How to defeat Hamas without firing a shot: Deprive Hamas of life support from UNRWA, the largest employer of Hamas in Gaza

20,000 members of the Hamas terrorist organization who have been organizing and participating in continuing riots on the Gaza fences, are actually employees of UNRWA.

That is because Hamas won consecutive elections and gained control of the UNRWA workers association and the UNRWA teachers association, since 1999, under a platform of absolute adherence to the slogan of the “right of return by force of arms”

The “return” they refer to is to villages that the original Arab refugees left after the 1948 war.

UNRWA now hosts five million descendants of Arab refugees in “temporary” conditions, while Hamas ads Islamic passionate fuel to the fire.

The question remains: What can be done to douse the flames of Hamas?

US, Canada, the UK, the EU and Australia all have tough laws on the books which clearly state that their respective nations must condition aid to UNRWA with a strict requirement that no member of an FTO, a Foreign Terrorist Organization, can receive a salary.

Indeed, Canada cut off its aid to the general fund of UNRWA in 2009 after Hamas won the elections and gained control of the UNRWA workers union and UNRWA teachers association, as documented in a study that our agency published that was commissioned by the European Parliament.

Donor nations to UNRWA can therefore demand the cut off of UNRWA salaries to all terrorists, which would transform Hamas into beggars starving for cash flow.

Canada renewed funding of the UNRWA general fund in 2016, but only after UNRWA lied to Ottawa that it no longer employs members of Hamas.

Since few Hamas members were removed from the staff of UNRWA, this would be an opportune time for donor nations to demand that UNRWA conduct a review of its employees for terror connections.

The next logical step for the donor nations, beginning with the US: Demand that UNRWA dismiss Hamas members on the payroll.

A case in point:

At an UNRWA policy symposium held in Geneva in 2004, I asked Peter Hansen, then the head of UNRWA, how he could justify Hamas members on his staff.

His answer was that “UNRWA does not look at the religious affiliation of its staff members” and he went on to say that he had no problem employing Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll.

As a result of that answer, donor nations forced UNRWA to fire Hansen.

Hansen’s dismissal provides a precedent that UNRWA donor nations could invoke.