We do not know what the end of the Israel-Hamas conflict will look like. Netanyahu remains committed to the full destruction of Hamas (however unlikely that may be.) Washington wants a reformed Palestinian Authority in charge (however unlikely that may be.) One idea floating in the ether is to deploy a multinational peacekeeping force (however unlikely that may be.) Meanwhile, some extremist elements in Israeli politics want to simply take the land as a spoil of war.
But even as the so-called “day after” is unclear, one thing is becoming apparent: it will not include UNRWA, the 75-year-old UN agency tasked with supporting the health and welfare of Palestinians.
In January, the Biden administration suspended funding for UNRWA following Israeli allegations that 12 (out of 13,000) staff took part in the October 7 attack. It now appears more likely than not that this temporary “pause” may last indefinitely. On Tuesday, the State Department suggested as much. “We have to plan for the fact that Congress may make that pause permanent,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
This would represent a major shift in US policy and politics around UNRWA.
In my nearly twenty years of covering the United Nations, UNRWA has always been at least mildly politically controversial in the United States. But UNRWA has nonetheless generally received support from both Democrats and Republicans. It was seen as a necessity. In Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria, the agency provided humanitarian relief and social services, like schools and hospitals, where the state was too weak or ill-equipped to do so itself. Supporting UNRWA was considered an investment in stability in an otherwise volatile region. After Hamas took control in Gaza in 2005, UNRWA was seen as an alternative to a terrorist group. Better to have the secular UNRWA run schools than the Islamist Hamas, or so the thinking went.
To be sure, UNRWA sometimes incited controversy in US political circles. But by and large, there was a bipartisan consensus that funding UNRWA was a better bet than the alternative.
That consensus began to unravel in the Trump years — specifically, during Nikki Haley’s tenure as US Ambassador to the United Nations.
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