What is UNRWA- the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees?

Important read!!!

Originally envisioned as a temporary agency, UNRWA was created in 1949, following the unsuccessful attempt by several Arab states to destroy Israel. Over time, UNRWA developed into the only U.N. organization whose stated mission is to assist a specific group of refugees, Palestinian Arabs. All other refugee populations in the world fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Importantly, UNRWA’s definition of “refugee” is not dependent on need and even applies to citizens of recognized states, such as Jordan.

Oddly, UNRWA considers individuals living in areas ruled by Palestinians—as well as descendants of those who fled during and before Israel’s 1948 War of Independence—to be Palestinian “refugees.” As CAMERA has noted, according to UNRWA’s spurious definition, the twenty-year-old, Los Angeles-born millionaire fashion model, Bella Hadid, is considered a “refugee” from a seventy-year old event that occurred after Arab countries rejected a U.N. plan for a Jewish state and an Arab state, opting for war instead. Further, UNRWA has become the only refugee agency in the world whose purpose is not to resettle refugees (“UNRWA Has Changed the Definition of Refugee,” Foreign Policy Magazine, Aug. 17, 2018).

Instead of helping resettle refugees, UNRWA schools and facilities have been used to promote hatred and murder of Israelis. For example, a March 7, 2016 ceremony at an UNRWA school in Gaza City celebrated stabbing Jews. UNRWA officials have posed with maps erasing Israel and have been caught disseminating antisemitic materials.

Indeed, according to a 2014 report by The Center for Near East Policy Research, terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “control the UNRWA stations in Gaza” and in 2012 “UNRWA in Gaza elected Hamas to all 11 seats in the UNRWA’s teacher union and to 14 out of 16 sets in the employees and service sector union.” Hamas is a U.S.-designated terror group that rules the Gaza Strip and calls for Israel’s destruction.

Read the rest of the article here: https://www.camera.org/article/the-washington-posts-unredeemable-reporting-on-unrwa/