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Close UNRWA. It's Time for Gazans to Start Paying Their Own Bills

(JNS) Einat Wilf interviewed by Natan Galula - Political scientist and former Israeli parliamentarian Einat Wilf spoke to JNS on Friday about the role in Gaza of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). In no other conflict or place in the world, she said, "can you find a situation where an external body assumes the responsibility to finance all the daily needs of the [local people] in a way that absolves them of any responsibility for themselves." While UNRWA takes care of the welfare of Palestinians, Hamas can keep arming itself and bolster its military capabilities. "They face no [economic] consequences if in every round of fighting they can go back to square one," she stressed. The U.S., Germany, the EU and France are its top contributors. "Gaza has no economic problem. It sits on beautiful, white sand beaches...and is situated on attractive trading routes. Its land is also effective for agriculture. The problem is political. Politics have turned Gaza into a war machine. Gaza doesn't really need outside help. Its people need to decide if they prefer investing in themselves, rather than destroying what the Jews have built." The world needs to stop financing the Palestinians, she says. If UNRWA ceases to exist, nothing significant will change on the ground. UNRWA workers are Palestinian, "not European employees as most people imagine." Gaza will have the same workers with the same set of skills; the only thing that will change is that they will have to start paying their own bills. "If they run their own economy, collect taxes like any other country, pay their own salaries, they will not have the time to build hundreds of kilometers of tunnels and plot Oct. 7s." After the war concludes, if Palestinians understand that the "destruction in Gaza is what happens when you insist on holding onto your stupid ideology of destroying Israel," then things can change for the better. But if the message is that "the destruction is horrible, Jews are bad, let's hurry up and reconstruct everything," then things will continue as they were. "The war is the result of [Gaza's outside funding]. The message is: You concentrate on 'from the river to the sea' and we will take care of everything else."
2025-01-02 00:00:00
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