The Brussels Times reports that Belgium has doubled its funds to help UNRWA meet its budgetary deficit
The question is whether Belgium will transfer funds to UNRWA with six reasonable conditions that reflect the principles of the United Nations:
- Cancel the UNRWA curriculum, which is based on jihad, martyrdom, and the “right of return” by force of arms.
- Cease paramilitary training in all UNRWA schools. It is an absurdity that UNRWA, a UN agency with a purported commitment to “peace education,” allows such training on its premises.
- Insist that UNRWA dismiss employees affiliated with Hamas, in accordance with laws on the books in western nations that forbid aid to any agency that employs members of a terrorist organization.
- UNRWA recently hired a “youth ambassador”, Muhammad Assaf, to travel the world and encourage insurrection and violence. This would be an appropriate time to demand that UNRWA cancel its contract with a promoter of war.
- Introduce UNHCR standards to UNRWA to advance the resettlement of Arab refugees. Palestinian refugees have spent 68 years relegated to refugee status. Current UNRWA policy is that any refugee resettlement would interfere with the “right of return” to pre-1948 Arab localities. By adopting a political stance in favor of Palestinian maximalists, UNRWA flouts its own commitment to the welfare and future of Palestinian refugees.
- Ask for an audit of donor funds given to UNRWA. This would address widespread documented reports of wasted resources, duplication of services, and undesired flow of cash to terror groups that have controlled UNRWA operations in Gaza for the past 19 years.
David Bedein, MSW, who founded and has directed Israel Resource News Agency since 1987, administers the Center for Near East Policy Research in Jerusalem. He is the author of Roadblock to Peace – How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict: UNRWA Policies Reconsidered and The Genesis of the Palestinian Authority.