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Seventy Years to UNRWA — Time for Structural and Functional Reforms

Memorandum No. 204, September 2020

Michal Hatuel-Radoshitzky

The year 2020 marks seventy years since UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), which serves Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, began operation. Since its establishment by virtue of the mandate given to it by the UN General Assembly, UNRWA has not succeeded in bringing about the true rehabilitation of the Palestinian refugees and in reducing their number, which has risen from approximately 700,000 on the eve of the State of Israel’s establishment to over 5.5 million refugees in 2020. The impact of the regional upheaval on the Palestinian refugees, the stagnation of the political process between Israel and the Palestinians, the split in the Palestinian arena, the humanitarian distress in the Gaza Strip, the centrality of the refugee issue in the Palestinian narrative, and the American administration’s 2018 decision to stop funding UNRWA pose even more complex challenges for the agency. In light of the understanding of the need for changing the agency’s modes of operation and adapting them to the challenges of the current reality, and given that all attempts and recommendations to significantly reform the agency’s modes of operation over the years having been thwarted, this memorandum discusses UNRWA’s operational concept and functioning and presents four alternative models of operation, along with a methodology for analyzing the different alternatives.

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The purpose of this memorandum is to serve as a basis for a strategic thinking process about the continued operation of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), which serves Palestinian refugees living in the agency’s five areas of operation—the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The operational paradigms and procedures guiding UNRWA’s functioning warrant a fresh discussion due to the agency’s failure to resettle Palestinian refugees, as evidenced by the growth of the agency’s beneficiaries from 700,000 refugees following the establishment of the State of Israel to over 5.5 million in 2020. These issues demand attention at this time, given the chronological perspective of seven decades having now passed since UNRWA’s founding in 1949 and given the decision of the United States, which has traditionally been the agency’s largest donor, to cease funding the agency. In the background is a complex humanitarian and military reality in UNRWA’s regions of operation, the regional upheaval and its impact on the Palestinian refugee population, the deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian political process, and the centrality of the refugee issue to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2020, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) entered the eighth decade of its existence. Given the complexity of the humanitarian situation in UNRWA’s various operational zones (in particular in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria); the stagnation of the political process; the regional upheaval and its impact on the population of Palestinian refugees; and the centrality of Palestinian refugees to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, there is a place—and even an obligation—to examine UNRWA’s mandate, operational paradigms, and functional procedures with fresh eyes.

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 181, which determined the end of British rule in Mandatory Palestine and the division of the land into two separate states: a Jewish state and an Arab state. Israel accepted the plan; the Arab world rejected it. On May 14, 1948, the Jewish leadership declared the establishment of the State of Israel, and shortly thereafter, Arab armies invaded the state. As a result of the war that broke out, hundreds of thousands of Arabs were uprooted and fled from their homes.

In 1950, a year after UNRWA’s establishment, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was founded.54 A year later, in 1951, the Refugee Convention was ratified by 145 countries who agreed to the definition of who is a refugee. Naturally, the UNHCR’s establishment raised the issue of the place of the Palestinian refugees within this new refugee framework. Arab states, which were determined that the Palestinian issue would remain on the agenda of the international community and leverage the issue to apply pressure on Israel, insisted that the Palestine refugees remain under UNRWA’s responsibility. This separation of Palestinian refugees was backed by the claim that the universal definition of refugees would do an injustice to refugees whose right of return to their homeland was already recognized by the General Assembly. Thus, the Refugee Convention included a clause determining separate parameters for Palestinian refugees, noting that “this Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees protection or assistance.”

In considering theoretical alternatives to the lacunae elaborated upon in the previous chapters, we have formulated four alternatives (three basic and one modular) based on experience and ideas that have accumulated over the years and are presented here for the first time. Evidently, while each of the first three alternatives has its advantages and disadvantages, no course of action is fully sufficient. Nevertheless, we chose to present these alternatives and to highlight the complexities involved in adopting a course of action that is based on a single logic. Thus, a fourth modular alternative that combines relative advantages from each course of action is also presented, based on the rationale that it could be tailored to the different contexts that characterize UNRWA’s five operational zones. Furthermore, the entire conceptual model can be developed according to considerations and priorities defined by decision makers and can be adapted further as progress is made on the ground.

UNRWA was established according to UN General Assembly Resolution 302(IV) from December 1949, which ordered the creation of an aid agency for a two-to-three-year period until the emergency situation (following the war) would end and some 700,000 refugees would be resettled. At the time, the Palestinian refugees constituted only a small portion of the world’s refugee population following World War II. However, unlike other refugee populations whose numbers were significantly reduced with important UN assistance, the population of Palestinian refugees grew to over 5.5 million registered as UNRWA beneficiaries, seven decades later. This influx is the product of an accumulation of circumstances outlined in this document, including (but not limited to) a number of adaptations to the definition of who is eligible for refugee status and the maintaining of refugee status despite citizenship in host states and regardless of socioeconomic indices or involvement in terror. This definition is opposed to the terms and conditions that define refugees from other conflicts in the world.

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