The United Nations Relief and Works Agency may harm Israeli interests in two major ways (its anti-Zionism behavior and its keeping Palestinians in a perpetual refugee status), close observers have long known that the government of Israel prefers to keep UNRWA funding in place rather than face possible disruption.
This knowledge was, however, abstract. No one had cut funding, so one did not know what exactly the Israeli response would be.
Well, now it has happened and Jerusalem did protest, as we learn from Lee Berthiaume, "Israel asked Canada to reverse decision on funding for UN Palestinian refugee agency," in Embassy.
Canadian taxpayers have forked over moneys to UNRWA since 1950, amounting to C$10-15 million annually of late. In 2009, however, Ottawa ended this funding and, for reasons of efficiency, redirected all funds to emergency needs in the West Bank and Gaza, primarily nutritional.
For more than a year, many have suspected that the Harper government's decision to stop providing direct budgetary support to the UN agency responsible for helping Palestinian refugees in the Middle East was made at the behest of Israel. However, newly released CIDA [Canadian International Development Agency] documents appear to turn that notion on its head as they show Israel was one of a number of countries actively lobbying Canada to reverse its decision last year to focus its funding on emergency food aid.
"The announcement of this targeted funding has provoked a number of reactions from countries in the region," reads a document dated Aug. 24, 2010, "and in discussions with the US, Israel and the UN Secretary General, Canada has been asked to resume funding the General Fund."
Under pressure, the Harper government has returned to funding UNRWA, sending C$5 million to the West Bank and $10 million to Gaza.
Comment: That the Israeli government, and specifically the Ministry of Defense's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories wish to continue payments to UNRWA points to its stunningly short-term vision and fits my larger argument that Israel's leaders are adrift, dealing with crises as they arise, lacking strategic goals. (July 6, 2011)
Sep. 15, 2011 update: It's worth noting that the Government of Israel also advocates for aid to the Palestinian Authority. It is urging the international community to continue aid to the Palestinians just as U.S. lawmakers are contemplating a cutoff of about $500 million in annual aid if the Palestinians press for statehood at the United Nations. An Israeli government website on Thursday carried a report saying the Palestinian Authority already faced economic and fiscal woes, in part due to a decline in donor aid.
Israel calls for ongoing international support for the PA budget and development projects that will contribute to the growth of a vibrant private sector, which will provide the PA an expanded base for generating internal revenue. The economic slowdown can be attributed largely to the fiscal crisis currently plaguing the PA, which is due primarily to a decline in donor aid, and the inability to obtain loans from the banking system to finance the shortfall.
Aug. 13, 2018 update: Much information about the security establishment's unwillingness to see basic changes in UNRWA is coming out just as the Trump administration makes noises about cutting U.S. funding. Here are some highlights: Ariel Kahana and the Israel Hayom Staff report that the Israeli government has asked the U.S. government "not to withhold funds" from UNRWA because cutting its budget "could be extremely problematic" because no other organizations could fill the void in Gaza and "any health or sanitation crisis there would immediately affect Israel."
Aug. 27, 2018 update: In "Israel, US seek to redefine Palestinian refugees," an unnamed "Israeli security source" explains to Ben Caspit why he opposes U.S. cutbacks to UNRWA: It "not only takes care of education, health and welfare, but also feeds tens of thousands of families of refugees who have no independent economic existence apart from this assistance. If all this will be rolled back, we are likely to find ourselves in a real crisis."
Caspit also quotes the person who he says "led the public campaign" against UNRWA: Ron Prosor, the former Israeli ambassador to London and the UN.
The [Israeli] security system has automatically supported UNRWA for all these years out of short-range vision. No one wants the change to take place on his watch. Everyone is afraid of the ramifications, and no one considers the strategic angle. If I was Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, I also wouldn't want to rock an already leaking boat. I'd be happy that someone else would continue to feed and take care of this enormous elephant sitting in the middle of our living room.
Caspit explains why Prime Minister Netanyahu has stayed uncharacteristically quiet on this issue: "He knows that the army's warnings can materialize and then he would be viewed as the one who fanned the fires and encouraged the Americans to take that gamble."
Aug. 31, 2018 update: In "The UNRWA Lobbyists," Nadav Shragai writes in Israel Hayom about the role of the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Ministry of Defense which he calls "Israel's main opponent to any punitive measures against" the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
COGAT objects to cuts in aid to UNRWA on practical grounds. ... the defense establishment hates sudden changes. It wants quiet and is afraid that if UNRWA is unable to help hundreds of thousands of needy Palestinians due to budget cuts, Israel will see rioting, an escalation in violence, and terrorist attacks.
In the early 2000s, then-COGAT Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad was already working to protect UNRWA. A decade later, as head of the Diplomatic-Security Branch of the Defense Ministry, he coordinated with then-Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to torpedo a congressional initiative against the organization. UNRWA might be bad, Gilad told Oren, but Hamas is worse. Gilad's successors have kept to that line, and like the IDF they see the UNRWA as the lesser of two evils.
They ... warn that the West Bank and especially Gaza and its refugee camps depend on money from UNRWA and foreign aid. They also warn that any detriment to UNRWA could end security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and lead to a new wave of terrorism.
Sep. 3, 2018 update: Former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro notes that Israel's security establishment did not seek an end to American financial support for UNRWA. Whenever the organization came up,
it was about the need for reform in UNRWA, the complaints — some of them very legitimate — about the structure of UNRWA, about some of what goes on in school and the way in which it helps perpetuate a myth of millions of refugees returning to Israel. But the question of actually cutting off US funding for it was never put forward by any Israeli official.
Raphael Ahren paraphrases Shapiro:
Senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office, and top security brass, including senior officials in the IDF, COGAT and other security agencies, adamantly opposed an abrupt cutting off funds. ... He said even when he asked the Israeli officials directly if they wanted the US to cut off funding, they made clear it was not their recommendation.
And then quotes him again:
What was being requested was effort to reform and to improve UNRWA, obviously using US funding as leverage to change its mission, to change its conduct and its structure, but not eliminate its funding.
Jan. 31, 2024 update: On learning that UNRWA personnel had participated in the Oct. 7 massacre, many governments stopped funding UNRWA, including those of the United States, Germany, Italy, France, the UK, Australia, Japan, and Canada. But wait, the Government of Israel asked them not to do this: according to a senior official, "If UNRWA ceases operating on the ground, this could cause a humanitarian catastrophe that would force Israel to halt its fighting against Hamas. This would not be in Israel's interest and it would not be in the interest of Israel's allies either."
Feb. 1, 2024 update: More evidence that the Government of Israel favors working with UNRWA, according to a report in Israel Hayom:
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Major General Ghassan Alian has told senior officials in the Biden administration that at this stage there is no alternative to the activities of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. ... he explained that currently there was no other body that could distribute humanitarian supplies in the Gaza Strip. Thus, Israel believes that currently there is no choice but to continue working with the agency.
Feb. 2, 2024 update: The head of COGAT, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, according to JNS, explained Israel's position on UNRWA to U.S. officials: it
must be replaced and that there needs to be an accelerated and swift plan to bring in alternative aid organizations into the Gaza Strip. ... However, he explained that currently there was no other body that could distribute humanitarian supplies in the Gaza Strip. Thus, Israel believes that currently there is no choice but to continue working with the agency.
