A Farewell to Unrwa?

A parley at Geneva sets the stage for a long, but important, campaign to dissolve one of the oldest agencies of the United Nations. We wish them luck.

AP/Ariel Schalit
Israeli soldiers enter the UN relief agency headquarters where the military discovered tunnels that Hamas terrorists used to attack its forces. AP/Ariel Schalit

Could one of the casualties of the war with Hamas turn out to be one of the oldest constituent parts of the United Nations — the Relief and Works Agency, set up in 1949, ostensibly to help the Palestinian Arab refugees? That’s certainly the hope of the International Summit on the Future Beyond Unrwa, convened at Geneva on Monday by the non-governmental human rights organization, UN Watch.

While the UN’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, defended Unrwa before the world body’s Human Rights Council next door, the summit gathered lawmakers from Unrwa donor countries and former officials from Unrwa and the United Nations not to reform the agency, but to dismantle it. That would be an enormous step forward. The agency has spent — and been gifted — billions, only to emerge as an obstacle to progress for Palestinian Arabs.

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