Canada 'Defunds', America Defends (UNRWA)

On the domestic scene, the Harper government has been far too timid, failing, for example, to reign in our cockamanie "human rights" system. Internationally, however, it's been a tiger--the first nation in the world to have spine enough to tell the UNHRC jackals to stick their second Durban "anti-racism" confab, and the first to defund another despicable UN agency, UNRWA. Assaf Romirowsky, an expert on UNRWA, hails Canada's stance and shares his insights about the agency with FrontPage magazine:

To an outsider, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) seems to be a UN humanitarian group aiding Palestinian refugees. In reality however, it helps destroy the chances of Arab-Israeli peace, promotes terrorism, and holds back Palestinian society from ever achieving statehood.

There has been much evidence to show how UNRWA schools have become hotbeds of anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Semitic indoctrination, as well as recruiting offices for Islamist terror groups. UNRWA is the largest employer of Palestinians as such the local offices are dominated by radicals who staff and subsidize Islamist groups while potentially intimidating anyone from voicing a different line. UNRWA facilities and vehicles are used to store and transport weapons, and have actually served as military bases.

In this process, UNRWA has broken all the rules that are presumed to govern humanitarian enterprises, encouraging their resettlement, avoiding political stances, and putting refugees in danger. But by design, UNRWA is the exact opposite of other refugee relief operations, such as those orchestrated by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR).

UNRWA defines a “refugee” in the broadest terms by including not only those Arabs who fled from territories held by Israel, but also those who stayed in their homes and lost their source of livelihood as a result of war. Today, this would include all third- and fourth-generation children of refugees, even those of just one Palestinian refugee parent.

UNRWA in its current make up is a liability for many reasons. For one, it affords its employees U.N. diplomatic immunity, it undercuts the organization’s accountability. UNRWA workers have abused their diplomatic privilege to engage in or encourage terrorism. Television crews have filmed UNRWA employees escorting armed Palestinian fighters in U.N. vehicles. Agency-operated – and, by extension, America-funded – schools decorate their classrooms with flags and banners celebrating terrorist groups.

Currently, all UNRWA has to do when it goes to request monies from the United States is to say that they take care of the betterment of the Palestinian refugees without any kind of actual transparency and accountability of what they actual do to further that agenda. The United States which funds a third of UNRWA’s annual budget deserves checks and balances from any agency it finances especially, UNRWA.

As a result of the above, Canada has become the first Western country to demand the type of accountability and responsibility that a donor country deserves by saying NO to UNRWA and only allocating monies to certain Palestinian projects within the Palestinian Authority that can show how they evaluate their work and prove their effectiveness.

Given that one of the chief policy issues for the United States is how to aid in mobilizing donors, both public and private, for a financial infusion of aid resources to finance refugee compensation (and resettlement, immigration, and rehabilitation) as well as the permanent status agreement in general. It would behoove us to follow the Canadian example which would allow our tax dollars to be spent on promoting independent Palestinian organizations and private-sector growth.

Gee, do you think maybe Hussein Barack should be more concerned about the damage that continues to be wrought by this terrorism-abetting-and-perpetuating agency than by a construction project in Jerusalem?