The Unrwa Scandal

It’s hard to recall an affront by the United Nations as bald as its latest announcement — that it would sack nine employees of its Relief and Works Agency for involvement in the attack of October 7. It’s an effort to wash its hands of one of the biggest scandals in the history of the world body. It would be nice to think that the refusal of the world body to face up to its role in the attack on Israel would shock the Congress to start the road to reform.Unrwa was created to deal exclusively with Arabs who were dislocated by Israel’s war of independence. Some 800,000 persons were cramped in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and its occupied so-called West Bank, as well as in what was then an Egyptian tract of land, known as the Gaza Strip. Three-quarters of a century later, the UN agency tends to millions of descendants, and has adopted their radicalism and hostility to America. The situation is especially acute in Gaza, where since 2007 Hamas has been the governing power. “Unrwa is Hamas and Hamas is Unrwa,” an Israeli woman, Ayelet Samerano, told reporters in Switzerland this week. She confronted the agency’s commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, with a simple question: Where is my son? The answer is that an Unrwa social worker murdered Yonatan Samerano on October 7 and dragged his body into Gaza, where it remains. Mr. Lazzarini, a Swiss-born veteran of international humanitarian operations, ignored the mother’s plea. He has long advocated for the Palestinian Arab cause and defended his agency despite growing evidence that Hamas dominates its ranks. The UN’s investigation arm, the OIOS, dismissed ten cases of Unrwa workers accused of participating in Hamas atrocities. The remaining nine, Mr. Lazzarini said, “I have decided that they cannot work for Unrwa.”Yet Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said he gave the UN a list of 100 Unrwa employees, of which only 19 were investigated. OIOS will investigate the rest “if we are to get precise information” about them, a UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, told reporters Tuesday. It seems that no one at the UN is eager to open the Pandora’s box that Unrwa has become. Israeli intelligence reckons that 440 of the agency’s 12,000 employees are active in Hamas’s terrorism. On July 4, Israel sent Mr. Lazzarini a letter with an attachment listing 108 names and IDs of terrorist operatives currently employed by Unrwa in Gaza. To no avail. An Israeli assessment that was reportedly given to the war cabinet back in February reckons that 7,000 Unrwa employees have close relatives in the Hamas hierarchy. With such information, America has suspended all financial support to Unrwa until 2025.The Biden administration uses previously-approved funds to support it. This is fueling talk that Unrwa should be permanently disbanded. “Eliminate the entire agency,” Ambassador Nikki Haley says. It’s hard to think of an international institution that has failed at its core mission as spectacularly as Unrwa has since its creation in 1949. If Republicans gain control of Congress, one can put the dismantling of Unrwa at the top of its list for United Nations reform.

The Unrwa Scandal

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