Wetherhorn

UNRWA – what it does and for whom?

This is a continuation of my discussion about UNRWA. The agency employs over 30,000 people today. Most of them are local residents.  They have a lot of different jobs. Many are simply drivers for the fleet of vehicles the agency maintains in each country. Others handle distribution of food aid (more about that later) and still others operate UNRWA medical facilities and schools. Without UNRWA, the agency claims, many of the people on their poles would not get any of the above listed services. But their activities are dependent upon the host countries. In the field of education that means they use textbooks either provided by (for a fee) or approved by the current Palestinian Authority. Such educational materials reflect strong biases. Complaints about the anti-Israel content of some of their material were accepted as valid at one time, and the textbooks involved were sent for review and rewrite. The new books had a different cover. Other than that, there was no real change.  Without UNRWA, it is likely that many children would not be given much of an education.

When UNRWA first came on the scene they established refugee camps and actually built some homes for many of the people. The locations for those camps were provided by the host countries. For example, the Daheishe camp near Bethlehem was set up on land originally owned by the Jewish National Fund. The Jordanian government was the host at that time and approved the action. The camp is still there, but has become simply a sort of slum neighborhood of Bethlehem. In the beginning, residence in a camp was necessary to get an allocation of basic foodstuffs like flour, rice, sugar, and cooking oil. Every individual was given an UNRWA identification card to use when picking up their ration. It became a sort of joke to note that the camps were so healthy that no one ever died in them. That was because the ration cards for people were sold to profiteers who collected the allocations for everyone, and resold the food at a profit. The people responsible for records were often “refugees” themselves, and the opportunities for receiving a little bit of extra ‘donations’ were usually irresistible.

Building materials sent to the Gaza Strip today for rebuilding homes are usually commandeered by the local authorities and used for making tunnels that are useful for both terror attacks and smuggling.  UNRWA ambulances were employed more than once in smuggling arms and explosives through Israeli check points.  Buildings officially belonging to UNRWA have frequently been used as places to hide arms and shelter terrorists. If there is retaliatory fire from Israel that strikes the facility the terrorists get an extra propaganda boost. It is very likely that similar subterfuge have been used by Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon to get things past the UNIFIL patrols that are supposed to be there to prevent this. It’s easy to make such things happen when most of the UN salaried individuals are officially listed as “refugees”. If the UN didn’t pay them, they would probably be unemployed. UNRWA gives away millions in cash and kind on entitlement programs of a type that social workers in America have long recognized as being neither productive nor worthwhile. There are no incentives in the UNRWA programs for people on the UN dole to try to get off the refugee list and make a better life for themselves. Arab host country politicians exploit this, too. That means the handouts are a never ending source of profit for many of the actors involved.

So, what’s the answer? I’m convinced that UNRWA needs to be eliminated. If there are activities it performs that are beneficial those should be transferred to some other agency or organization. The current refugees need to be moved under the auspices of the UNHCR. That office has a requirement to resettle them.  If UNRWA ceases to exist, UNHCR would be expected to take over. It is a complex problem, so the solution should be carried out in phases. But the disestablishment of UNRWA needs to happen within a short time, like 3-5 years.  The Palestinian refugees would then be treated like any other refugees.  The ration card scam with its associated corruption would be ended.  Host countries would, hopefully, have an incentive to resettle the refugees and make them a productive part of their societies, because the continuous free dole of funds would be coming to an end.