Israel harming UNRWA could be an own goal

If you wondered how Israelis, or at least the Jewish majority and their political representatives, feel about the UN Relief and Works Agency, look no further than Israel’s parliament. Late last month, the Knesset voted by a huge majority of 92-10 to ban UNRWA from the country within 90 days. In addition, Israeli legislators also voted to designate this humanitarian aid organization as a terror group, effectively ending any direct interaction between the UN agency and the Israeli state.

I have written recently about a flurry of legislation in Israel, all of which has an unpleasant anti-Palestinian flavor, from trying to bring down the Palestinian Authority to exacerbating the oppression of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Nevertheless, this act against UNRWA could have an immediate and excruciating impact on millions of Palestinian refugees registered with this humanitarian agency, at the worst possible time in their history since the war of 1948.

Make no mistake, this law is very popular with Jewish Israelis who have, for years, been fed by their government with misinformation that presents UNRWA as an enemy of the country, one that unnecessarily prolongs and perpetuates the refugee issue and advances anti-Israeli and even antisemitic propaganda. It is generally portrayed as a tool in the hands of the most extremist Palestinians who are only interested in the destruction of Israel.

Evidently, the participation of a very small number of UNRWA employees in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, which the agency itself called “abhorrent” in its investigation of the matter and as a result terminated the employment of nine of them, has caused massive reputational damage. Worse, it opened the door to its detractors to go on the attack and smear the entire organization and its activities to the absurd extent of labeling the organization as a terrorist group.

The Israeli government is not interested in dealing constructively with some of its understandable grievances

Yossi Mekelberg

In doing so, they ignored the fact that UNRWA carried out a full investigation into the issue and handed out the most severe punishment possible to those who were found guilty of participation in the Hamas attacks. There was no excuse for anyone to take part in such an atrocity and by doing so harm the organization that helps supply Palestinians with their most basic needs. Yet, it is worth reminding ourselves that UNRWA employs 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza and that the inexcusable acts of a tiny handful of them cannot and should not reflect on an organization with nearly 30,000 staff across the region. And as long as the organization adheres to the stringent UN code of conduct when its employees go astray, it should not be punished and, importantly, neither should those who benefit from its services and who are facing starvation.

Israel also has a point when it complains about the content of some of the textbooks taught at UNRWA-sponsored schools in the Occupied Territories. Out of very little choice, the curriculum and textbooks taught at UNRWA’s schools are those of the “host country” and there are cases of some of the PA’s textbooks containing antisemitic and inflammatory language aimed at Israel.

Part of this discussion should have initially taken place between Israel and the PA, as much as among the international community, to persuade the Palestinian leadership that there is no place for such language in their textbooks. There is a logic in teaching the curriculum of the host country to allow the refugees to be no different to other students, as it enhances their future opportunities, but for the sake of everyone involved the PA must rid its teaching materials of discriminatory language, as UNRWA has been pleading with it for years.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government is not interested in dealing constructively with some of its understandable grievances. In its usual belligerent and populist approach, it exploits the issue to deflect from its own failures. In Benjamin Netanyahu’s world, there is always the need for enemies, domestic and external, that he and his government are fighting against to save the realm.

The relentless attacks against this UN humanitarian aid agency have become all too common in Israeli politics since Netanyahu took office and are currently being launched with more venom, mainly because it is an easy target, as UNRWA, being a UN organ, cannot directly reply to these attacks and defend itself. Most significantly, however, UNRWA is not the issue and should never be the main story. More important and pressing is the need to provide nearly 6 million registered Palestinian refugees with humanitarian aid, with an extra sense of commitment and urgency to the people of Gaza, most of whom were refugees to begin with and, over the last 13 months, may have been displaced several times over.

More important and pressing is the need to provide nearly 6 million registered Palestinian refugees with humanitarian aid

Yossi Mekelberg

Under the most difficult of circumstances, such as bloody conflicts in the Occupied Territories, Lebanon or Syria, it has been UNRWA that has continued to provide millions of Palestinian refugees with healthcare, shelter and social services. The organization was never meant to remain in charge of such a mission for more than 75 years; it is only due to the failure of politicians to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it has become part of the landscape through no fault of its own. In an ideal world, following a peace agreement, all services provided by UNRWA would have been transferred to the government of an independent Palestinian state or the host countries, enabling a smoother transition.

Legislation aside, which in the case of the current Israeli government reflects a need for instant gratification, regardless of the fact that, in most cases, such a need leads to long-term harm. This particular piece of legislation is damaging for both Israel and the Palestinians.

For instance, in Jerusalem, if the ban goes ahead, UNRWA would have to close its headquarters in the eastern part of the city that has been annexed by Israel, disabling its activities there. In the refugee camp of Shuafat, the only one in the annexed Jerusalem side of Israel’s West Bank separation wall, more than 16,500 people would instantly be left with no health and education services. In this case, it would become Israel’s responsibility to provide such services. The choice for Israel would be either to become the humanitarian aid provider or to leave the refugees with no health, education or any other social services.

The debate should never have revolved around UNRWA. The discussion should concentrate on who is best positioned to ensure that Palestinian refugees receive the services they are entitled to and to improve them year after year. So far, no one has come up with a more viable alternative to UNRWA and this piece of performative Israeli legislation is playing politics with the welfare of millions of people and should not be allowed.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg