UNRWA and the Day After the War
Professor Rosa Freedman, University of Reading and LCSCA Research Fellow

Objective: Thinking about the future

This paper is based on research and expertise from an academic perspective, including interviews and desk research. It provides some evidence-based ideas to open conversations about the future for humanitarian delivery for Palestinians from the day after the current war. Realistically and politically, any changes to UNRWA must ensure that humanitarian aid and services continued to be provided on the ground. The paper was written to underpin a speech at the Knesset delivered as part of a panel of international experts on this topic. It begins with a brief background on UNRWA, before turning to the problem, two potential solutions, and the requirements and challenges for implementing those models.

Background: UNRWA’s mandate and work

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was created in 1949 to provide emergency relief and international assistance to “Palestine refugees” from the 1948 War of Independence (Israel) or Nakba (Palestine) that resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Palestine who either crossed international borders into other states or who lived in self-governing, non-autonomous territories. They needed shelter, water, food, clothing, and more. The Red Cross provided those things until UNRWA was created in December 1949.

UNRWA’s constituent document starts by recalling UN General Assembly resolutions, including resolution 194 which resolves in paragraph 11:

“that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.” (UN General Assembly, 194 (III). Palestine – Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, A/RES/194, 11 December 1948, para 11)

That emphasis on the return of refugees wishing to live at peace with their neighbours is repeated in resolutions 212 and 302, which also “Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation”.
The agency was supposed to be temporary. Its mandate (set out in UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) is:

There are many reasons offered as to why UNRWA still exists in its original form seven decades after its creation. It is not the purpose of this briefing note to delve into those reasons, but rather into what models can be used to transition or replace UNRWA. While the focus is on Gaza, the day after the war, and governance and reconstruction in the region, it is important to understand and underscore that UNRWA operates in (a) Gaza and the West Bank to serve Palestinians living in self-governing, non-autonomous territories and (b) in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to serve refugees from Palestine.

UNRWA operates in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in parts of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, to provide basic services that should be provided by a state or government, such as hospitals, schools, food, water and sanitation. And because of that, it has largely become synonymous with the “Palestinian state” in those areas, and even referred to as ‘the Blue State’ (blue being the colour of UN helmets). In other parts of the West Bank and Jordan, UNRWA’s work focuses more on education than on development let alone relief.

Tripartite Model: Political, operational, functional

1. Political Reality: The political reality is that, at least since the Second Intifada (2001), UNRWA has become an arm of the Palestinian cause and a symbol of Palestinian national-ness. The Agency has evolved from being mandated to provide humanitarian aid and services and to assist refugees in the short-term, into being mandated to exist until there is peace created by others, and which ignores Palestinians’ agency or their responsibility (under resolution 194 and others) to live in peace with their neighbours. By 2005 the UN General Assembly was adopting value-laden language such as “the imperative of resolving the problem of the Palestine refugees for the achievement of justice and for the achievement of lasting peace in the region.”(United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East : report of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (4th Committee) : General Assembly, 60th session, UN Doc A/60/476) And three years later the General Assembly resolution renewing UNRWA’s mandate set out that the Agency would exist until there is “just resolution and lasting peace”, (Assistance to Palestine Refugees’, UN General Assembly resolution 63/91, 18 December 2008) which are value-laden terms that change the very nature of the mandate. On the ground, the political reality is clear with UNRWA schools teaching from textbooks that have been widely criticised for their content, UNRWA buildings being used as cover for terrorist infrastructure or to store weapons, and UNRWA staff being complicit in perpetuating Hamas’ aims and objectives.

2. Functionality of UNRWA as arm of Palestinian movement: The functions that UNRWA is supposed to provide are materially different to the realities on the ground. The provision of relief and works is at the core of the humanitarian sector. What UNRWA has become, however, is a welfare Agency, acting in the place of a state authority, where Palestinians are almost wholly dependent upon the Agency. UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank, in particular, goes far beyond delivery of humanitarian aid and instead has become a civil administration in-waiting for the Palestinian state to be created. Indeed, it is this function of UNRWA that has created the environment in which the Agency is more trusted by Palestinians than the national governments that they themselves elect. The key question here is whether a reformed UNRWA or other entities could take on the Agency’s mandated functions in such a way as to provide the necessary aid and services but without acting as an arm of the Palestinian movement, or becoming a welfare state or a state administration in-waiting.

3. Operationality of UNRWA (more than 90% are local hire staff), aid delivery, food delivery: There is a need to provide humanitarian aid, education, etc and the question is how to do so operationally in this current political landscape. The vast majority (as much as 95%) of UNRWA staff are locally hired. The Agency has a specific mandate to hire Palestinians at the operational level. As a result, many of the operations are delivered at a far higher quality than in many similar funds, programmes and agencies. This is because Palestinians have a particular drive to deliver high quality operations to other Palestinians as compared with international staff who do not have the same links with or property in the local populations that they serve. Those same staff would likely be hired by other entities delivering these operations, which is likely to be accepted by and acceptable to the local populations and host states, with the key difference being that they will not be under an UNRWA brand that has come to symbolise Palestinian national-ness. The question then is not whether the operations can continue, but rather the impact on the cost of those operations if they were delivered by an entity or entities not under the UNRWA umbrella.

The problem

All refugees globally other than Palestinians come under the mandate of UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) created in 1950, one year after UNRWA. The Palestinians are the only people to have their own dedicated refugee agency and to be described as “Palestine refugees” rather than “refugees” or “refugees from [xx country]”. They are also the only people who are all described under this umbrella term despite some having crossed international borders into other countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, as well as migrating further into Gulf states, Europe, North America, and beyond) and others remaining in self-governing, non-autonomous territories. This distinction is crucial.

UNRWA has become a large-scale bureaucracy in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in the areas in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria where Palestinians live and where the agency operates. Crisis Group says out loud what we all know, “UNRWA is best understood as an unofficial substitute for the state in the areas where it operates.“ UNRWA as it exists and functions today cannot be seen as an apolitical agency, or as a neutral entity. The politics of UNRWA are offensive to the UN principle of neutrality. Key to the neutrality principle and UNRWA’s own Neutrality Policy and Framework is that UNRWA cannot get involved in political causes; and yet it does. UNRWA needs to be neutral and not part of the Palestinian cause, and yet it is itself a brand that symbolises Palestinian national-ness.

Solution (A) Regional Hub

Reform UNRWA to be an agency for all refugees in the region not just Palestinians. This would allow the reformed UN entity to take forward the UN Common Agenda in the region, to promote and advance stability for the region, and to deliver aid and humanitarian assistance for all refugees. In this way the new version of UNRWA could become a regional hub for refugees from countries in the Middle East. These types of regional hubs exist for various UN entities, including

those delivering programmes and services such as the UN Development Programme and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. A regional hub could be brought under the umbrella of UNHCR or alternatively it could be a stand-alone entity. Models for transitioning UNRWA into the UN Hub could be based on, for example, transition of UN peacekeeping or stabilisation missions into development or human rights operations, e.g. in Haiti MINUSTAH to MINUJUSTH.

Solution (B) Reform and Transition

Another potential model is to divide UNRWA’s operations between those dealing with Palestinians in the self-governing, non-autonomous territories of Gaza and the West Bank, and those dealing with refugees from Palestine who have crossed international borders. In this model an organisation is created for Gaza and the West Bank while UNHCR takes on responsibilities for refugees in the other countries. It is important to note UNHCR already has responsibility for Palestinian refugees outside of five areas of Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. This reform will mean that UNHCR becomes responsible for the part of UNRWA’s mandate on resettling refugees who have crossed international borders into Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, including securing citizenship that would end the ongoing perpetuation of refugee status for generations. Countries with refugees from Palestine should be encouraged to provide citizenship and full rights for them, while also noting that Jordan, Lebanon and Syria are not parties to the Refugee Convention. The entity working in Gaza and the West Bank will then be able to retain some form of the role of state administration in-waiting. Such an entity could be modelled on the UN role in Kosovo or Timor-Leste, where the UN took on the roles and functions of the state while also facilitating the building of state apparatus such as functioning courts, police, and state apparatus. This will be particularly important in Gaza during reconstruction from the day after the war onwards.

This aim of this model is to treat refugees from Palestine as the same as all other refugees in similar situations. There are, of course, other refugee populations who have crossed borders and continue to be denied citizenship by the host state through succeeding generations, e.g. the Rohingya in Bangladesh. UNHCR is mandated to provide humanitarian aid and services to those refugees and to advocate for their resettlement. There are also populations in self-governing, non-autonomous territories for whom humanitarian aid and services are provided (including by UNHCR) by a range of funds, programmes and agencies, e.g. the Kurds and the Kashmiris. Adopting this model would enable Palestinians to be treated like other people in similar situations and enable the international community to treat the situation like other similar ones.

Requirements

First, any solution has to be seen as a bridge to a two-state solution rather than being the end goal if it is to succeed as operationally and also politically. At the same time, in any negotiations or diplomacy about reforming UNRWA, it is crucial to emphasise and explain that there is no “right of return” for Palestinians to the State of Israel. This is important to understand in the context of UNGA resolution 194 as discussed above, and also Article 12 of the International Covernant on Civil and Political Rights (UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 171, 16 December 1966) to which Israel is a party. That international treaty sets out that everyone has the right to leave and enter his/her own country and to move around freely within that state. This is not the right to return to someone else’s country. Refugees from Palestine may have the right to return to a Palestinian state created in a two-state solution if –and only if – that new state produces legislation to that effect. The people living in the self-governing, non-autonomous territories of Gaza and the West Bank only have the right to move around freely in their own country of Palestine, whatever that looks like in a two-state solution, not to move to Israel. Moreover, and what must be emphasised, is that from the outset the UN General Assembly made clear that any return to any land depends on those moving there “wishing to live in peace” with their neighbours (resolution 194, above).

The second requirement is that any solution move away from the political and back to the United Nations principle of neutrality, that they come under UN control and follow diktats from UN headquarters. Staff may be re-hired for the same or similar jobs in other funds, programmes and agencies so as to retain their expertise and the trust in them from beneficiary communities. That, of course, will be dependent on hiring policies and screenings that work regarding terrorism, corruption, and separation from the political in order to ensure neutrality. To that end, there needs to be accountability, inspection and audit mechanisms that are fit for purpose. Donors play a key role in ensuring that the work done by any new entity or by existing agencies on the ground are in line with the original mandate of relief and works, not of creating a pseudo or welfare state.

Challenges

There will be challenges at the political and practical levels. It is crucial that humanitarian aid and services continue to be provided in Gaza and the West Bank as self-governing, non-autonomous territories, and any reforms must ensure that those are provided and protected.

There will also be actors and stakeholders who claim that reforms are not possible politically or practically, that such changes will not be accepted by other states or entities involved, and/or that it will be too costly or difficult to implement them on the ground. These are not true. There are many examples of transitions in grave and crisis humanitarian situations. Many of those have resulted in better, stronger, and more targeted delivery of humanitarian aid and services. There are many funds, programmes and agencies capable of delivering in Gaza and the West Bank, of whom a sizeable number already operate on the ground. Calls by UN headquarters for those entities not to take donations for those programmes where they circumvent UNRWA are cynical and are designed to prevent any serious proposals for meaningful change to humanitarian aid and service delivery on the ground.

There will be challenges around trust from beneficiaries and communities, although these will be mitigated by the UN brand being almost as well-received as that of UNRWA, and by the presence and high-impact work that already exists from implementing partners across the region. Another major challenge to overcome will be the reluctance of some UN member states to accept changes in the region, particularly ones that treat refugees from Palestine the same as all other refugees. It is important to note that a large number of those states are not significant donors to UNRWA. Rather, many of the largest donors to UNRWA are committed to a two-state solution but without the parameters of treating refugees from Palestine as having claim under Article 12 ICCPR to a state that is not their home country.

Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law at Reading University and Research Fellow of LCSCA