Why Israel is right about UNWRA

The Israeli parliament resumed its work on Monday after a long recess, and one of the first items on the agenda was voting on a bill that enjoyed rare widespread popularity. The bill decreed that Israel will severe ties with the UN relied and work agency for Palestine refugees (UNWRA), which will heavily restrict the organization’s ability to operate in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. It passed with a majority of ninety-two for and ten against, with even opposition members of the Knesset supporting the bill.

The bill was criticized by the UN, which threatened to suspend Israel’s membership. It was also criticized by Israel’s allies, including the US, UK and France, who argue that UNRWA has an essential role in providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians. 

So why did Israel insist on passing the bill? UNRWA was funded in 1949 and gets its funding from the UN and from donor states. For years, it was known that UNRWA’s employees teach the most deplorable antisemitic content and glorify terrorism in schools, radicalizing generations of Palestinians. This has played a major role in perpetuating the bloody conflict between the sides, and makes the possibility of a settlement a distant dream, by dehumanizing and demonizing Israelis and Jews.

This long-standing and known problem of incitement to violence and hatred in textbooks has been acknowledged and criticized by American administrations and the European Union, but is one that has never been resolved.

Yet it was the massacre of October 7 and the subsequent war that has pushed the Knesset to sever ties with UNRWA. The problem extends far beyond a few bad apples. It is estimated that roughly 10 percent of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees have connections to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Some of them have participated in the massacre of civilians and soldiers, raped and abducted Israelis, and have hidden Israeli hostages and the bodies of Israelis killed on October 7.

For years, UNRWA facilities provided shelters for Hamas’s terror activities, including in schools and medical clinics. It is also alleged that funding given to UNRWA ended up at the hands of Hamas and used for funding terrorism.

All of this has been done for decades under the watchful eye of the UN, which has long suffered from institutional and extreme anti-Israel bias. Therefore, even though it was known that UNRWA has been plagued by extremism, no real action has been taken by the UN or by donor states to bring meaningful reforms.

Israel hopes that the bill that was passed yesterday will force UNRWA’s funders, particularly those who hold values such as human rights, democracy and non-violence in high regard, to finally stop turning a blind eye to the fact the UNRWA has become a hotbed of radicalization disguised as a humanitarian organization.

It was the massacre of October 7 and the subsequent war that has pushed the Knesset to sever ties with UNRWA

The Palestinians argue that the decision against UNRWA is meant to undermine the claim of Palestinians to the right of return. However, the very existence of UNRWA has helped to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee status. Instead of helping Palestinians resettle, build a sustainable self-rule and a functioning economy that would render the refugee agency obsolete, UNRWA helped keep the unrealistic dream of the right of return alive.

Any two-state solution will mean that a Palestinian state will be established in Gaza and the West Bank, of which the Palestinians will be citizens. The right of return cannot be accepted by Israel, because it is an existential risk, but this notion has been the single biggest issue that has undermined all peace negotiations with Israel.

Israel has not changed its position about providing aid to Palestinians, and recognizes the need for humanitarian assistance, but it wants this done through agencies that have not been compromised by ties to terrorism. Yesterday, Israeli parliamentarians suggested that humanitarian help can be carried out by other agencies, including the UN agency for children (UNICEF) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

UNRWA has done a lot of damage before October 7, but the massacre and the war have exposed the depth of its involvement in terrorism, and as such, it should no longer have a mandate to exist. It is an opportunity to replace it with organizations that can provide relief without enabling terrorism and who could reform the educational system in ways the de-radicalize rather than incite.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.