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Source: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/01/30/unrwa-exposed/
UNRWA Must Be Replaced in Gaza after Hamas Falls
(Foundation for Defense of Democracies) Richard Goldberg - Former White House National Security Council official Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that UNRWA was founded as a political weapon in the Arab world's campaign to destroy the State of Israel after its founding. The agency has evolved into an internationally funded, locally staffed, foreign aid entitlement program that incites violence against Israel, subsidizes U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, denies Palestinians their basic human rights, and blocks the pathways to a sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians. While the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has 19,000 employees, manages 29.4 million refugees, UNRWA employs more than 30,000 Palestinians to service a claimed figure of 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, which includes the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the original 700,000 refugees. These Palestinians are brought up with the hatred and resentment that comes with the "refugee" label's political and economic limitations. That label comes with a vision that one day the Jews will be driven into the Mediterranean Sea - and all these so-called "refugees" will return to their land. October 7 was the logical conclusion of UNRWA's indoctrination. UNRWA lists 1.7 million of Gaza's population of 2.1 million as refugees - people who have lived in Gaza for generations - a statistic intended to advance a political agenda, not reflect reality. News reports discuss "urban refugee camps." What is an urban refugee camp? That is a made-up term. These are cities. UNRWA is not a refugee agency. Period. What should we call it? A welfare entitlement agency? A make-work project for Palestinians? A substitute for genuine Palestinian institution-building, self-responsibility, and self-sufficiency? Take your pick. Congress should block any attempt by the administration to include UNRWA in the future of Gaza after Hamas falls.