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1. [Thread] The Biden administration has signaled its return to UNRWA coupled with traditional levels of funding for the relief organization. Here are a few suggestions on how to leverage this money for greatest impact:
2. Since 1950, America has contributed more than $6 billion to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
3. UNRWA supports roughly 5 million registered Palestinian refugees, and their descendants, in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, who were displaced during the 1948 and 1967 Israeli-Arab wars.
4. About 30,000 of UNRWA’s 5 million Palestinians are first generation refugees. UNRWA’s most visible operations are in Gaza, a nearly impossible responsibility.
5. Yet, the international community should not regard UNRWA as a monolith. Circumstances in Jordan, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are vastly different than in Gaza, Syria, or the sealed refugee camps in Lebanon.
6. UNRWA primarily provides health, education, and social services; make no mistake this assistance is life-saving to the most vulnerable. But after 70 years, the structure and incentives have ossified to create welfare dependency.
7. Most Palestinians would prefer the dignity of a state, a job, and the potential of a real future than food basket deliveries, generation after generation. While acknowledging its good work, UNRWA subsidizes dysfunction and an unsustainable status quo. What to do?
8. First, set a ten year exit strategy. UNRWA’s exit cannot prejudice the Palestinian claim to the right of return which, if ever to be resolved, will have to be negotiated in a comprehensive settlement with the Israelis.
9. Rather, a ten year timetable with a clear exit date will help focus both the Israelis and Palestinians on the existential questions separating them.
10. For instance, UNRWA’s school system is radically moderate compared to what Hamas would impose in Gaza. With an UNRWA withdrawal from the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority or, if it collapses, the Israeli gov't will have to finance health/education for abt 1 mil more ppl.
11. A ten year exit requires the parties to begin a purposeful, planned wind-down and, in so doing, will place inevitable severe stress on the status quo.
12. Second, begin UNRWA’s exit plan in Jordan. The UN, through UNRWA, should fund a ten year block grant to Jordan at $500 million per year. Most of the two million Palestinian refugees in Jordan are politically, economically, and socially integrated into the Hashemite Kingdom.
13. Yet, Jordan would take a huge economic hit to incorporate the social welfare benefits for two million people.
14. In the UNRWA exit strategy, half of the annual grant would provide social services for the next decade, the remaining balance would be used to drive private sector trade/competitiveness so the Jordanian economy could grow to absorb the shock of the withdrawn entitlement.
15. Third, shift refugee operations in Syria and Lebanon from UNRWA to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) which has the mandate to protect refugees and assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration, or resettlement to a third country.
16. This UN interagency move would maintain the right of return as a political issue to be negotiated between the Israelis/Palestinians. Further, UNHCR is already operational in both Syria/Lebanon, runs a global enterprise & would bring best practices to the Palestinians.
17. Bottom Line: If the Biden administration returns to UNRWA, it needs to help course correct the organization, define a vision reflective of reality, and chart a clear exit strategy. [END]