Compromised UNRWA should be dissolved

 This letter appears in the Daily Telegraph today, 30 October 2024

Sir

     The services that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) supplies in Gaza are undoubtedly vital, but they should not be provided by UNRWA, a deeply compromised organization (“UNRWA banned from operating within Israel”, report, October 29).

      Around the time the state of Israel came into being, some 750,000 non-Jews left their homes – some from fear of forthcoming conflict, some as a result of fierce exchanges.  After the armistice, the UN set up UNRWA to assist them.  It  began work in May 1950.  Seven months later the UN set up the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), excluding Palestinian refugees from its remit.  Ever since, Palestinians have been treated differently by the UN – to their disadvantage.

       The 1949 UN resolution that established UNRWA said: “Constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.”  In other words, the new agency’s mission was intended to be temporary, as the refugees under its wing were resettled.  But resettlement never occurred. UNRWA totally ignored this key aspect of its remit.

      On the contrary, UNRWA’s policy was to perpetuate the Palestinians’ refugee status.  It decided to regard as refugees all the “descendants of Palestine refugees” in perpetuity. 

      The number of Palestinians in camps registered by UNRWA as refugees has therefore ballooned from around 750,000 in 1950 to 5.9 million in 2023.  Its expanding client base is, of course, used by the “temporary” UNRWA to justify its transformation into an international bureaucracy with a staff in excess of 30,000 and an annual budget of around $1.6 billion. 

     While UNHCR concentrates on resettling refugees so they can rebuild their lives, UNRWA has converted nearly six million people into permanent charity-dependent clients.

     UNRWA should be dissolved, and its functions absorbed by UNHCR

Neville Teller

Published in the Daily Telegraph, 30 October 2024, titled: "The UN in Gaza":
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/10/29/experience-shows-nhs-cant-be-trusted-use-funds-efficiently/