UNRWA backing will not bring Middle East peace
The Australian government’s decision on Friday to restore funding to the UN’s Palestinian Refugee Agency UNRWA was a serious error, given the mounting evidence of UNRWA’s complicity with Hamas – the terrorist entity that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and orchestrated the October 7 massacre in Israel.
Australia should not be reverting to our longstanding, lazy tradition of handing over tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to UNRWA annually with no strings attached.
It is a problematic organisation which undermines Australia’s longstanding bipartisan policy goal of a negotiated two-state IsraeliPalestinian peace.
Almost from its inception in 1949, UNRWA has been hijacked to serve a battle against the very existence of the state of Israel, and played a spoiling role that discourages resolution to the conflict.
It has developed a set of conditions applicable only to Palestinians. These include defining a refugee as anyone who had lived in Palestine for two years before Israel was established, and declaring anyone with refugee status can pass that to all descendants in perpetuity, even if they obtain citizenship of another country.
This is the reason the number of Palestinian “refugees” has exploded from about 700,000 in 1948 to almost six million today.
More importantly, UNRWA’s mandate never included resettling the refugees or helping them build new lives in new homes. Instead, it provides them with services until a solution to their plight can be found – deliberately keeping five generations of Palestinian refugees in a neverending state of rootlessness.
This is in complete contrast to the
UN agencies that serve every other refugee group on Earth. These all help people in whatever way best serves their needs, rather than keeping them in a difficult situation.
UNRWA may officially be an instrument of the UN but, in practice, it is run by Palestinians, with only a few dozen foreigners among its 30,000 employees. It has an unofficial agenda of teaching its Palestinian clients the fantasy that one day Israel will be gone and they will “return” to the land their ancestors fled.
This is completely incompatible with the stated two-state goal of much of the international community, including Australia.
The October 7 massacre exposed dramatically the organisation’s complicity with Hamas.
UNRWA employs terrorists, incites violence and educates young people in hatred and intolerance.
Israel has alleged that 10 per cent of its 13,000 Gaza staff are members of terror groups, and half have close links with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Many countries, including Australia, correctly decided to stop funding UNRWA in January pending an investigation, which is ongoing.
UNRWA mounted a PR campaign demanding the funding resume and warning of a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation.
But while aid is essential, it simply isn’t true that UNRWA alone can manage it. Israeli intelligence estimates that around 60 per cent of that aid is being stolen by Hamas.
Israel and the US have started working with groups such as the UN
World Food Program to deliver aid.
Given there are clear aid delivery alternatives, the Australian decision makes little sense. By restoring funding, it will undermine its own foreign policy goal in the Middle East: encouraging a negotiated resolution involving two states living in peace.
If Australia truly believes in that policy, then it needs to understand that dismantling UNRWA and its weaponisation of refugees, is essential to achieve that aim.
Dr Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council