UNRWA at 60
By Rami G. Khouri
Activities at the UN headquarters in New York City Thursday, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), coincided with the latest political developments revolving around the meeting last Tuesday of US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas.
Political leaders on all fronts have wildly failed the Palestinian and Israeli peoples’ right to live in secure, stable societies, while the thousands of UNRWA employees have consistently made sure that millions of politically abandoned and physically vulnerable refugees receive the basic services and common decencies that are the birthright of every human being.
The work that UNRWA has done to deliver education, healthcare, social services and basic protection for many of the 4.6 million refugees registered with it represents the United Nations at its best - helping people at the material level, while drawing attention to the need to ensure their political, national and human rights, even in conditions of vicious warfare.
Some of the refugees live in appalling conditions, especially in Lebanon and Gaza, where unemployment and school dropout rates are often very high. Yet the continued mandate of UNRWA and its adaptation to changing circumstances sends the message that the world sees the refugees as people who have basic rights that are not mere slogans, but realities that must be exercised.
UNRWA was established in 1949 shortly after the nations of the world issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which saw individuals as unique in every way except for their identical right to leave behind the jungle and to live in conditions governed by access to equal rights guaranteed by the rule of law.
UNRWA is also important to recognise today as a living symbol of the desire and ability of ordinary Palestinians to create a society of integrity, decency and opportunity when they are given a chance to do so.
Because UNRWA is staffed mainly by Palestinians, it is something of a microcosm of how a Palestinian society would evolve if it were not subjected to the attacks and pressures of others. Several million Palestinians have passed through hundreds of UNRWA schools in the last 60 years, and many of them have gone on to contribute to the development of the modern Arab world as employees or entrepreneurs in their home communities or further afield.
The Palestine issue has probably been the single most radicalising and destabilising force in the modern Arab world - but UNRWA has been the most powerful force for moderation and sensibility among Palestinians who might otherwise have become disruptive and violent if they had been denied the basic services and dignity that UNRWA represents. Thousands of young Palestinians have indeed turned to violence, fighting other Palestinians and Arabs, Israelis or even attacking foreign targets in some cases of particularly absurd terror. Yet if UNRWA did not exist or provide the level and quality of services that keep young men and women healthy and in school or work, the discarded and dispirited Palestinians who would have turned to violence would probably have numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not even a few million.
Perhaps the most important new role that UNRWA has played in recent years has been its increasing determination - represented by its senior officials - to speak out forcefully when the refugees were in the most dire circumstances and in the greatest need of assistance and protection - such as during the recent Israeli attack on Gaza.
UNRWA has expanded its role from a provider of basic services to a voice of conscience that reminds the world of two related points: that Palestinian refugees are often helpless and vulnerable and thus must be afforded the most fundamental level of protection that is commensurate with their status as human beings, and that the international community has a moral and legal obligation to provide that protection while simultaneously seeking the political resolution needed to end the status of refugee and the exile of the Palestinians.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd put it eloquently in her comment last Thursday: “The protracted exile of Palestine refugees and the dire conditions they endure, particularly in the occupied Palestinian territory, cannot be reconciled with state obligations under the United Nations Charter…. UNRWA stands ready to play its constructive and enabling role to ensure that the Palestine refugee voice is heard and that their interests and choices are reflected in any future agreement.”
Paying attention to the refugees’ voice, interests and choices, as AbuZayd states, is the essence of what we should grasp as we mark this anniversary. Sixty years is a long time for refugees to suffer their miserable conditions, but this period has also shown, through UNRWA’s work, what can be done when men and women of decency put their mind to it, and when states take seriously their obligation to protect the vulnerable among us.
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