Was UNRWA Created to Sabotage Israel from its Inception?

If you’ve been following the mainstream media stories about UNRWA, you may think we are getting to the bottom of their complicity with Hamas. Let me assure you, however, that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. The purpose of the organization, its many deceptions about its actions, the willingness of the international community to ignore its duplicity over the years, the true nature of its relationship with Hamas, are finally emerging.

It isn’t a pretty picture.

Since the inception of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), questions regarding the need for an agency separate from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were either ignored or disregarded. The UNHCR “is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country.” The formation of UNRWA sounds like a duplication of effort—unless you have other goals in mind . Originally, this was their mandate:

UNRWA was founded in December 1949 to provide ‘humanitarian relief to the more than 700,000 refugees and displaced persons who had been forced to flee their homes in Palestine as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war,’ according to a U.N. report on the agency. The U.N. initially defined a Palestinian refugee eligible for UNRWA services as anyone whose ‘normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.’ That displacement is referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba, which means ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic.

Over time, however, UNRWA did nothing to alleviate the refugee status of the Palestinians. Today, the 5.9 million Palestinians are descendants of the original refugees and have been deemed refugees, too. That designation was a result of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, passed at the end of the war in Palestine, when it was decided that refugees should not only be allowed to return to their homes (the right of return) but be compensated. Israel was not a member of the UN at that time, and their protests against this resolution were rejected. The UN has a long history of taking action against Israel, too—for a list of the resolutions issued against Israel, go here . As recently as 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued for placing the Palestinians under UNHCR and to disband UNRWA, but that might undermine the right of return, and isn’t well-received by Palestinians.

In recent years, the true nature of UNRWA has become much clearer. Evidence that UNRWA was hiding terrorists and munitions in their schools, and therefore providing human shields for Hamas became obvious. Eventually the Palestinians developed permanent communities:

Although initially created as a temporary measure to aid the displaced Palestinian people, the decades-long failure to resolve the refugee crisis meant many of the camps serviced by Unrwa have developed into full-blown neighbourhoods with permanent facilities, religious and educational bodies and essential services. Unrwa remains at the heart of these neighbourhoods, with 99 percent of its staff recruiting from the local population.

In 2018, once UNRWA’s colluding with Hamas came to light, Donald Trump ended funding to UNRWA, stopping millions of dollars from entering their coffers. But with his usual defiance against Trump, Joe Biden reinstated the funding. In 2021, the EU threatened to stop funding UNRWA due to the incitement to violence and hatred toward Jews. Anti-Semitic propaganda was taught to students in the schools, and anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish textbooks were used.

In addition, UNRWA has had financial problems before this recent crisis. And now, countries have withdrawn support as of this past week-end, because members of UNRWA finally went too far in its collusion with Hamas on October 7:

An Israeli intelligence dossier that prompted a cascade of countries to halt funds for a U.N. Palestinian aid agency includes allegations that some staff took part in abductions and killings during the Oct. 7 raid that sparked the Gaza War. The six-page dossier, seen by Reuters, alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. It has names and pictures for 11 them.

The nine donors, namely the US, UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, and Canada, cut off support for the agency on Saturday following the allegations, prompting warnings from the body that it will lose the ability to provide aid to the 2.2 million people that use its services after February. UNRWA is primarily funded by donors, not by the UN, which makes its financial solvency questionable. The International Crisis Group wrote a report one month before the October 7 attack:

‘Even if Unrwa is bailed out at the last moment, as has happened before and could indeed happen again in 2023, the perpetual state of crisis is untenable. It undermines staff morale, prompts salary strikes and reduces an international agency with a proud record of aiding Palestinian refugees to a miserable beggar for alms,’ said the report. ‘It is also inefficient to run what amounts to a welfare state for three million people on a shoestring, as it militates against investing in infrastructure, digitisation and other updating of outlay, eroding the quality of services.’

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Given UNRWA’s questionable agenda, its redundant creation just for the Palestinians, its efforts to create a permanent community for the refugees from the beginning, the early U.N. Resolutions that would provide a permanent foothold in the area for the refugees, collusion with Hamas, and the terrorist activities of employees, I have to wonder if the formation of a land for Jews was sabotaged from the start.

It’s time to bring this misguided and dangerous organization to an end.