To Israel, a UN Aid Agency Is a Terror Group - Opinion - Haaretz.com
Israel's insane smear campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency, which peaked last week with the reckless raid on its headquarters in Jerusalem and raising of the Israeli flag, stems from a deep reason to which Israel would never admit: UNRWA is the main agency that has been aiding Palestinian refugees since 1948. That is its real sin; the rest is pretexts and propaganda. UNRWA saved the refugees, therefore UNRWA is the enemy.
For many years, UNRWA served as Israel's useful idiot, funding the occupation and carrying out the functions that, according to international law, are the responsibility of the occupying power. In the years when Israel still cared somewhat about the population, mainly so that it would remain quiet, and decisions were made on the basis of reason and not solely out of hatred, UNRWA had a place.
An Israel police vehicle at the entrance to the UNRWA headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah during the raid this week.Credit: Silvanik
Then came October 7, and Israel also bit the hand that fed its victims. It lost all interest in the situation of the Palestinians and stopped seeing them as human beings. To Israel, UNRWA became a terror organization. and the Trump administration was quick to agree.
U.S. Jews and Israel 'are no longer exceptional': Dahlia Lithwick and Joshua Leifer on being 'Trump's chess pieces'
SubscribeThe first pretense the Israeli propaganda machine pulled out was that UNRWA employees were involved in the events of October 7. It wasn't Hamas that attacked Israel, it was UNRWA. Israel claimed that 12 of the agency's workers participated in the massacre: 12 out of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in Gaza. Israel's media and propaganda choirs spread the poison: UNRWA is Nukhba, the elite Hamas force that led the massacre.
The agency fired those who may have been involved, but it didn't stand a chance. No one has ever asked how many Bank Leumi workers bombed children in Gaza, how many Hebrew University of Jerusalem employees shelled hospitals in the Strip or how many Education Ministry staffers fatally shot people waiting for aid. UNRWA's fate was sealed. The stories, never proved, of Hamas "command centers" in UNRWA bomb shelters, the sole refuge of hundreds of thousands of people, also stoked the incitement.
People walk past the damaged Gaza City headquarters of the UNRWA in February 2024.Credit: - - AFP
Then the old accounts were opened up: UNRWA perpetuates Palestinians' refugee status. If not for UNRWA, there would be no more Palestinian refugees. Refugeeism is the last evidence of the Nakba, which is why Israel doesn't like. After erasing over 400 villages, the refugee camps remained the only bloody reminder of 1948. That is UNRWA's crime, the documentary by Duki Dror that was broadcast on Kan public television argues as well. The Europeans are naive, Dror claims, as Israelis always say about the aid agencies. They are naive, only we Israelis are clearheaded.
UNRWA did not perpetuate the refugee status of Palestinians. The occupation did. If the Palestinians had a state, it would assume responsibility for them. The height of propaganda absurdity came when Dror said in an interview: "[A]t the UN, Palestine is considered 'a nonmember observer state,' and you can't be a refugee when you have a state. Decide, either you're a state or you're occupied territories."
It's really not nice of you, Palestinian refugees, not to have made up your mind yet. But Israel decided for you long ago. In 1967 it decided on occupation, and since then it hasn't changed its decision one whit. Now it's saying there will never be a state. And UNRWA is the one that perpetuated their refugee status. And, of course, there is the UNRWA school curriculum, all of it "incitement" against Israel. As if you needed UNRWA to make Palestinian children hate Israel. All they have to do in order to hate whoever did all this to them is to open their window, if they still have one. UNRWA should have taught them to love Israel.
- Germany withholds support for UNRWA extension for first time
- Plan to open Gaza's Rafah crossing leaves Palestinians with more questions than answers
- Netanyahu reiterates opposition to Palestinian state amid far-right backlash
A replacement was found for UNRWA: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This American agency was closed, fortunately, after around 1,000 people were killed. The attacks on UNRWA continue, and there is no substitute for it.
On Friday the UN General Assembly passed, by an overwhelming margin, a resolution calling on Israel to cooperate with UNRWA, after the International Court of Justice also found the accusations against the agency to be unfounded. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, was quick to respond: UNRWA is a terror organization. Just get those refugees out of our sight.