"A corruption scandal involving sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation against whistleblowers and lots of business-class travel has gripped the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. It represents a new low for Unrwa and an indictment of the idea of an international agency dedicated to a single interest. But it's also a unique opportunity to see behind the curtain of a billion-dollar U.N. bureaucracy and phase it out.
The allegations come from a leaked Unrwa ethics report completed in December 2018 exposed last week by Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse. The published account accuses Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl of appointing Maria Mohammedi, with whom he had a relationship "beyond the professional," to a newly created and fast-tracked role as senior adviser and flying her around the world in business class.
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According to the report, Ms. Mohammedi's new job allowed her to join Mr. Krähenbühl on his busy and expensive travel schedule. Current and former Unrwa officials describe him as perpetually absent from Jerusalem, a submarine who "surfaces for a couple of days" of public meetings then "disappears into the unknown for protracted periods." Unrwa, which complains it's strapped for cash, would have footed the bill for all of it.
The commissioner-general's travel, the report explains, left chief of staff Hakam Shahwan in control of Unrwa's operations in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Mr. Shahwan himself stands accused of bullying staff, acting like a "thug," bypassing procedures for procurement and other financial decisions, and excessive partiality to the Palestinian Authority.
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One lesson is that funders must demand internal controls, external audits and public access to information. Assurances regarding Palestinian needs aren't enough. Scrutiny is also needed for the Palestinian Authority, which uses foreign aid to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in pensions to terrorists and their families.
A second lesson concerns the danger of devoting an international organization to a single population. Unrwa was effectively taken over by Palestinians decades ago. Politicization began at the bottom with school curricula, but crept upward with senior managers calling for the Palestinian right of return..."