"This past Sunday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for dismantling UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency). He charged that the very existence of UNRWA 'perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem rather than solves it.'
For years, Israeli officials have noted that UNRWA has provided a breeding ground for the growth of terrorist activity against Israel; indeed some of the greatest Hamas masterminds, like Ibrahim Maqadma and Salah Shehada, were graduates of UNWRA schools. In 2014, UNRWA used its schools for storing rockets. UNRWA building supplies were found to have been used by Hamas for tunnel construction. This month, a Hamas tunnel was discovered under two UNRWA schools.
UNWRA's role in perpetuating the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is less well known, despite the fact that its origins date back to UNWRA's founding in 1949. Unlike the millions of refugees after the Second World War, who were resettled in the countries in which they now resided and became citizens, the Palestinian-Arab refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war maintained their refugee status.
The refugee problem eventually melted away in Europe and on the Indian Subcontinent, but the Palestinian refugee problem only got worse. UNRWA's own data puts the number of Palestinian refugees in 1948 at 750,000; today, according to UNRWA, the number of refugees has mushroomed to roughly five million. Successful refugee programs, like the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), have led to a diminution of the refugee problem in different parts of the world. UNRWA had the exact opposite effect.
The heart of UNWRA's problem is definitional.
UNRWA established official eligibility criteria for its services; they included those who lost their home and livelihood in the 1948 war. Unlike other UN refugee agencies, however, UNRWA added 'the descendants of Palestine refugee males.' UNHCR carried no such provision for passing on refugee status to the next generation, but with UNRWA, there was no cutoff. UNRWA has now reached the fourth generation of refugees.
Refugee status has continued from generation to generation in perpetuity...
If a new peace initiative is to start, it should include at the outset a program to dismantle the refugee camps and promote a massive international effort for the construction of new housing...
Dismantling UNRWA is critical in this effort. It is the international caretaker of the problematic definition of refugee status for the Palestinians, which has allowed this problem to expand continually..."