Australia doubles its contribution to UNRWA
Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong has announced the doubling of Australia’s funding to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees, from A$10m to A$20 million.
Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong
In a statement, Penny Wong said: “Until there is a just and sustainable solution to the refugee situation, UNRWA is the only organisation that has the mandate and central role to provide relief and social services to Palestinian refugees in the region.
We will continue to hold UNRWA accountable for its adherence to principles of tolerance, non-discrimination, equality and neutrality.
Ultimately, Australia wants to see a region in which UNRWA’s work is no longer necessary.”
She added: “Australia remains a strong supporter of a two-state solution, in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist, in peace and security, within internationally recognised borders. Viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from one perspective will not achieve that goal.
A two-state solution can only be achieved through a negotiated outcome between the two parties. Australia encourages Israel and the Palestinians to return to direct negotiations in good faith.
We would welcome any initiative that can assist in the resumption of direct peace negotiations to arrive at a sustainable and resilient settlement.”
Peter Wertheim
Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said: ““The issue is not about providing aid for Palestinians in need. It’s about channelling that aid through UNRWA, an organisation with a well-documented history of gross mismanagement and misappropriation of funds and producing and teaching “educational” content in Palestinian schools which contains overt antisemitic canards and conspiracies, rejection of peacemaking, and the glorification of violence and terrorists, for which UNRWA has been condemned by the European parliament. It is a case of one UN agency, UNRWA, spending tens of millions of dollars from donor States to undermine the work of another, namely UNESCO.
Our concerns about UNRWA do not only relate to matters of financial probity and proper governance. Nor are they limited to the disproportionate quantity of human and other resources devoted by the UN to UNRWA compared to the resources the UN devotes to all of the world’s other refugees through the office of the UN High Commissioner of Refugees.
Our central concern is that UNRWA as an institution is inherently structured to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee problem rather than to solve it, and to perpetuate the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians instead of preparing the Palestinians for peace and statehood.
Health, education and welfare services are being delivered to Palestinians through a number of joint projects operated by Israeli and Palestinian organisations working co-operatively, which are free of the problems associated with UNRWA. We urge the government in future to look to these as more constructive alternatives through which to channel Australia’s aid to Palestinians.”
ZFA President Jeremy Leibler added: “We support the provision of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. However, UNRWA helps perpetuate the conflict, is riddled with corruption, and its staff have repeatedly been involved in the glorification of violence against Jews or acts that support terrorism. It is not the right vehicle for Australian aid for Palestinians.”
Mr Leibler continued, “We welcome the Foreign Minister’s determination to hold UNRWA accountable, and we look forward to hearing more details as to how this will be achieved.”
The executive director of The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, Dr Colin Rubenstein, commented: “AIJAC supports Australian aid to the Palestinians to provide both humanitarian support and to assist with state-building and peace-building. Unfortunately, UNRWA is a terrible vehicle for achieving any of these legitimate foreign policy goals – it has serious corruption problems, it uses a unique, inheritable definition of Palestinian refugee status, it inculcates hatred and rejectionism through the textbooks it uses in its schools, and it has repeatedly had its facilities used by terrorist groups. Because of all these issues, UNRWA is a tangible part of the problem in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Australia increasing its funding to the agency can only undermine Australia’s commendable, longstanding, bipartisan policy of promoting a negotiated, two-state resolution to that conflict.”
What a lot of empty rhetoric, Penny Wong. People do not see what they do not wish to see. And that’s the Labor political take on UNRWA.
In what way will you continue to hold UNRWA accountable for its adherence to principles of tolerance, etc. etc. … blah, blah, blah ? How will you do this, how will you monitor it? How do these words even have anything to do with action on the ground in the region you are talking about? What does ‘neutrality’ have to do with it? Where does that fit in? Never have words been so inappropriate, so vacuous given the actual situation that exists.
The doubling of funding will help fund the war being waged by those you call refugees (?) and fuel their ongoing agenda of hate and blinkered intent.