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Restoring U.S. Funding to UNRWA - A Great Obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian Peace

(Newsweek) Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz - By resuming U.S. funding for UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the Biden administration is choosing to fund an agency that is institutionally committed to ensuring that peace will never be possible. UNRWA, under the cover of providing social services to Palestinians, is giving political cover to the dream of undoing Israel by nurturing and legitimizing the demand to settle millions of Palestinians inside Israel. UNRWA is one of the greatest obstacles to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The vast majority of UNRWA refugees, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original refugees, are also citizens of other countries or living within territories governed by Palestinians, and so are not actually refugees and in no need of resettlement. UNRWA sustains many of them in perpetual limbo, in the elusive promise that they will one day be able to "return" to Israel. There are perfectly rational, humane and effective ways to provide public healthcare and education services to Palestinians without fueling the conflict with Israel. As long as Palestinians are indulged by the West in their belief that the war of 1948 remains an open case, there is zero possibility that peace will be achieved. It is hard to imagine a more anti-peace U.S. policy choice. Dr. Einat Wilf, a former Labor member of the Israeli Knesset, and Adi Schwartz, a former senior editor at Ha'aretz, are the co-authors of The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace.
2021-04-14 00:00:00
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