Europe, Trump and the Future Financing of UNRWA

In a relatively recent post I commented that Iran and UNRWA were the two foreign policy positions that US President Donald J. Trump managed to get right. However, I have come to change my opinion slightly. When it comes to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees President Trump only gets half a point. 
 
President Trump was absolutely right to label UNRWA a deeply flawed operation highlighting the damage it does to Palestinian school children by indoctrinating them about the so-called right of return and the way it counts the numbers of Palestinian refugees. He was also well within his rights, and even correct, to cut off US$364 million worth of US aid to the defective UN agency. However, Trump only gets half a point because the move was completely devoid of leadership (a subject I will return to in a future post). Having correctly identified UNRWA’s flaws, Trump did not lead an international campaign for others to follow America’s lead. Trump did not offer a new direction about how to either reform UNRWA or finance alternative operations more conducive to peace. He might as well have used the words of South Park’s Eric Cartman: “screw you guys, I’m going home!” But this turns me to the real issue I want to address which is the opportunity that European countries are missing to change and reform UNRWA. 
 
Following the loss of US finance, Germany, the UK, and the supranational European Union are now UNRWA’s top donors. Instead of using this opportunity to open a debate about the future of UNRWA, or at the very minimum make funding conditional on reform, European countries and the EU simply stated their intensions to increase their donations. It was as if Europe (and Canada) was making a knee jerk reaction to do the opposite of Trump, ignoring the fact that on this position Trump was right because UNRWA is indeed a mismanaged and over financed body whose functions serve as an obstacle to peace.
 
Europe’s decision to increase funding is a crucial mistake for several reasons. First, Europe has missed yet another opportunity to show leadership on the international stage. With the US funding cut, Europe –the EU and individual European states – now have greater influence over UNRWA which is now highly dependent on European support. This has the potential to translate into significant leverage over the future direction and current activities of UNRWA. Alas, by declaring that Europe will increase UNRWA funding squanders the opportunity. 
 
Second, Europe is ignoring UNRWA’s continued outrages. Over the years there have been cases of Hamas or other militant groups storing rockets or weapons at UNRWA schools and the hosting of informal summer camps on UNRWA property where violence and extremism was taught. There have been cases of incitement (in person and online) and there are question marks about UNRWA’s transparency when it comes to funding and financial oversight. To make matters worse Hamas has overwhelming representation in UNRWA’s unions. And I haven’t even touched on the subject of UNRWA school alumni who have gone on to involve themselves in terrorism. Surely, it’s a no brainer that at an absolute minimum the EU, Germany and the UK should demand verifiable guarantees that European taxpayers’ money will not ever be used for nefarious purposes. 
 
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Europe’s continued funding of UNRWA contradicts the very tenets of the two-state solution, the policy of not only the EU as a member of the Quartet, the international body that also comprises of the US, UN and Russia, but also the official positions of European nation-states themselves, Britain and Germany the two largest nation-state donors of UNRWA. However, UNRWA openly advocates and campaigns for the implementation of the so-called Palestinian right of return, including the descendants of the 700,000 original refugees now entering their fifth generation. In other words, UNRWA works towards the influx of millions of Palestinians into Israel which would lead to the extermination of the Jewish state through an overwhelming demographic imbalance. 
 
This defeat of Israel through the Palestinian right or return is a position that mirrors that of Hamas. Just since March 2018, Hamas has organised weekly violent and provocative “return” marches by the Israel-Gaza border. Far from peaceful, these demonstrations, which are often met by lethal force by the Israel Defence Force, seek to sabotage and infiltrate the border in order to kill Israeli citizens. Meanwhile militants lob enflamed kites into Israel in the hope that they start wildfires and kill people. This violence is then given a voice of respectability through UNRWA, a UN body no less, whose spokespersons condemn Israeli actions while emphasising the Palestinian so-called right of return and indoctrinate children to never let go of this so-called “right” thus perpetuating the conflict. 
 
The fact that Europe continues to unconditionally support UNRWA despite its advocacy for the so-called right of return which is anti-peace, sympathetic to Hamas and contrary to the two-state solution is, quite frankly, unacceptable. European nations, especially Germany and Britain, should at the very minimum demand conditions before they agree to any additional UNRWA funding. The conditions should include:
 

• Background checks on UNRWA staff before they are hired to work in UNRWA schools. Such checks should not only be a standard criminal check but also encompass additional factors to ensure that nobody who has an affiliation with an extremist organisation or a history of political violence is hired. Also, these schools should have no political activities present in educational activities whether they be off the record political speeches to pro-Hamas or other faction graffiti. In addition, staff should be educated about peace so that this can be added to the curriculum (informal or otherwise) of students of all ages. 
• UNRWA’s micro-finance programme should be closely monitored to ensure that UNRWA’s cash payments to refugees are not handed out to members of violent organisations. 
• UNRWA officials should not comment on political affairs. It is not up to an UNRWA official to describe Israeli actions as “disproportionate” and they should not campaign for the so-called “right or return” or any other political factor contrary to the tenants of the two-state solution. 
• UNRWA should be subject to an external audit by a non-UN body (currently its external audit is through a UN body) to ensure that corruption and mismanagement is tackled as a matter of urgency. 

 
These conditions should be the very minimum if Europe insists that it continue to fund UNRWA. It should be demanded that the organisation become a body that is conducive to peace rather than the perpetuation of violence.