End the UNRWA Farce

"To make a real difference, our next president needs to understand how the United Nations' hostility to the Jewish state is rooted in perverse institutions that have been abetted by previous U.S. administrations. The most glaring example of this is the inaptly named United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). With its $1.3 billion budget (30 percent of which comes from U.S. taxpayers), this agency actually perpetuates the refugee problem it was created to solve, while promoting Palestinian rejectionism and Jew hatred. Trump will soon have the means to drain the UNRWA swamp. If he does so, he would increase the chances of peace between Palestinians and Israelis...

The original sin was the world body's unprecedented decision to create a single agency dedicated to dealing exclusively with one national group of refugees. Only the Palestinians who left Israel, a mere trickle of the post-World War II refugee flood, were designated as specially approved victims deserving of aid and support by the international community. To paraphrase Marx, this misguided policy created an historic tragedy, with elements of farce. It's not only the billions of dollars and millions of lives that have been wasted over the past half century in the squalid refugee camps. It's also that the easily solvable problem of the 1948 refugees was allowed to fester and then become the single greatest obstacle (no, President Obama, it's not Jewish settlements on the West Bank) to a peaceful solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

In the 59 UNRWA refugee camps on the West Bank and the Gaza strip a daily drama of redemption and return is played out. The Palestinian Nakba narrative (i.e. the 1948 'catastrophe') and the myth of eventual 'return' are nourished under the approving eyes of UNRWA teachers and social workers. Generations of Palestinian children have learned in UNRWA schools that their totally innocent forbearers were driven out of their homes by the conquering Zionists...

As president, Trump can do a big favor for the Palestinians by disabusing them of their fantasy of return. He should begin by immediately cutting off all American funding of UNRWA. (This will be quite easy to do, because UNRWA isn't financed out of the U.N. budget, but rather through voluntary contributions from many member states.) Instead, the president can announce that the $400 million that usually goes directly to UNRWA will be set aside for a fund available for permanent resettlement of the Palestinian residents of the refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. Trump should also lobby the other nations funding UNRWA (mostly our European allies) that it's time to end this destructive 66-year venture that breeds hate and violence.

Finally, Trump should read the Palestinian president the riot act. He should tell Abbas that it's time to end the 1948 war and let the 5.6 million alleged Palestinian refugees know that they are never going back to Israel. If Abbas is agreeable to this new path to peace, President Trump can assure the Palestinian leader that the U.S. will do everything it can to facilitate negotiations for a two-state solution. If Abbas refuses to renounce the right of return, Trump should warn him that the U.S. will end all aid programs to the Palestinians..."