Trolls have been arriving here in some numbers, asking for my opinion on the United Nations RWA, which runs the UN's programmes to support Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA is one of the largest United Nations programmes, with over 30,000 personnel working across five areas of operations, and is unique in that it delivers services directly to beneficiaries.
UNRWA Headquarters are located in Amman and in Gaza. The Agency maintains a field office in each of its areas of operations - Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip - and liaison offices in New York, Washington, Brussels and Cairo.
And this is what it funds:
In Gaza, where most people are young or children, education is vital.
Without the UNRWA these people would be entirely without hope, and this area would be massively more stressed than it already was pre-7 October, and than it is now.
Without the UNRWA there would be vastly worse healthcare in Gaza. Now, those facilities are largely destroyed.
The UNRWA made possible the Israeli sanctions on Gaza by providing funding for those who lived in Gaza, and to some extent elsewhere, to survive in this situation. As a result, I do not doubt that it helped maintain peace for a very long time while also improving the lives of the refugees it served.
That is why I think the UN overall is a force for good. Not a perfect one, because perfection is a goal humans do not achieve. But a good one, nonetheless.
Nw, because it is suggested that twelve of the UNRWA's staff were involved with the Hamas attack (which I have always condemned, and still do condemn), the funding for the UNRWA is being withdrawn, just when their assistance is needed the most.
Let me make three observations.
First, the UNRWA had/has about 30,000 employees working in Gaza and elsewhere. Finding that maybe a dozen (as I understand it is suggested) of them were also engaged in violence for Hamas was akin to finding some coppers are bent, a teacher has abused children, or a GP has killed patients. Each is deeply regrettable. But do we stop funding the police, education and healthcare as a result? No. Of course, we don't. We root out the problem, but we don't suddenly declare law and order, education and healthcare undesirable as a result. So, why are we stopping funding the UNRWA because it did not know, and was not responsible for, what all its employees were doing? What is different?
Second, let's not ignore the extraordinarily convenient timing of this, coming just after the International Court of Justice ruling that was clearly very bad news for Israel, even if it stopped just short, as yet, of suggesting it is guilty of genocide, and has only at this moment to prevent it happening, which is a clear indication of its thinking that it might just be going on.
Third, let's look at the UNRWA's funding. The US is the biggest donor. Overall, though, the EU provides 44% of the funding and as the EU Observer has noted:
The EU Commission is reevaluating its funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in light of allegations of 12 staff involvement in the 7 October attack, but Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, and Spain, the most critical voices of Israel in the 27-nation bloc, will continue their funding.
So, like the US, UK and others, the EU is looking at withdrawing support for people who are already, in my opinion, the very clear victims of genocide and who are in the most desperate need of humanitarian aid and all because the UNRWA could not control what all its employees did, as no employer ever can, and which it would be absurd to have expected them to do.
In my opinion, that makes the countries withdrawing that funding party to the genocide and the war crimes.
I am aware of the risk of posting this.
I know that trolling and abuse will happen.
But we have a choice here. We can stand up for people. Or we can stand up for a government that is pursuing a policy of genocide and is manipulating the world's governments so that they support its plan to ethnically cleanse the people of Gaza.
There can be only one side that deserves support in that issue. And as a believer in the rights of both Jews and Palestinians to their own states, and to a two-state solution, I think that this is the moment for the world to stand beside the UNRWA, whilst condemning the actions of any of its employees who might have committed wholly unwarranted violence. And anyone who cannot spot the difference does not deserve to hold high office.
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Just for clarity , the UK, US and EU have withdrawn government financial support. Your wording gives the impression that the support only counts if it’s done by government. And government is less than half the economy in these places.
UNRWA is not a proscribed organisation and private donations from foundations, community groups and individuals are permitted, and I’m appalled by your collectivist outlook which led you not make that point.
You say you want to stand up for people, but actually you do not promote people funding UNRWA directly, you want it done through government.
The vast majority of the funding is via government so, very politely, stop being stupud.
I know you are trying to get around a troll barrier: you just show yourself up as a neoliberal idiot by doing so.
The prevention of genocide is an action for governments. I guess you had not noticed.
——
And a quick PS: I notice you were called George when commenting on the ICAEW this morning. How very odd….
I thought I had seen the name before.
I see from a quick search there is a Professor of that name at Tel Aviv. She writes on international affairs , refugees and humanitarian assistance programs.
One her papers is called. Review of the War of Return How Western indulgences of the Palestinian Dream has obstructed the Path to Peace.
Of course, it may be someone has just taken the name.
I am sure it is
Dear “Geroge” / Nitza Nachmias (delete as appropriate),
your comments suggest you are of a neo-liberal persuasion – shrink the state & the only thing that counts is private money. Perhaps one of your personas would like to tell us the % of private contributions to UNRWA – go on give us a hint. I’m guessing it is very small indeed.
Meanwhile, whilst you/me snipe from the sidelines, people (mostly women & children) are being murdered because they happend to live on the wrong side of a wholly synthetic border/have a religion a little bit different from the murderers. What a strange world.
UNWRA website clearly states how they are funded [1].
In 2022:-
US$1.17 billion from UN Member States
US$44.6 million from other UN entities
US£15.4 million from private partnerships and individuals
[1] https://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help/how-we-are-funded
I’m with Richard all the way on this topic. We accept that there will be rotten apples in any large organisation, as there is no legitimate way of learning any candidate for appointment’s views on a wide range of subjects. But the governments of those countries supporting Israel have apparently decided that that is what the UN should have done.
Way back in time, I applied to work in a similar organisation to UNRWA, and was accepted – but then had a serious illness and was unable to take up the appointment. One of my greatest regrets.
Thank you, Professor Murphy.
I think that it is important to focus on what is really going on here.
In situations like war – and this is a war by Israel on HAMAS – let’s just keep it simple for now and take the Israeli’s at face value – it is a fact that women and children (and the elderly and infirm) get caught in the cross fire.
The Israeli incursion and bombing of Gaza has killed a lot of non-combatants – mostly it seems women and children.
Let’s cast our minds back shall we to say the end of World War II and the unwinding of Nazi Europe. You can read all about this in the sober writing of R.M. Douglas in ‘Orderly & Humane:The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War’ (2012, Yale).
These expulsions were really hard on German women and children and the elderly as they were cast out of even their traditional German speaking lands as well as newly and illegally acquired lands – acts that would change Europe forever. The accounts are harrowing and do not do our species any credit.
The extermination of one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe in Poland by the Nazis, leaving it a pre-dominantly Catholic country these days, is another reminder that Europe is less integrated than it was BEFORE WWII and the consequences of that can be seen today in increased nationalism and Right wing ‘politics’. The Nazis still influence geo-politics even today in ways which are I think under-appreciated. As one Jewish academic says in the excellent documentary ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ (2022) the Nazi’s actually won – they succeeded basically in what they set out to do. You can see this 3 part documentary on BBC iPlayer and heartily recommend it.
But I digress – the point I’m making is that war is hard on the innocent.
When we send a murderer quite rightly to prison, the family is not incarcerated too. That is a natural justice. What transpires in Douglas’ book, is an act of collective revenge on the German people which in many ways is understandable, but also not justifiable in human terms at all.
We also see in Douglas’ account- in Hungary – opportunism – as the government there – and an ally of Nazi Germany – expelling their German speaking people for convenience and gain.
So, over to Gaza now and it is the innocent who are reaping the whirlwind for HAMAS’ attack. And this obfuscates Israel’s aims and objectives rather badly. Or is it opportunism?
All I see is a sop by the West to Jewish/Israeli sentiment to God knows who and where, even though there is huge human suffering by the innocents.
UNWRA is obviously needed now more than ever ( before, it was just making Israeli economic oppression easier for the people to live with). To throw that into doubt now is cruel and unnecessary as the ranks of the refugees grow. It’s just not on.
But what I really cannot understand is how anyone advocating that what is happening in Gaza is the right approach does not seem to consider that their actions (including the UNWRA) are creating memories that will inform and imperil their own future and that of the world.
And so the long reach of the Nazis/Fascism in history marches on with victims and oppressors blind to the fact. We’ve had our warnings from history (how many is it now?) and too many ignore them. Bodies like the UNWRA allow humanity to light a torch in dark events in history. Why snuff them out?
What a mess.
I totally agree with you.
I listened with utter despair to the decision to withdraw funding used to support a people in the most unimaginably awful circumstances. How low can we sink?!
I was also sickened by the item on Channel 4 news last night about the gathering in Israel of right wing extremists planning to re settle Gaza and expel all Palestinians, and, worse still, it was attended by many government ministers. It was a very disturbing display of inhumanity.
As you rightly say no organisation is perfect. No one suggested defunding or closing down the Catholic church after the many instances of abuse, or indeed the banking sector. It is only used as an excuse to punish the poor and disenfranchised like “benefit scroungers”, or the wrong kind of people with too many bedrooms…..
How could you watch the dispatches from Gaza and make that decision?!!
Judith, I share your opinion.
When I read the report of the gathering of the Right Wing Israelis, I thought, ‘planning to relocate a whole people? Isn’t THAT genocide?
The UN office webpage on genocide says ‘Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group.’ So driving the Palestinians out of Gaza and destroying their mosques, churches, museums and cultural sites does not seem to constitute genocide.
We saw hate filled violence in Hamas’s treatment of Israeli civilians on October 7th and the deliberate targeting of civilians by the IDF ( at least some of the time) may be a cold blooded from of hate. Killing when one can’t see the victims or hear them scream, just by pushing a button, is not a more moral way of murder.
Hannah Arendt’s attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann. She coined the phrase the banality of evil. Eichmann was not a monster full of hate but a rather plain man focused on movements of people to the camps. An apparatchik.
When I saw that our government -and others-are cutting funding because 0.01% of UNWRA have been accused of complicity with Hamas, is IMHO a form of callous indifference to mass human suffering.
That callous indifference is what drove the industrial scale extermination of the victims of the Holocaust. It is not peculiar to any race, nation or type of people. It is a trait found in the darker parts of Human Nature.
Ian said “So driving the Palestinians out of Gaza… does not seem to constitute genocide.”
It may not come under the definition of genocide, but it is still a war crime. See Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
[…] The UNRWA has been a force for peace and the good of people: it deserves our support now Richard Murphy […]
Thanks for the article Richard!
I’ve been frustrated because I’ve wanted to donate more to the humanitarian effort in Gaza but I’m afraid of these organizations funneling money to Israel instead. Vetting a charity is tough. The fact that the terrorist-run states in the West are reconsidering their funding for UNRWA is it’s biggest endorsement I’ve heard. I’ll be donating right now at https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page/en_EN
For those advocating a two-State solution, please ask yourself this.
How do you reconcile your soul to the fact that what you want can only be implemented with accompanying ethnic cleansing?
It doesn’t matter what partition lines you draw on a map, people of one ethnic group are going to be on the wrong side of it and be told to leave. So we’ve already established that you are somewhat comfortable with the concept.
Oh stop being stupid
No one is goimng to be told to leave
Every state has minority populations that they should protect
Why do people like you always talk drivel that is separated from reality?
I wondered why there are two UN refugee relief organisations, UNRWA and UNHCR.
Here Jonathan Cook explains the history (which is pretty much as old as the state of Israel itself) in a way that seems plausible, in the context of what we now know.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-01-30/war-un-refugee-israel-genocide/
I retweeted that earlier
Just for the record.
The 12 accused UNRWA workers have all either left, been sacked or died. However, 152 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza since the Israel retaliation war began.
It’s not beyond anyone’s imagination to see that the elimination of UNRWA from Gaza is a war aim of Netanyahu.
There is an interesting article on this matter in Le Monde this morning. I was much taken by the mention that Norway is refusing to apply “collective punishment” and will maintain their (5th largest) contribution. The article* lists the 17 countries (basically ‘five eyes’ and their best mates) that have now suspended their support. France (7th largest contributor) is not among them.
* https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2024/01/31/unrwa-qui-finance-l-agence-des-nations-unies-dediee-aux-refugies-palestiniens-aujourd-hui-en-pleine-tourmente_6213937_3210.html
Thank you