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.

Unrwa has — across several generations — deliberately kept the classification of millions of Arabs as refugees. Rather than resettling them, Unrwa helped nurse the dream of flooding Israel with Arabs so as to end its status as a Jewish state. It has taught hatred. The parley convened by UN Watch heard from one mother, Ayelet Samerano, whose 21-year-old Israeli son was kidnapped by an Unrwa staffer on October 7. She told the meeting: “UN, clean your house.”

Out of about 12,000 Unrwa workers at Gaza, 440 are active in the military wing of Hamas, the Israeli government reports. Roughly 2,000 more are registered as Hamas operatives, and another 7,000 have a first-degree relative who is a member of the terrorist group. In early February, Israeli officials provided the United States with a report that detailed that 12 Unrwa staffers directly took part in the atrocities of October 7 and another 30 staffers assisted. 

Shortly after the report’s circulation, the Biden administration announced it would stop funding the group, and a number of European governments followed suit. Yet America, as the top donor to Unrwa, had already committed $51 million to the West Bank and Gaza for 2024. Mr. Guterres has urged UN member states to continue their funding for Unrwa so as to ensure the continuity of its stated mission to alleviate the humanitarian situation at Gaza.  

The agency is undergoing both internal and independent investigations, ordered by the UN. If history is any guide, however, those charged with mismanaging Unrwa tend to swing through the revolving doors of the world’s governing body. Just look at the promotion of Pierre Krahenbuhl as the next director-general of the Red Cross after he resigned from the leadership of Unrwa in 2019 following an internal probe over “management issues.”

Few within the world body are willing to envision a post-Unrwa future — an all too typical lack of imagination. Fewer still are willing to resist pressures to call Israel’s self-defense genocidal. The UN’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, and the executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, are rare voices willing to stand apart from the anti-Israeli bias at the organization.

Yet in the U.S. Congress, the House Foreign Affairs Committee warns that thousands of UN employees could be collaborating with Hamas. It advises ceasing all American funding to the UN until the agency is rid of corruption and antisemitism. Its chairman, Congressman Brian Mast, points to the double standard toward Gazans during a recent hearing on the issue. “Do the Rohingya have an Unrwa?” he asked. “No Unrwa for the Sudanese?”

As the future of multilateralism hangs in balance, the UN now seems out of touch with a worldwide sense that it has been a failure. Ending the UN’s Relief and Works Agency is the first best chance it has to address this awakening. More than 134,000 signatories of a petition to replace the agency urge that aid flow through other health and food programs that operate at Gaza. As UN Watch’s heroic Hillel Neuer puts it: “Enough is enough.”