Israel and the United Arab Emirates are reportedly working together to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This is significant because after the United States cut funding for the agency in 2018, bringing it to the verge of bankruptcy, Abu Dhabi, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, has been a major source of funding keeping the organization afloat. Thus, losing aid from the UAE could spell the end of UNRWA.
Yet, in 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly urged the White House to reconsider its decision to cut funding entirely, and to instead reallocate aid from UNRWA to the UNHCR — the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
But why? What’s the problem with UNRWA and why would Israel want foreign financial support to continue being funneled to the Palestinians?
The answer requires a real understanding of how the UN works, what a “refugee” really is, and the surprising role of international law in making this determination.
What is the difference between UNRWA and UNHCR?
After Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, many Arabs remained and became Israeli citizens. They currently number 1.89 million people, or 20.1% of the country’s total population. But those who left — either by choice or to escape the fighting — became refugees. In 1949, UNRWA was formed specifically to provide assistance to some 750,000 of them.
A year later, in 1950, the UNHCR was formed, to oversee all other refugees in the world.
The goal of UNHCR is to help refugees either return home or, if that is not possible, to resettle them and their children in new countries, thereby decreasing the total number of global refugees.
Following Israel’s establishment, for example, between 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were exiled from their homes in Arab countries and to this day have not been able to return. But they are no longer refugees; rather, they are citizens of Israel or other countries. This model formed part of the basis for how the UNHCR works to this day.
Related Reading: The Forgotten Jewish Refugees From Arab Lands
UNRWA does the opposite: it considers all descendants of Palestinians to be “refugees” for an unlimited number of generations. This is partly because some Arab nations have denied citizenship to Palestinians as a symbol of resistance against Israel’s existence. But even those Palestinians who have built lives and become citizens in other countries are still considered “refugees” by UNRWA.
This produces some odd paradoxes. Case in point: the world-famous American fashion model Gigi Hadid, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, is technically a Palestinian “refugee.” There are thousands of other less famous but equally counterintuitive cases.
UNRWA violates international law
UNRWA’s definition of refugee technically violates international law, as it contradicts the 1951 UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as:
…a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.
(emphasis added)
Under Article I(c)(3), a person is no longer a refugee if, for example, he or she has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.”
UNRWA’s definition of a Palestinian refugee, which is not anchored in any treaty and thus does not carry the weight of international law, includes no such provision. In fact, UNRWA defines “Palestinian refugees” to include all offspring of male Palestinian refugees from 1948, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere.
The United Nations claims on its website that UNRWA’s unusual practice does not violate international law and norms, by pointing out that there are other conflicts in the world where refugee status has continued for successive generations (eg. Afghanistan and Somalia).
However, the United Nations’ claim is not only misleading but objectively wrong. Under the 1951 Convention (1967 Protocol, Article IV Section B), successive generations have refugee status only if it is necessary to maintain what is called “family unity.” For example, imagine that a couple escaped Afghanistan, became refugees in Pakistan, and then had a child. Even though that child never lived in Afghanistan, he or she would nevertheless be granted refugee status in order to keep the family unit from being broken apart by potential developments.
However, under UNRWA’s rules, there is no “family unity” limitation. To the contrary, unlimited future generations may inherit refugee status even when there is no living family connection to pre-1948 British-ruled Palestine and, consequently, there is no danger of tearing apart any family unit. This is no subtle distinction: UNRWA has, knowingly or not, created a financial incentive for host countries to deny Palestinians citizenship, so that the nations in question can benefit from the international aid that comes with hosting people who maintain refugee status in perpetuity.
According to a 2012 report by the United States Senate, under the terms of the 1951 Convention, which applies to all other people in the world, the number of real Palestinian refugees living today is only about 30,000. Yet, according to UNRWA, the number of “refugees” is over 5 million, making Palestinians the only group in the world whose refugee population has increased — and dramatically — over time.
Other problems with UNRWA
UNRWA produces other problems as well: its textbooks inculcate children with hatred of Israel and Jews; it has been caught storing Hamas rockets and missiles in the basements of UN-run schools; there has been rampant corruption and abuse within the body, and much, much more.
Why Israel wants funding to continue
The solution can be derived from a subtle aspect of international and Israeli law. Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government must follow the obligations of an “occupying power” under Geneva Convention IV, the Hague Convention, and related international treaties. These obligations include helping the Palestinians with security, health, education, and more.
These tasks are subsidized by foreign aid money and facilitated by the work of international bodies, such as UNRWA. In the absence of such aid, both the international treaties and the Israeli Supreme Court would place those obligations squarely on Israel. So, as a possible solution to this dilemma, in 2018 Israel suggested disbanding UNRWA but then shifting its budget to the UNHCR with a view to effectively finally treating Palestinians like all other refugees in the world.
In doing so, the most immediate beneficiaries would be the Palestinians themselves because host countries of Palestinian “refugees” would at last experience financial pressure to grant citizenship and integrate them into society. Thus, the Palestinian and Israeli people would after more than seven decades be able to move on with the business of building a just and positive future instead of perpetually reliving the suffering of the past.
This is the exact mission the UNHCR attempts to accomplish for all other displaced people in the world.
Israelis and Palestinians deserve no less.
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Featured image: Abed Rahim Khatib via Shutterstock
