UNRWA and displacing 'inspiration'

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai has declared her intention to donate her winnings from the World Children’s Prize to UNRWA. The $50,000, according to statements on the UNRWA website, will be utilised to rebuild a school ruined during “Operation Protective Edge”. Through rhetoric replete with symbolism detracting from reality, the gesture reflects the constant fluctuations between necessity and acquiescence, with Palestinians as recipients of aid remaining within a perpetual depletion of freedom.

UNRWA’s Gaza Situation Report detailing the ramifications of Israel’s colonial massacre between October 21-28 states that 18 schools are still serving as shelter for displaced Palestinians. Reconstruction of dwellings as well as UNRWA premises feature as a priority for the agency, reflecting its inability, due to its function as part of the UN, its dependence upon imperialist financial aid to carry out projects, as well as Israel’s constant human rights violations against Palestinians and restrictions upon the organisation.

The cycle of human rights violations and humanitarian aid is incessantly evoked. The agency has requested an emergency relief fund of $1.6 million for “early recovery and reconstruction priorities in the Gaza Strip”. Reconstruction of shelter to aid homeless Palestinians has been estimated at $680 million by UNRWA. Yet, the Palestinian narrative and restrictions imposed upon the enclave have once again served as a mere background to provide a context for recent celebrity donations.

In his statement, UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl thanked Malala for her gesture which he said “will lift the spirits of a quarter of a million UNRWA students in Gaza and boost the morale of our more than 9,000 teaching staff there”. The statement went on to allude to UNRWA’s alleged “profound belief” in education as a means of resistance against oppression and isolation.

It concluded: “You are an aspirational figure to the next generation in Palestine and beyond.” The conglomeration of necessary statements is uttered within a context that requires vestiges of adulation, yet the issue of oblivion can be clearly discerned.

Rather than highlight the issue that Palestinians have enough inspiration from several generations’ struggle against colonial violence, Malala’s recent contribution – a fragment of aid welcomed but by no means a solution, has transcended the limits of usual gratitude. Implicit within the statement is not only Malala’s struggle in favour of education which has formed the basis of her narrative, but also the manner in which imperialism has sought to create useful ideals extracted from a situation created by the US in the first place. The strategy of exalting and celebrating individual victims to serve as a link between perpetual imperialist violence and the meagre attempts at alleviating the imposed suffering through insufficient financial aid is, for UNRWA, a celebrated trend.

Gaza’s reconstruction is already embroiled within several restrictions that will increase hardships for Palestinians in the enclave. To laud a necessary donation as an ultimate expression of altruism, in particular given the wider framework within which international recognition is bestowed, renders UNRWA complicit in the strategy of ignoring political implications in favour of temporary illusions eliciting unsustainable promises of future autonomy for Palestinians.

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