Palestinians receive flour bags distributed by UNRWA in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Nov. 21, 2023.IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/Reuters
Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, was no doubt well-intentioned when he asked on Sunday that leaders avoid making “a political football” of Ottawa’s move to suspend funding for the main UN agency responsible for delivering aid to Palestinians.
As an ex-Liberal MP and witness to the pigskin-throwing that went on in Ottawa over Canada’s position toward the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during the Stephen Harper years, however, Mr. Rae must know it is far too late for that.
Last week’s decision to halt funding came after the Israeli government alleged that at least 12 UNRWA staff members had participated in the unspeakably horrific Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the current war in Gaza.
No UN-affiliated organization is as politically contentious as UNRWA, which is saying a lot when you consider the list includes punching bags such as the World Health Organization and the International Monetary Fund. Nearly since its creation in 1949, with a mandate to provide humanitarian relief to the 700,000 Palestinian refugees displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, UNWRA has been steeped in controversy, scandal and corruption.
The only thing shocking about Israel’s latest charges is that the agency would respond to the allegations by calling them “shocking.” That the ranks of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza, almost all of whom are Palestinians, teem with Hamas sympathizers is an open secret. No one could have been surprised that some of them turned out to be terrorists.
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal, citing Israeli intelligence sources, reported that an estimated 10 per cent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. UNRWA’s male employees are even more likely than the overall male population in Gaza to have Hamas ties.
Once Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, UNRWA faced constant accusations from critics such as NGO Monitor and UN Watch that its schools indoctrinated students in anti-Israel ideology and served as bases for Hamas militants and storehouses for their weapons. In 2010, Mr. Harper’s Conservative government seized on the allegations to halt the $20-million in annual lump-sum funding that Canada provided UNRWA, saying it would redirect the money to specific aid projects in the region. That same year, Canada lost a bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.
One of the first foreign policy decisions taken by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government after its election was to restore Canada’s funding to UNRWA. “We want to see Palestinian refugee children in classrooms where they can learn universal values of tolerance and respect,” Marie-Claude Bibeau, then the international development minister, said when she announced a $25-million grant. Such wishful thinking belied the reality on the ground in Gaza and the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria where UNRWA operates.
The Conservatives then accused Mr. Trudeau of seeking to curry favour with Israel’s foes as his government waged its own ultimately unsuccessful campaign for a UN Security Council seat. But until the latest allegations surfaced last week, current Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had been uncritical of the Liberals when they renewed funding for UNRWA in June (announcing $100-million over four years) and further boosted grants to the agency after Oct. 7.
That changed once the Trudeau government joined the United States and a dozen other countries in suspending funding for UNRWA pending the results of a UN-led investigation into the allegations involving the agency’s staff. “Trudeau should be ashamed of himself for the way he spent our money to fund this terrorist organization,” Mr. Poilievre said of UNRWA on Sunday in an address to Conservative MPs.
That went way too far. But the Liberals played their part in making Canada’s funding of UNRWA a political football by long dismissing accusations of pro-Hamas behaviour levelled against the agency’s staff.
In November, when independent MP Kevin Vuong questioned Ottawa’s move to increase funding for UNRWA in the House of Commons, International Development Minster Ahmed Hussen could barely contain his contempt for the question. “In these crucial times, trusted agencies, like UNRWA, must receive more support, not less,” Mr. Hussen responded, accusing Mr. Vuong of seeking to score “political points against vulnerable people in their time of need.”
Last week, Mr. Hussen expressed “alarm” concerning Israel’s allegations, adding: “Canada is taking these reports extremely seriously and is engaging closely with UNRWA and other donors on this issue.”
It is tragic that the situation has come to this. Despite the heroic work done by most of UNRWA’s employees, it may be too late now to save it.