UNRWA funding cuts reflect the all-too-familiar politicisation of refugee aid
- Refugee and humanitarian aid should be neutral and impartial, but funding is often used as a foreign policy tool to reward allies and punish enemies
- While UNRWA is apolitical, it has frequently been criticised by Palestinians, Israelis and donor countries, including the US, for acting politically
About a dozen countries, including the US, suspended funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for delivering aid to Palestinian refugees.
This follows Israel’s allegations 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. UNRWA responded by dismissing all accused employees and launching an investigation.
While the seriousness of the accusations is clear, the US has been downplaying the significance of its funding pause, the action goes against precedent.
Western donors did not, for example, defund other UN agencies or peacekeeping operations amid accusations of sexual assault, corruption or complicity in war crimes.
Cuts to UNRWA funding will affect 1.7 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza along with an additional 400,000 Palestinians without refugee status, which benefit from UNRWA’s infrastructure. Some critics said depriving the agency of funds amounts to collective punishment against Palestinians.
Refugee and humanitarian aid, in theory, should be neutral and impartial. But as experts in migration and international relations, we know funding is often used as a foreign policy tool to reward allies and punish enemies. In this context, we believe cuts to UNRWA funding fit a broader pattern of politicisation of refugee aid, particularly Palestinian refugees.
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What is UNRWA?
UNRWA, short for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was founded two years after 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the months leading up to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war.
Before UNRWA’s founding, international and local organisations, many religious, provided services to displaced Palestinians. But after surveying the extreme poverty and dire situation across refugee camps, the UN General Assembly, including all Arab states and Israel, voted to create UNRWA in 1949.
Since then, UNRWA has become the main aid agency providing food, medical care, schooling and, in some cases, housing for 6 million Palestinians across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the areas that make up the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The mass displacement of Palestinians – known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” – occurred before the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defined refugees as anyone with a well-founded fear of persecution owing to “events occurring in Europe before 1 January 1951.” Despite a 1967 protocol extending the definition worldwide, Palestinians are still excluded from the main international system protecting refugees.
While UNRWA is responsible for providing services to Palestinian refugees, the UN also created the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine in 1948 to seek a long-term political solution and “to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.”
As a result, UNRWA does not have a mandate to push for traditional solutions available in other refugee situations. As it happened, the conciliation commission was active only for a few years and sidelined in favour of the US-brokered peace processes.
Is UNRWA political?
UNRWA has faced political obstacles since its inception, particularly at times of heightened tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.
While it is a UN organisation and thus apolitical, it has frequently been criticised by Palestinians, Israelis and donor countries, including the US, for acting politically.
UNRWA performs statelike functions across its five fields – including education, health and infrastructure – but its mandate restricts it from performing political or security activities.
Initial Palestinian objections to UNRWA arose from the organisation’s early focus on the economic integration of refugees into host states.
Although UNRWA adhered to the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 194 that called for the return of Palestine refugees to their homes, UN, UK and US officials sought ways to resettle and integrate Palestinians into host states, viewing this as the favourable political solution to the Palestinian refugee situation and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this sense, Palestinians perceived UNRWA as both highly political and actively working against their interests.
In later decades, at the urging of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA shifted its primary focus from employment to education. But UNRWA’s education materials were viewed by Israel as feeding Palestinian militancy, and the Israeli government insisted on reviewing and approving all materials in Gaza and the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.
While Israel has long been suspicious of UNRWA’s role in refugee camps and in providing education, the organisation’s operation, which is internationally funded, also saves Israel millions of dollars annually in services it would owe as the occupying power.
Since the 1960s, the US – UNRWA’s primary donor – and other Western countries repeatedly expressed their desire to use aid to prevent radicalisation among refugees.
In response to the increased presence of armed opposition groups, the US attached a provision to its UNRWA aid in 1970, requiring “UNRWA take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army or any other guerilla-type organisation.”
UNRWA adheres to this requirement, even publishing an annual list of its employees so host governments can vet them, but it also employs 30,000 people, most of whom are Palestinian .
Questions over UNRWA’s links to any militancy led to the rise of Israeli and international watch groups that document the social media activity of the organisation’s large Palestinian staff.
What is UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza that Israel accuses of militant links?
Repeated cuts in funding
The US has used its money and power within the UN to block criticism of Israel, vetoing 45 UN resolutions critical of Israel.
The latest freeze is not the first time it cut funding to UNRWA or other UN agencies in response to the status of Palestinians.
In 2011, the US cut all funding to Unesco, the UN’s cultural body, after the agency voted to admit the state of Palestine as a full member.
The Obama administration defended the move, claiming it was required by a 1990s law to defund any UN body that admitted Palestine as a full member.
The action had a severe impact. Within four years, Unesco cut its staff in half and rolled back operations. President Donald Trump later withdrew the US completely from Unesco.
In 2018, the Trump administration paused its US$60 million contribution to UNRWA. Trump claimed this would create political pressure for Palestinians to negotiate. President Joe Biden restarted US contributions to UNRWA in 2021.
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Politicisation of refugee aid
Palestinians are not the only group to suffer from the politicisation of refugee funding.
After World War II, different international organisations were established to assist refugees, but some groups were strategically excluded. For example, the US funded the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to help resettle displaced persons after World War II, but resisted Soviet pressure to forcibly repatriate Soviet citizens.
The US also created a separate organisation, the precursor to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), to circumvent Soviet influence. UNRWA’s existence and the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from the wider refugee regime parallels this dynamic.
Funding for refugees has also been politicised through the earmarking of voluntary contributions to UN agencies. Some receive funding from UN dues; but UNRWA, alongside the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration (UNHCR), receive most of their funding from voluntary contributions from member states.
These contributions can be earmarked for specific activities or locations, leading to donors such as the US or EU dictating which refugees get aid and which do not. Earmarked contributions amounted to nearly 96 per cent of UNHCR’s budget, 96 per cent of IOM’s budget and 74 per cent of UNRWA funding in 2022.
As a result, cuts to UNRWA funding will affect its ability to service Palestinian refugees in Gaza – especially at a time when so many are facing hunger, disease and displacement as a result of war.
