Why ending UNRWA unlocks peace

Supporters of a two-state solution should support the dissolution of UNRWA

People walk past the damaged Gaza City headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on February 15, 2024. (AFP)

(First published on the Times of Israel)

Although the final days of the American election rightfully capture the headlines – more on that at the end of this piece – another vote already cast has the potential to be a gamechanger for Israel in its quest for security: the vote by the Israeli Knesset to end Israel’s voluntary collaboration with UNRWA (The United Nations Relief Works Agency, created in the wake of the 1948 war between the Arab States and the Jewish population of the British Mandate of Palestine, solely dedicated to the repatriation of the non-Jewish descendants of residents of the land between the River and the Sea).

Given that Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz have done an exceptional job explaining why UNRWA should be disbanded – and their campaign to advance this topic should be credited with changing the minds of many in government and the defense forces who worked closely with the organization – I would like to present why all those who hope for peace in this region should join in their celebration of this important phase transition. Because even while we must hold the Netanyahu Government responsible for the tragedies of 2023 and 2024, we cannot let our ideology blind us to opportunities to collaborate on shared efforts to fix our world.

I’ll start by sharing my assumption: the only way we are ever to live securely in the Levant is if all peoples recognize the other’s commitment to self-determination and self-definition. The Israeli rebound following the near-collapse of public services following the horrific attacks launched out of Gaza by Hamas on October 7 have proven to the peoples of the region that the Jews are not going anywhere, despite our differences. Similarly, the Palestinian refusal to capitulate literally under the gun of Israel’s justified yet overwhelming response has proven to the Jews that they will not be able to beat the national spirit out of the non-Jews who, too, consider this land their birthright.

The fundamental difference between the surrender of the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese and the lack of willingness to surrender of the Palestinians is rooted in the Palestinian belief that, if they surrender, they will lose everything. The German generals who surrendered, and the Japanese emperor who gave his historic capitulation address, knew that they would suffer the indignity of military occupation but the country of Germany and Japan would persist as a homeland for the Germans and Japanese. Palestinians listening to ministers of Israel’s current government know that there are forces in Israel which would happily wipe the memory of Palestine from the map. When surrender means the likely destruction of everything you care about, it becomes less attractive than soldiering on and praying for a miracle. That is why total victory has been so elusive despite Israeli tactical successes on the battlefield.

Yet the same logic cuts the other way: the fundamental difference between the victorious Allies fighting the Nazis and Israel today is that the Allies knew that ending the war did not mean accepting the Nazi commitment to conquering their lands and overthrowing their governments. The clear antizionism on display by international institutions has forced Israel to have to fight both for its security and for its right to exist at the same time. Despite the genocide carried out by China against multiple peoples (Uighurs, Tibetans), despite the genocide carried out in Sudan, despite the mass death prosecuted by tyrants in Syria, Iran, Yemen, by Russia against Ukraine, there are few if any efforts to expel their representatives from the UN or popularly boycott their cultural and civic institutions. That is why Israel cannot afford to give ground against the antizionist threats.

UNRWA represents the largest, most persistent assault against Israel’s existence. Unlike those agencies who successfully resettled hundreds of millions of refugees during the decades of border-setting that defined the 20th century (between Greece and Turkey, between North and South Korea, between Pakistan and India, etc.), the very formulation of UNRWA held that any non-Jewish person who lived in the British Mandate of Palestine in the years before the partition was, until they returned to the same place in which they lived, a refugee. Because of this, the hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who moved (forcefully or otherwise) to Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and beyond, were taught generation after generation that their displacement was a temporary thing. That the world would ensure they could return.

And the world poured billions of dollars, annually, to fulfill that promise. While we expect countries worldwide to absorb their migrants and care for them, we – the international community – subsidized the apartheid regime in Lebanon barring Palestinians from professions, and lived at peace with the persistence of internationally funded refugee camps in sovereign states such as Jordan. By treating the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren of the non-Jewish residents of the British Mandate of Palestine differently than the generations born to the millions if not billions of other war migrants resettled in the 20th century, the international community consecrated the struggle against Jewish self-determination, and kept alive the perceived promise that the world would not allow Israel to continue its existence.

This is why the current Israeli response to years of organized international diplomatic aggression against Israel embodied by cutting Israeli ties to UNRWA should be understood as an opportunity. It is an opportunity for the Jews to emphasize to the international community that we believe there can be an end to this conflict once they finally make peace with our presence in the land. It is an opportunity for the international community to make a two-state solution possible. Only once the world makes peace with the existence of Israel by disbanding UNRWA and calling for those who now consider themselves Palestinians to be accepted as full citizens in the countries they have lived in for nearly a century – and for the Palestinian Authority to have full responsibility for those living under Israeli military occupation – will Israelis be able to make peace with the idea of a Palestinian State representing those who live in the lands conquered by Israel in 1967 as its citizens.

An endnote as promised on the American elections: I find UNRWA to be a good metaphor for the election. I’ve heard a number of people express a fear that Kamala Harris will be bad for Israel, and that the former president Trump’s track record shows he will advance peace in the region. I wholeheartedly disagree. Just as UNRWA solved a problem for Israel for decades – and was accepted by the Israeli political and defense establishment as a good substitute and partner – so too we should be concerned about supporting entities who may share with us momentary interests but are founded upon values deep in conflict with our own. Dealing with Trump is like dealing with the devil: you don’t know the price until it is too late. And, like UNRWA, I hear he has no intention of going anywhere either.