There is little doubt that for many Palestinians in the “refugee camps” (many of which are urban sprawls virtually indistinguishable from their surroundings) in neighboring states such as Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, poverty is a real issue. But focusing on the financial crisis facing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in terms of funding alone, as a recent article by the United Press International wire service does, leaves readers misinformed as to the true causes of the situation.
The article, published December 1, by Dalal Saoud, tells readers of how UNRWA’s situation, coupled with Lebanon’s deteriorating economic conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic, have “pushed the estimated 200,000 refugees deeper into poverty.”
There is no doubt that the plight of the average Palestinian in Lebanon is miserable. But beyond the factors mentioned above, the funding of UNRWA is only a consequence of the real story.
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“Despair, Poverty and Anger”
For example, in the third paragraph, Claudio Cordone, UNRWA’s director in Lebanon, is quoted:
The conditions are really difficult. If we ran out of money and we cannot support the poor among the Palestinians, whose numbers are increasing, then they are left on their own… There is nobody else for them. UNRWA literally is the only lifeline.”
In the same vein, the following paragraph describes Lebanon as “cash-strapped” and “grappling with its worst financial and economic crisis since its 1975-90 civil war,” meaning the country “can barely feed its own population and doesn’t have the capacity to help any of the refugees on its soil.” And the paragraph after cites another UNRWA official — this time Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini is described as sounding the alarm,
warning that a huge deficit in the agency’s budget could force it to stop some of its services and the payment of salaries to 28,000 staffers in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Jordan.”
After all this, readers are told of another official involved in the situation, Abdelnasser el Ayi, office director of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, who talks of the pervasive “despair, poverty and anger.”
Critical Questions Not Asked
Missing among all of this is any background regarding the day-to-day situation for Palestinians in Lebanon in general, even before the current crisis. In fact, a clue exists in the very first paragraph, in which UNRWA is described as the “only source of survival” for Palestinians in Lebanon. Why should this be? How is it that the only source of survival is a United Nations agency?
Instead of probing as to how this situation arose, writer Dalal Saoud fails to ask critical questions of the Lebanese authorities: How could it be that the Palestinians, many of whom have been living in Lebanon for over 50 years, have not been integrated?
If Saoud had stopped to question why the Palestinians are in such a dire situation, she would have discovered that Palestinians in Lebanon are prevented from applying for citizenship and are barred from a slew of desirable occupations. These legal restrictions bar Palestinians in Lebanon from employment in at least 25 professions, including law, medicine and engineering, a system which effectively relegates them to the black market for labor.
Moreover, Palestinians in Lebanon are still subject to a discriminatory law introduced in 2001 preventing them from registering property. All of this is in contravention of international human rights law, which requires Lebanon to absorb refugees.
Any article describing the Palestinians in Lebanon needs to refer to these essential background facts in some way. Omitting the systemic discrimination misinforms readers as to the true extent and reasons for the Palestinians’ plight in the country.
If only Lebanon would change its policy. Instead of — physically and metaphorically — fencing off the Palestinians, they might be regarded as valuable human resources that could positively impact Lebanese society as a whole. Around the world, immigrant and refugee populations have been found to inject energy and value into their host nations’ economies when treated well. Indeed, Syrians contributed approximately $792 million to Egypt’s economy between 2011 and 2016. There is no reason why Palestinians cannot do the same.
Why is UNRWA Being Defunded?
Another critical aspect left unexplored by Saoud is the reasons for the defunding of UNRWA. In truth, the existence of a dedicated UN agency for Palestinian refugees, distinct from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is a divisive anomaly that has repeatedly drawn criticism over the years.
The controversial issue of Palestinian refugees is complex and well-documented. The world over, refugee status is applied to those forced to flee their homes. But since December 1949, Palestinian Arabs have been treated differently, with the creation of the UNRWA. Instead of being absorbed into their host countries as mandated by international law, Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere have been left in permanent limbo. And as opposed to refugees around the world, their descendants are also defined as refugees. Therefore, instead of getting better with time, the issue of Palestinian refugees gets worse with the passing of the years, and is weaponized against Israel.
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For these reasons alone, there have long been calls to defund UNRWA and instead pressure Arab states to properly integrate their Palestinian refugee populations as mandated by international law.
Antisemitism and Terrorism Links
According to the the Center for Near East Policy Research (CFNEPR), textbooks used by UNRWA have been indoctrinating refugees with virulent antisemitism.
UNRWA is responsible for the education of 321,000 students in 370 schools, yet it seemingly never inspected the PA schoolbooks to see if they adhere to the core principles of the United Nations. In the absence of such a system, history textbooks included ahistorical, inciting claims such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion being passed as confidential resolutions of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897.
The problem is not limited to textbooks: the staff employed at UNRWA have repeatedly been found sharing content that glorifies and justifies terrorism. According to a 2019 UN Watch report, Facebook posts endorsing and glorifying murderous terrorists like Hamas explosives expert Abdullah Barghouti, who was held responsible for killing 67 Israelis and wounding many hundreds more during the Second Intifada, were rife. So too were posts supporting car-ramming attacks and knife assaults, and even posts portraying Adolf Hitler as a humanitarian.
The concerns do not end there. In the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, terrorists repeatedly fired rockets at Israel from UN properties, hoping to effectively use them as a form of shield from counter-attack. On a number of occasions subsequently, tunnels have been discovered running under or adjacent to UNRWA properties.
Hamas and other terror groups have used tunnels in the past to attack Israeli soldiers, cross the border into Israel to launch raids, and hide personnel and weapons from Israel. Although UNRWA strenuously denies it has any connection to the military installations, questions still remain as to how and why tunnels have repeatedly been found near UNRWA premises.
Indeed, James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general counsel and researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a report in 2009 in which he criticized UNRWA practices. One of his conclusions was that UNRWA is not ousting terrorists from its ranks:
UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff. UNRWA has no preemployment security checks and does not monitor off-time behavior to ensure compliance with the organization’s anti-terror rules. No justification exists for millions of dollars in humanitarian aid going to those who can afford to pay for UNRWA services.”
Even if the terror links prove to be entirely coincidental, the spread of classic antisemitism at UN-funded schools is of severe concern. Surely, a balanced summary of UNRWA’s funding crisis would include the desire of governments around the world to withdraw from paying into a program that, far from solving or easing one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, instead perpetuates and aggravates it.
