Israel has recently arrested employees of both World Vision, a major U.S.-based humanitarian organization, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for actively diverting funds to Hamas. To Elliott Abrams, these are not mere isolated instances of corruption:
What we can now see clearly is that none of these organizations—UNDP, World Vision, or UNRWA [the UN subsidiary tasked with caring for Palestinian refugees, about which similar allegations have surfaced in the past]—was ever going to find the facts, fire people, clean out the Hamas agents, and solve these problems. . . .
The larger question is [that of] the culture of foreign aid to the Palestinians, much of which [is a product of] what President George W. Bush once called (in an entirely different context) “the soft bigotry of low expectations” and some of which [is a product] of terrorism, threats, and plain fear [of Hamas violence]. . . .
It’s likely that some percentage of local employees [of World Vision and UNDP] in Gaza are sympathetic to Hamas—and it seems likely to me that administrators don’t want to know about it. If they came face to face with [such information], what would they do? Fire [these employees]? Turn them in to the Israelis? Start difficult and likely very long back-and-forth communications with headquarters, which likely doesn’t want to know and won’t thank the employee who insists on revealing the truth? Simpler to be blind to what is happening.
More about: Hamas, Israel & Zionism, NGO, UNRWA