Today, on the 70th anniversary of its founding, the UN Relief and Works Agency, the UN’s main refugee agency serving Palestinians, is facing unprecedented challenges.
It has become a key battleground in Donald Trump’s war against multilateralism and his unilateral attempts to redefine the Middle East peace process along a track proposed by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, the UNRWA has become embroiled in its own damaging scandals.
The agency was born on the ashes of the 1948 Middle East war that saw the state of Israel established and Palestinian society dismantled with 750,000 people displaced and more than 500 Palestinian villages destroyed.
Today, the UN general assembly mandates the UNRWA to deliver services to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees – the world’s largest and arguably most vulnerable refugee population – until that historic injustice is redressed.
While it has long been in the sights of Israel, with Netanyahu calling for the UNRWA to be “dismantled” as early as 2016, the Trump administration has gone further, upending longstanding US support and ensnaring the agency in a wider campaign.
In January 2018, Washington abruptly cut $365m (£278m) in funding to the agency, barely a month after Trump declared he was moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a cherished Israeli objective.
Then, in March this year,the US recognised Israel’s illegal annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. And in November the US “declared” that Jewish settlements were not inconsistent with international law, thus condoning multiple violations of the Geneva conventions.
These moves were cost-free to Israel: Washington demanded nothing in return. And just a few days ago Netanyahu reportedly urged US support for his illegal annexation plans for the Jordan valley, where an estimated 65,000 Palestinians live, alongside more than 10,000 Jewish settlers on land also seized in contravention of international law.
Three divisive “final status” issues are being unilaterally “reshaped” in Israel’s favour: Jerusalem, refugees and settlements.
If the UNRWA is an integral part of this ill-judged diplomacy, the news – while dispiriting – has not been entirely bleak. The international community, in the shape of the UN general assembly, has pushed back. No fewer than 170 members of the assembly recently voted to renew the UNRWA’s mandate for three years.
Only two countries voted against – the US and Israel – which had been hoping to use the mandate renewal debate to change the definition of Palestinian refugees, airbrushing them from history.
For the UNRWA, victory at the assembly has specific significance.
In the run-up to the vote the agency was plagued by allegations of mismanagement limited to a small group of officials in its executive office, which saw the executive head resign.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, appointed as interim chief one of the most senior British officials in the UN system, Christian Saunders, who was asked to set the UNRWA on a new path.
The overwhelming result in the assembly is a sign that the UNRWA is turning the corner. Moreover, it is a vote of confidence in the agency’s undeniable successes. Its schools for half a million students across the Middle East consistently outperform those of host governments; the UNRWA “emergency education” programme is being rolled out globally by Unicef; and the agency’s internet-based postnatal care and immunisation work are trailblazing.
So what’s next for an agency whose mandate lies at the heart of the Middle East peace process – and to which Britain has become the fourth largest donor?
After the twin shocks of US defunding and its internal crisis, the UNRWA must shore up the confidence of its main donors and secure an additional $167m to protect vital services, including emergency aid in wartorn Syria and educating 280,000 children in the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip.
Just as important, the UNRWA must restore credibility with the Palestinians it serves, reconnecting the agency with its history and mandate. It must engage in rights-based protection advocacy, reminding the world community of the historic injustices that led to its creation.
These are the most effective long-term answers to the ongoing political attacks on the UNRWA, and an essential response to Washington’s bid to deprive millions of Palestinians of their rights, history and identity. Moreover, it is recognition of an inescapable conclusion, a truth anyone engaging in Middle East diplomacy should take to heart: Palestinian rights are not for sale.
Moving forward, a fully-funded UNRWA – supported by longstanding donors such as Britain – must continue to deliver a full range of human development and emergency services. This is an obligation, not a choice, for UN member states whose responsibilities to the Palestinians, given the UN’s historic involvement, have no statute of limitation.
Something greater than stability in the Middle East is at stake. Continued support for the UNRWA is a singularly important defence against attacks on multilateralism and human rights, both grounded in the values engendered by the atrocities of the second world war. This at a time when unilateral, populist forces in the US, Israel and elsewhere are attempting to erase the dignity and humanity of a people whose future is intimately bound up with peace in the Middle East and beyond.
Timely support for the UNRWA – financial and diplomatic – is one area, one small area, where a crucial battle, if not the war, can and must be won.