The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was founded in 1949 to provide humanitarian assistance to Arab refugees from Israel’s war of independence. It has since become a corrupt and bloated institution as well as an enabler of terrorism, and its foremost goal is to maintain its own existence by keeping the descendants of those refugees in poverty in its camps. The only way it can be fixed, argues Bassem Eid, is if Palestinians pressure the Western nations that fund it to demand its reform:
As a proud Palestinian, I must take responsibility for what will happen to our people. We can no longer deny our responsibility for the future of our people. UNRWA, to continue its operation, depends on death and the visual suffering of five million Palestinians who continue to wallow in and around UNRWA facilities. The more Palestinians suffer, the more power goes to UNRWA, which allows it to raise unchecked humanitarian funds and purchase munitions. . . . The only agency that can abolish UNRWA is the UN General Assembly, which has never had the interests of the Palestinian people at heart. After all, the UN rakes in more than $1.2 billion a year as an “incentive” to continue our status as refugees.
A Western defunding of UNRWA [suggested by some] would allow nations like Qatar to enter the vacuum, leaving the West with no leverage over UNRWA policy. The point is [instead] to influence donor nations to reform UNRWA and predicate future aid to UNRWA on reasonable conditions.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Proud-Palestinians-must-lead-the-fight-to-reform-UNRWA-383366