Are we equipping the Palestinians to tolerate the intolerable?

A conference in Beirut last week focussed on the shift of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from “Relief and Works to Human Development: UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees after 60 years”. Held at the American University of Beirut, the event attracted academics, aid workers and community groups from across the region and the wider world. The conference was co-sponsored by UNRWA and the Issam Fares Institute based at the AUB, and support was given by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the embassies of Norway and Holland.

In his keynote address, UNRWA Commissioner General Filippo Grandi said that the UN agency he heads has moved from “relief-driven operations to education, health and community-based services; the choice – still unique among international organizations – to build a body of staff composed almost entirely of refugees, and to provide direct services to the people we serve”. UNRWA, he added, is “neither only humanitarian nor typically developmental”. It was inevitable that such statements were picked over in great detail by the participants. Even the conference title, referring to “human development”, was deemed to be contentious.

UNRWA was established by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) on 8 December 1949 in recognition that “continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief”. That sentence could take many weeks to deconstruct and debate, but it is clear that UNRWA was intended to be a temporary agency working until the international community could take “constructive measures” to bring about a resolution to the problem of Palestinian refugees. Sixty-two years later, of course, we are still waiting for that elusive resolution and UNRWA’s role has changed to such an extent that it raises serious questions; paraphrasing a recent report by the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, are aid agencies, UNRWA included, merely equipping Palestinian refugees to tolerate the intolerable? Does UNRWA’s shift towards “human development” – a move echoed by NGOs in their approach to helping refugee communities to become more self-sufficient and less reliant on aid – signal an acceptance that the refugees’ plight is, like it or not, permanent? In such a politically-charged conflict at the heart of which lie the refugees, is humanitarian aid ever going to be successful without accompanying rigorous political pressure on the states whose actions prolong the refugees’ misery?

In Britain, political activity in itself is not a charitable activity, but guidance from the Charity Commission regulator says that charities can engage in political activity to lobby for policy changes by government, for example, if such changes would make it easier to carry out their charitable activities. The current political landscape, however, makes most charities wary of engaging too much with politics; claims of illegal activity are very easy to make, but not so easy to disprove.

Arguably the most interesting session of the conference looked at “Civic participation and community engagement”; the discussant was Dawn Chatty, Deputy Director of the aforementioned Refugee Studies Centre. Dr. Chatty said that the terminology used – participation, sustainability and development – was all contentious and complex. Who defines what “development” is, for example, and doesn’t participation require a “true sharing of power and recognition of rights”? This linked nicely with what Nell Gabiam, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, said in response to questions following her presentation to the conference on “the political implications of ‘sustainable development'”. Dr. Gabiam saw “no problem” with humanitarian efforts which overlap with those of a political nature. Although this is something that is acknowledged by most people working in the humanitarian sector, is it accepted by politicians? Politically-motivated accusations of supporting terrorism made against NGOs – even against UNRWA itself – suggest not.

The wider issue of why countries which support UNRWA with voluntary donations (its only source of funding) don’t also call Israel to account for its illegal occupation which is the cause of the refugees’ plight, was not really addressed, despite a presentation by the Chief of the Regional Affairs Unit, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. Robert Dann clearly has great confidence in the UN as an actor in the quest for peace through peaceful means based on international law, as have UNRWA’s senior officials. However, isn’t the UN a utopian dream which hasn’t really played for real on the world stage, hamstrung as it is by the permanent members of the Security Council and their vetoes? A glance at the number of Security Council resolutions critical of Israel which have been vetoed by the Zionist state’s chief sponsor, the USA, suggests that expectations of a UN-led solution to the Israel-Palestine problem are misplaced.

It is perhaps just as well, therefore, that my attempt to ask a question was ignored by the chair of that session: what credibility, I was trying to ask, does the UN have as a peacemaker in the Middle East when it is part of the Quartet (with Russia, the US and UK) which ignored the result of the 2006 Palestinian general election; when it calls for Gaza’s elected government to recognise the right to exist of the state – Israel – which is attempting to blockade it into submission, breaking international law and committing war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” in the process; and props-up a Palestinian Authority President whose mandate expired in January 2009 and a Palestinian Authority Prime Minister who has never held a mandate from the people? If, as one speaker at the conference claimed, UNRWA is a member of the “UN family”, it is a member of a dysfunctional family; UNRWA’s parents are guilty of child abuse, starving its offspring of funds and restricting its ability to fulfil its functions adequately. That UNRWA still manages to function at all is a tribute to the determination and dedication of its leadership and staff, and the goodwill of its supporters in the humanitarian community, including other UN agencies which were represented in Beirut.

The fear that support for refugees and those in need may cross the boundary into an acceptance of the political status quo, and thus a rejection of, for example, Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their land, was voiced by members of the audience representing refugee interest groups (and “who speaks for the refugees?” was another question raised). However, Mona Budeiri, the head of UNRWA’s Housing and Camp Improvement Unit, quoted the Geneva Conference of 2004, at which it was made clear that “the right of return does not contradict with the right to live in dignified living conditions” while awaiting that return. Leila Hilal, an adviser to UNRWA, said that the international community needs to break taboos about what can be addressed in public: “Speaking about the right of return,” she said, “is not a threat to peace.” Nor, I would add, is the international effort to help Palestinian refugees move away from a dependency culture.

Many of those attending a conference such as this move in diplomatic circles and so are restricted in what they can say in public, as are UNRWA officials. To a certain extent, in these days of funding cuts for higher education, the same is also true of academics whose research may depend on funding from benefactors not necessarily aiming for objective results: forget your facts, said one US satirist recently; I am going with the truth!

So that leaves the field open for international NGOs working in the humanitarian sector to stand up for what is right (not just “doing things right, but doing the right thing!”). Neutrality is not trumped by humanitarianism and impartiality, said one conference participant, and how true that is. If we forget that simple fact, we forget the purpose of humanitarian aid itself and, I’d argue, our own humanity in the process. As the “peace process” rumbles from one crisis to another, this is something that the world community should keep in mind. Aid agencies may well be seeking to create a little bit of normality in very abnormal conditions in the refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, but that doesn’t absolve the rest of us from pushing not only for peace, but also for justice in the Middle East. That’s what the humanitarian effort should be all about.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.