This week’s revelation about the complicity of personnel working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel is not surprising. Not to anybody who has tracked the nefariousness of this organization over recent decades.

Nor is it a surprise that over the past three months IDF troops have found Hamas weaponry in, and terror attack tunnels beneath, nearly every UNRWA institution in Gaza – schools, clinics, hospitals, and more.

No, there is no surprise here. UNRWA is rotten to its core. It validates and perpetuates the Palestinian war against Israel instead of helping to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is an obstacle to peace.

Despite this, Western leaders almost certainly will restore and even increase their funding of UNRWA soon enough – because they mistakenly view the organization as an irreplaceable, indispensable humanitarian tool.

Alas, nothing could be farther from the truth! Here are ten myths about UNRWA that must be busted.

Myth 1: UNRWA is a UN organization.

 Well, technically it is, but in fact UNRWA is a Palestinian outfit with Palestinian employees and Palestinian objectives. Ninety-nine percent of its 13,000 employees in Gaza are Palestinian, alongside a tiny number of international employees who cover for Palestinian corruption and Islamic radicalism. It is a Palestinian boondoggle.

Since most Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, it stands to reason that many if not the majority of UNRWA employees are Hamas supporters too. According to Israeli intelligence a full ten percent of UNRWA Gaza staff are identifiable Hamas or Islamic Jihad activists; hundreds of others openly celebrated the October 7 rapes and murders; and 190 UNRWA employees are “hardened militants” – fighters and killers with unmistakable terrorist records.

This is far more than “a few bad apples in the basket,” as some champions for UNRWA said this week.

Myth 2: UNRWA is a relief organization for Palestinians.

This has not been true for many years. UNRWA provides little food or humanitarian aid. The vast majority of its budget is devoted to Palestinian schools and hospitals, which is an anomaly without precedent anywhere else in the world.

There is no other UN organization that covers health and education costs for almost an entire population – in place of its local government. UNRWA runs the relevant institutions and pays the bills throughout Gaza, instead of Hamas having to provide health, education, and welfare for its own constituents. Hamas relies on UNRWA and its Western donors to operate core provinces of Gazan government, leaving Hamas scot-free to build terror attack tunnels and camp-out in underground military bunkers for war against Israel.

Myth 3: UNRWA is a neutral organization.

No, it is not. UNRWA is a political outfit that shapes the story of Palestinian victimhood, preserves and prolongs Palestinian refugeehood, and educates towards perpetual war with Israel including Palestinian dreams of destroying Israel through refugee “return.” UNRWA is the most deleterious driver of a narrative of Israeli criminality, for 75 years now and running.

In particular, UNRWA keeps conflict with Israel alive by granting fictitious refugee status to an ever-inflating number of Palestinians – 20 times beyond the scope of real refugeehood! – while refusing to permanently resettle even one single refugee.

Myth 4: UNRWA is a moderating and calming force.

Even though international wags (and even parts of the Israeli defense establishment) have made this claim for years, it simply holds no water. UNRWA is deeply impregnated and dominated by Hamas, and it certainly was of no taming or tempering effect before, after, or on October 7. Everybody can do without the make-believe soothing brainwaves of UNRWA.

Watchdog organizations tirelessly have documented the hate taught in UNRWA classrooms. Palestinian children learn that Jews are liars and fraudsters, and that Jews spread corruption which will lead to their annihilation. Terrorists are glorified as a role models. Lessons which incite to violence are taught across all grades and subjects, including in math and science class. Inevitably, the systematic teaching of hatred and violence within the UNRWA school system is Palestinian terror against Israel.

Myth 5: Palestinians in Gaza truly need global funding for their most basic needs.

From what the IDF has discovered in Gaza over the past three months it does not seem that Gazans are exceptionally needy or helpless.

The Hamas government in Gaza appears to be perfectly capable of undertaking big, sophisticated, and expensive projects ranging from underground tunnel and bunker networks that rival London’s underground subway system, to industrial weapons factories built to the best engineering standards, to well-organized commando units with top-notch intelligence capabilities and crafty attack planning skills.

Palestinians in Gaza do not suffer from underfunding, sub-par education, or a deprivation of skilled labor, but from self-inflicted wounds that stem from a distortion of priorities. For decades they have prioritized warfare against Israel over building their own society in a healthy way. They need Western guidance (pressure) in re-ordering their priorities, not necessarily more cash or other aid.

Myth 6: Palestinians in Gaza need UNRWA to keep them alive.

 This is not true according to Palestinians themselves. Even as some Western funders of UNRWA have suspended donations to UNRWA in recent days, the main concern expressed by Palestinians relates to a possible denouement in global recognition of their cause. They are much more distressed about the political blow to their status as privileged victims than they are about the money.

There are hundreds of social media posts and other testimonies indicating this; that Gazans see UNRWA far less as a critical provider of social services and emergency aid and much more as the vital validator of Palestinian identity in their never-ending war with Israel.

Myth 7: Without an immediate restoration of full UNRWA funding, Palestinians in Gaza will starve.

There is no “dire crisis” in access to food and water in Gaza. Nobody there is on the “verge of starvation.” Hundreds of trucks with goods and fuels enter Gaza every day despite the war, based on donations from Arab and (still) Western countries. Hamas demonstrably confiscates millions of dollars’ worth of such supplies for its army and favored elites, about which UNRWA has done nothing. But a steady flow of goods into Gaza continues, even if UNRWA’s pockets are a bit less padded.

Myth 8: UNRWA is the most efficient way to deliver assistance to Palestinians.

No, it certainly is not, and not just because UNRWA lets Hamas run-off with lots of goods. There are far more efficient, less corrupt, and less grossly political aid agencies, some of which already are present in Gaza (and the West Bank), that can be mobilized to replace UNRWA. This includes USAID, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme. They could all do the work without succumbing to Palestinian legerdemain.

Myth 9: UNRWA can be fixed.

UNRWA needs more than an “urgent audit,” as the EU reluctantly mumbled this week, and much more than “enhanced due diligence and other oversight mechanisms,” as one unfriendly-to-Israel congressman grudgingly called-for.

UNRWA needs to be abolished so that Gaza’s transition away from aid and toward economic development, and away from genocidal fantasies and toward peacebuilding, can begin quickly. It is certainly true that the current division of labor – UNRWA services above ground, Hamas terror operations below ground and from within UNRWA facilities – cannot continue.

This requires different international actors that can develop productive industry and jobs in Gaza, and that can lead the construction and operation of civilian services. International funding may still be necessary, but it should be administered by foreign governments directly and by different organizations that are subject to continuous oversight and rigorous accountability.

Myth 10: Wartime is not the right time to shutter UNRWA.

Now is the perfect time to do so. As Israel liberates Gaza from Hamas, the international community can unshackle Palestinians from UNRWA. And at the same time Israel can unchain itself from destructive dependency on UNRWA and its problematic Israeli counterpart, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories – COGAT.

Then the rebuilding of Gaza can advance, free from rank corruption, destructive indoctrination, the coddling of terrorism, and overall moral rot that for too long has contaminated international aid politics for Palestinians.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, 02.02.2024

Key Messages:

• No other international organization in the past 75 years has enabled, supported, fostered and empowered the Palestinian rejectionist and anti-Israel ideology (the “from the River to the Sea” concept) as UNRWA has done.
• Alternatives exist for providing humanitarian aid, welfare, health and education services to the Palestinians, other than through UNRWA.
• The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should not have been treated as refugees in the first place, and the provision of aid to the Strip’s residents should not have been tied to refugee status.The promises of a reform in UNRWA should not be relied upon; numerous such attempts have been made in the past – and all have failed.
•  IntroductionOne of the Israeli hostages abducted to Gaza on October 7 revealed, on returning to Israel, that he had been held at the home of an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) teacher[1]. In the past two weeks, IDF forces have presented evidence of weaponry and ammunition having been found under UNRWA crates[2]. However, the true problem with UNRWA is not one specific incident or another. The true problem with UNRWA is its very existence.No other entity in the past 75 years has enabled, actualized, supported, fostered and empowered the Palestinian rejectionist ideology as UNRWA has done. This ideology denies the basic legitimacy of the existence of a State of Israel, nurtures a perpetual refugee status of the majority of Palestinians, and demands a massive return of those “refugees” into the State of Israel (referred to as the “Right of Return”). This ideology played a key role in the horrors of October 7.Background

  UNRWA was founded in December 1949[3] as a temporary agency for 18 months, to rehabilitate the Arab refugees from Israel’s War of Independence. Ever since, the agency has been operating as a temporary entity whose mandate is extended every three years, without having stricken off even a single person’s name from the lists of refugees. Instead of an agency for aiding or rehabilitating the Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has become an agency for perpetuating the Palestinian refugees’ existence until they can ‘return’ en masse to Israel.

  According to the agency’s records, there are 1.6 million “registered Palestinian refugees” in the Gaza Strip today (as of 2022)[4], out of a total of 2.1 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip[5]; i.e., over 75%. The Palestinians and the Arab countries have always refused to include the Palestinian refugees under the auspices of the UN’s global refugee agency (UNHCR). As a result, the definition of a “Palestinian refugee” differs from that of any other refugee in the world.

  In the context of the Gaza Strip, there are several key differences between the definitions. The first is that a refugee anywhere in the world must be located outside their country in order to be considered a refugee, whereas a Palestinian refugee need not be. “Palestinian refugees” currently living in the Gaza Strip view the Strip as part of Palestine; meaning, they are in “Palestine”, yet are nevertheless treated as “refugees from Palestine”. Such a state of affairs does not exist anywhere else in the world. Refugees all over the world are people who have left their country and crossed an internationally-recognized border. The Palestinians who relocated from Jaffa or Ashkelon to Gaza during Israel’s War of Independence did not cross such a border, and accordingly should never have been treated as refugees in the first place.

  Another difference between UNRWA and UNHCR concerns their treatment of offspring. In the case of the Palestinians, any child born to a “registered refugee” is automatically registered as a refugee. UNHCR has a more complex process, with registration not being automatic and being considered on a case-by-case basis[6]. It is only in the case of the Palestinians that a state of affairs has come about where the number of the refugees’ descendants registered as ‘refugees’ far exceeds the number of the original refugees. The result is that hundreds of thousands of the people living in Gaza have never left their homes, are living in what they themselves consider to be Palestine, yet are nevertheless treated as refugees from Palestine. This is completely absurd.

  The Problem

  UNRWA grants a fictitious refugee status to over 75% of Gaza’s population, thereby providing them with international endorsement of their belief that their true home is not in Gaza, but rather in the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jaffa or Beersheba. This is a political refugee status, intended to perpetuate the conflict. This refugee status provides the Palestinians with a pretext to continue their war against the Jews.

  Demanding their ‘return’ into Israel is the principal mechanism through which they hope to transform Israel from a Jewish state into an Arab one.

  UNRWA, which is funded by the international community at a cost of about one billion dollars every year, sends the Palestinians the exact opposite message from the one they should receive. Instead of conveying to them an unequivocal message that the world has no intention of supporting the Palestinian delusions to supplant Israel, the world is doing the opposite. The messages conveyed by the mere fact of UNRWA’s existence, and naturally also through the education system and the diplomatic and public mantle provided to the Palestinians by the agency, are that the demand for Israel’s destruction is a legitimate one. UNRWA is the international expression of the antisemitic calls of “from the River to the Sea”, since both mean the same thing: a demand for the elimination of the Jewish state and its replacement with an Arab state.

  For the Palestinians, UNRWA primary importance lies not in its role as a technical agency providing education and health services. For the Palestinians, UNRWA serves as an insurance policy issued to them by the international community, and an endorsement both of their own self-concept as having experienced the greatest calamity in the history of humanity (the “Nakba”) and as being entitled to one day return to the territory of the State of Israel. When, in 2018, the U.S. government decided to cut off the agency’s funding, Palestinians’ reactions did not focus on the possible impairment of the quality of education and health services; rather, they expressed indignation and outrage that their “Right of Return” was being tampered with.

  The Solution

  As long as Gazans believe themselves to be refugees and harbor hopes of one day returning into Israel’s territory, funds and aid delivered to the Strip for purposes of constructing housing will actually be used for constructing terror infrastructure aimed at advancing the vision of ‘Return’.

  For this reason, UNRWA must be dismantled, and any aid of any kind that the international community wishes to provide to Gaza must be provided through other avenues. The best option is to provide such aid through the national aid agencies operated by various countries, some of which are already active in Gaza (and in many other places around the world.) Thus, for example, the U.S. provides aid all over the world, and in Gaza as well, through USAID. Similar government agencies exist in the EU, UK, Norway, Sweden and many other European countries. Apolitical U.N. agencies, such as the World Food Programme, can also play a role. In any case, the aid must be completely unassociated with any political aspect of the conflict, and from the fictitious refugee status. Just as the international community has provided aid in numerous countries around the world, such as Haiti or Turkey, in recent years, without tying that aid to refugee status, such should be the case in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority as well.

  Conclusion

  UNRWA fuels the mindset of a Palestinian ‘Return’ and serves as an important pillar of the rejectionist Nakba ethos. Since Israel’s cooperation with UNRWA has been voluntary from the outset, Israel can terminate its cooperation with UNRWA.

  Any international aid to the Gaza Strip, whether in welfare, health and education services or in any other field, must be provided through other channels, and in no case through UNRWA.

  Attempts to “fix” or “improve” UNRWA should in no case be relied upon. This is an agency whose primary purpose is to perpetuate the Palestinian ideology of return. All past attempts to carry out reforms of UNRWA have failed – and for good reason. Such is the organization’s very DNA, and it cannot be changed. Therefore, UNRWA should have no role in a post-Hamas Gaza.

  [1] https://x.com/bokeralmog/status/1729929618742755477?s=20

  [2] https://www.mako.co.il/news-military/6361323ddea5a810/Article-b3b05439b5a2c81027.htm

  [3] UN General Assembly Resolution 302, Assistance to Palestine Refugees, A/RES/302(IV) (December 8, 1949). https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/051/21/PDF/NR005121.pdf?OpenElement

  [4] “UNRWA in Action” Factsheet. https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/content/resources/unrwa_in_numbers_eng_1.pdf

  [5] CIA World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/

  [6] “Procedural Standards for Refugee Status Determination under UNHCR’s Mandate,” https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/577e17944.pdf.