Jrump Ôouts status guo bo pulling refugee funds
RIGHT WING politicians in Israel and the US were delighted, and Palestinians and their supporters alarmed, by what looked from the outside like a rather sudden decision by the Trump administration to end all funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
It creates a major precedent to question UNRWA’s very mandate and the principle that 5.5 million Palestinians — over ninety-five percent of whom were not born in 1949 when the agency was founded — should be considered refugees.
Many Israeli officials were concerned about the immediate implications of it losing a third of its budget.
Most in Israel agree that the organisation, which maintains the Palestinians’ refugee status and their dependency on international aid, artificially props up an anti-Israel political agenda. But they also recognise it is a primary source for funding schools, social programmes and tens of thousands of jobs. A Palestinian girl by a UNRWA school
UNRWA already has a £168 million deficit and without US money it will be hard-pressed to continue providing aid in the tense West Bank and a volatile Gaza Strip already teetering on the brink of full-blown disaster.
There could be implications too for security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and the chances of achieving along-term ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza.
The impact might be mitigated by donations from other countries and efficiencies within the agency itself, but even if it overcomes the shortfall to preserve its services, this US move signals a longer-term challenge.
It is looking doubtful that the Trump administration will ever present a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian deal. Encouraged by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Trump’s team is trying to change the basics of this conflict’s orthodoxies.
It did this last year by relocating the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move the administration described as removing the issue “from the table”, and it is doing so again with the refugees issue.
The Palestinians will try and fight back but have few options. The population of the West Bank and Gaza are tired of intifadas and warfare. From the rest of the world they receive mainly lip-service and not the kind of support that gives them backing for a forceful diplomatic initiative.
And they are hampered by President Mahmoud Abbas’ dysfunctional leadership — and the unbridgeable split between Fatah and Hamas.
On both Jerusalem and the refugees, President Donald Trump and Mr Netanyahu are still isolated: no other government is prepared to support them.
It is quite likely that this attempt to challenge the received wisdom on the basics of a future settlement will fail, lasting only so long as Mr Trump remains in the White House. But for now, at least, the Israeli and US governments are united in their effort to tear up this conflict’s rulebook.