http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/perspectives44.html

Executive Summary: The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) was
created under the jurisdiction of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
with the unique responsibility of solely aiding the Palestinians. Due to this
special status, the UNRWA perpetuates, rather than resolves, the Palestinian
refugee issue, and therefore serves as a major obstacle toward resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like no other UN body, UNRWA’s definition of
refugees includes not only the refugees themselves, but also their descendents.
Moreover, refugees keep their status even if they have gained citizenship.
UNRWA employs teachers affiliated with Hamas and allows the dissemination of
Hamas messages in its schools. The Hamas coup in Gaza of July 2007 has
resulted in a Hamas takeover of UNRWA facilities there. Therefore, UNRWA’s
activities require urgent action. The Agency should be dissolved and its services
transferred to more appropriate administering organizations.

Background

Millions of refugees worldwide – over 130 million since the end of World War
II – have come under the responsibility of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), which aims to resettle and rehabilitate refugees. On December
8, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 302,
establishing an agency dedicated solely to “direct relief and works programs” for the
Palestinian Arab refugees – UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) –
making it a unique body.

UNRWA exists in order to perpetuate, rather than to resolve, the Palestinian
refugee issue. No Palestinian has ever lost his or her refugee status.
There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who
are citizens of Jordan, for example – yet as far as UNRWA is concerned they
are still refugees, eligible for aid. UNRWA, over the past 60 years, has
transformed itself into a central vehicle for the perpetuation of the refugee
problem, and into a major obstacle for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

The Problem of Definition
When UNRWA first began counting refugees in 1948, it did so in a way without
precedent – seeking to maximize the number of those defined as refugees.
UNRWA counts every descendant of the original refugees as a refugee themselves –
leading to an increase of 400 percent in the number since 1948.
This was a politically motivated definition to imply that either
Palestinians would remain refugees forever or until the day that they returned in a
triumph to a Palestinian Arab state that included the territory where Israel
existed. If they built lives elsewhere, even after many generations – decades or
centuries – they still remained officially refugees. In contrast to other
situations around the world, other refugees only retained that status until they
found permanent homes elsewhere, presumably as citizens of other countries.
Moreover, refugee status was based solely on the applicant’s word. Even
UNRWA admitted its figures were inflated in a 1998 Report of the Commissioner
General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in
the Near East (July 1997-30 June 1998): “UNRWA registration figures are based
on information voluntarily supplied by refugees primarily for the purpose of
obtaining access to Agency services and hence cannot be considered
statistically valid demographic data.”
Fostering Conflict

In October 2004, then UNRWA Commissioner General Peter Hansen publicly
admitted for the first time that Hamas members were on the UNWRA payroll, adding, “
I don’t see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean
that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and
exclude people from one persuasion as against another.” Consequently, taxpayers’
money in countries where Hamas was legally defined as a terrorist
organization, like the United States and Canada, was being illegally used to fund
Hamas-controlled activities.

Hanson’s view that Hamas was a normal political organization whose doctrines
did not interfere with the governance and education of Palestinians remains
the position of UNRWA. This has been so even when Hamas has committed
violence against other Palestinians. After the organization seized Gaza by force in
July 2007, UNRWA immediately indicated to Hamas that it was eager to get back
to providing its services. Nothing was changed in its procedure or
performance after the takeover.

A graphic demonstration of this issue was the death of Awad al-Qiq in May
2008. Qiq had a long career as a science teacher in an UNRWA school and had
been promoted to run its Rafah Prep Boys School. He was also the leading
bombmaker for Islamic Jihad. He was killed while supervising a factory to make
rockets and other weapons for use against Israel, located a short distance from
the school. Qiq was thus simultaneously building weapons for attacking Israeli
civilians while indoctrinating his students to do the same. Islamic Jihad did
not need to pay him a salary for his terrorist activities. The UN and the
American taxpayer were already doing so.
The increasing numbers of UNRWA teachers who openly identify with radical
groups have created a teachers’ bloc that ensures the election of members of
Hamas and individuals committed to Islamist ideologies. Using classrooms as a
place to spread their radical messages, these teachers have also gravitated to
local Palestinian elections. Thus, UNRWA’s education system has become a
springboard for the political activities of Hamas. For example, Minister of
Interior and Civil Affairs Minister Saeed Siyam of Hamas, was a teacher in UNRWA
schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003. He then became a member of UNRWA’s Arab
Employees Union, and has headed the Teachers Sector Committee. Other notable
Hamas graduates of the UNRWA education system include Prime Minister Ismail
Haniyeh and Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, the former Hamas chief.
Fostering Dependency

UNRWA’s budget has been supported by many countries of which the United
States and Western countries have been the largest contributors. In 1990, UNRWA’s
annual budget was over $292 million, and by 2000 it had increased to $365
million. Despite this seemingly significant rise, however, actual allocations
among the various refugee camps has decreased – compounded by a very high
birth rate and burgeoning camp populations. Refugees were discouraged from moving
out and had the incentive of being on welfare if they remained.

Per capita spending among refugees in camps thus declined from $200 in
services per year per refugee in the 1970s to about $70 currently. This situation
has been most evident in Lebanon, where the government provides little if any
additional assistance to the Palestinians.

UNRWA provides jobs to a large number of Palestinians (it has a full time
staff of 23,000). While the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) avoid employing locals who are also recipients of
agency services, UNRWA does not make this distinction. UNRWA thus keeps a large
population of refugees and their descendants in a permanent state of welfare
dependency, financed by the western taxpayer. In so doing, it acts as a
barrier to attempts to make the refugees into productive citizens. Bureaucracies
have a tendency to become self-perpetuating. In the case of UNRWA, this
tendency is exacerbated by the fact that the organization’s raison d’etre is the
preserving of a refugee problem, rather than finding a solution for it.

Conclusion

The UN erred when it created a UN body devoted exclusively to one refugee
population and with a modus operandi contradicting that of all other relief
institutions. Four steps are required to bring the international approach to the
Palestinian refugee issue in line with standard practice on similar
situations.

First, UNRWA itself should be dissolved. Second, the services UNRWA
currently provides should be transferred to other UN agencies, notably the UNHCR,
which have a long experience with such programs. Third, responsibility for
normal social services should be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. A large
portion of the UNRWA staff should be transferred to that governmental
authority. Fourth, donors should use the maximum amount of oversight to ensure
transparency and accountability.

Jonathan Spyer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Research in
International Affairs Center, IDC, Herzliya.