By Joseph Klein
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Commissioner-General Karen Koning abuZayd of the United Nations Relief and Works agency ("UNRWa"), which serves the Palestinian refugees, blames the West--and the United States in particular--for the severe financial crisis currently faced by the Hamas-led Palestinian government. She called the West's aid cutoff to the Palestinian terrorist regime a "starvation and siege" of Palestinians. Unfortunately, Ms. abuZayd chooses to ignore the primary cause. The crisis would end immediately if Hamas were to simply acknowledge Israel's right to exist and forswear terrorism. The aid would then be resumed immediately. Yet Ms. abuZayd considers Israel to be the root of the whole Palestinian refugee problem, once claiming that "in all of our years of working in conflict situations, even with so-called "rogue states," of all the interlocutors we've worked with, the Israelis are the most intransigent." With that kind of attitude, the UNRWa Commissioner-General should hardly be surprised if her dire warnings are taken with a grain of salt.
Nevertheless, even with her anti-Israel biases intact, Ms. abuZayd has plenty of donor contributions at her own disposal to alleviate the immediate crisis. UNRWa's regular annual budget for 2006 is approximately $489 million--about $90 million higher than the 2005 budget. To get an idea where this money would go, consider as a precedent UNRWa's biennial program budget for 2004-2005. Seventy-one percent of that two-year budget was allotted to staffing. To make things worse, some of the $90 million dollar increase in the 2006 budget will be used for raises. although it is true that these jobs do provide employment for approximately 23,000 local Palestinians, UNRWa has had a mixed track record in making sure that Hamas terrorists are not on its payrolls. and some of these jobs come at the sacrifice of many millions of dollars that could be put to use serving a far broader cross-section of the refugee population.
Moreover, the distribution of monies in the field appears to be off kilter. In the 2004-2005 budget, Jordan was to receive $150,698,000 while Syria was to receive $56,410,000. Taken together, these two countries--which should be perfectly capable of taking care of their own refugee populations--were to receive about the same as the Gaza Strip and nearly double the amount going to the West Bank!
One obvious solution to the present crisis for Ms. abuZayd to ponder, even if she is not willing to press Hamas to turn away from its fanatical destructive bent for the benefit of the Palestinian people, is to cut the fat in her agency's budget. This includes the elimination of all patronage jobs and unnecessary administrative overhead. Then she could use the monies saved to pay directly for the human necessities that she claims the refugees are not getting as a result of the cuts in direct aid by the U.S. and EU to the Hamas regime. Moreover, she should press to cut the subsidies to Jordan and Syria, using those monies where they are more desperately needed.
UNRWa should also broaden its funding base. The United States, Europe and Canada have been the most generous donors to UNRWa. Based on 2004 data, the United States pledged contributions of about 25% ($127,416,312) of UNRWa's total funding of $500,221,292. according to the U.S. State department, FY06 U.S. government contributions to date include $84.15 million to UNRWa's General Fund, which supports the agency's core educational, health, and social programs for refugees in UNRWa's five fields of operation (West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria), and another $51 million to its 2006 Emergency appeal, which provides emergency food and health care to refugees in the West Bank and Gaza. This year's contribution will support UNRWa's creation of 38,787 temporary jobs. Since the second intifada erupted in September 2000, the United States has contributed $186 million to UNRWa's emergency appeals. Over the past seven years the U.S. average annual contribution to UNRWa's General Fund has been $86.45 million. and the United States is not cutting off its UNRWa funding, even in the wake of Hamas' take over of the Palestinian government.
It is about time that the countries in the region, which have done the most complaining, pick up a much larger share of the tab. For example, based on 2004 data, the oil-rich arab state, Saudi arabia, contributed about 3.6% ($1,800,000). Iran was not on the list of pledging states at all for 2004. and, although outside the Middle East, what do we make of China's paltry pledge of $79,985? Why is the world's fastest growing economy always given a free ride when it comes to doing something beyond its own crass self-interest? If the budget cuts needed to alleviate the crisis turn out to be too drastic, Ms. abuZayad should go to the underfunding states and ask them to make up the shortfall.
Finally, the neighboring arab countries should agree to accept a portion of the refugee population who are willing to relocate as full citizens. They should also put pressure on Hamas to accept the commitments of the prior Palestinian regime to negotiate a peaceful two-state solution with Israel, rather than remain in the background.
We are now witnessing the avoidable tragedy of a fifth generation of Palestinian refugees, living on the false hope that they will all someday return to Israel under some sort of "law of return". UNRWa has become a permanent fixture in the region, feeding such illusions rather than working to help the refugees build their own state side by side with Israel. Simply throwing more money at the Palestinian problem will not fix it anytime soon.
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