donor nations to help them demolish the camps, build real houses and to incorporate their schools and medical clinics under a single umbrella. It is true that Palestinian schools don't teach co-existence with Israel any more than UNRWA schools, but it isn't as if UNRWA moderated anyone's opinions of Jews and Israel.
In Gaza, the essential services provided by UNRWA must be transitioned to other UN agencies, like UNHCR, the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme. Obviously some of the UNRWA employees would transition to the proper agencies, but those agencies would do a better job vetting them for terrorist ties than UNRWA ever did.
Moreover, give the option for the people in the camps in Gaza to move to the West Bank, to Arab countries or even to Europe.
As a recipient of billions of dollars in US aid, Egypt can and should be pressured to admit any Gazans who wish to immigrate there. Many Palestinians trace their families to Egypt and in the past when Egypt allowed a limited number to become citizens, Gazans jumped at the plan.
The best way to force the Arab countries to treat their Palestinian "guests" as more than cannon fodder is using the honor/shame system against them. Shame them into treating Palestinians at least as well as any other Arab non-citizen, and give them a path to naturalization.
Now happens to be the perfect time to talk about dismantling UNRWA. And it is over 70 years past the time to finally do something about it.
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