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Why Are Some Israelis Worried About Cuts To Palestinian Aid?
I
n early 2014, workers for the
15 community rehabilitation
United Nations Relief and
centers, two vocational training
Works Agency (UNRWA),
centers and 19 women’s pro-
the seven-decade-old body
gram centers.
that provides basic services
The situation in Gaza is
for Palestinian refugees, went
even more acute. One million
on strike in the West Bank and
Palestinians, half the popula-
Gaza Strip. The cause was an
tion of the blockaded coastal
Neri Zilbera
internal battle between man-
enclave, depend on UNRWA for
agement and teaching staff over
food aid; a quarter-million refu-
budget cuts and layoffs. For
gees study at the agency’s 267
two months, across the refugee
schools; some 21 health centers
camps of the Palestinian terri-
dispense care to a war-ravaged
tories, UNRWA schools shut down, gar-
population. In a territory with a 40 per-
bage piled up in the streets and health
cent unemployment rate, the highest
care clinics remained closed. Officials
in the world, UNRWA employs almost
on all sides expressed concern about
13,000 staff — many of them registered
the strike, but none more stridently
refugees themselves.
than Israeli military officers. “This is a
The U.S. government, historically
security interest for all of us,” one senior UNRWA’s biggest donor, provides more
officer from the military unit that runs
than a quarter of the agency’s budget.
the West Bank told me at the time. “We
Its plan to eliminate $350 million in
don’t want kids to be bored and to start
funding will leave UNRWA with a mas-
throwing rocks.”
sive shortfall and has already forced
Now, the Trump administration
layoffs. The school year is set to start
seems determined to end all U.S. fund-
on time, but officials at the agency can’t
ing to UNRWA and cut other aid to the
guarantee that it will extend past the
Palestinians. Some of Trump’s closest
end of September. Gaza, in particular,
advisers, including his son-in-law, Jared
is of utmost concern, with the territory
Kushner, believe the refugee agency
already on the brink of a humanitarian
undermines Israeli interests and stokes
catastrophe and Israel and Hamas tee-
the refugees’ hopes for repatriation in
tering on the edge of war. Israeli security
Israel. As with Trump’s decision last year officials have consistently described
to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to
Gaza as a “ticking bomb” — one that
Jerusalem, the withholding of aid money Israel and Hamas (which rules the Strip)
is seen as one more way that the U.S.
are now trying to defuse via indirect
government, the historic peace process
talks.
mediator, is aligning itself with hardline
Washington also seems bent on strip-
elements within Israel.
ping millions of Palestinians across
But while Israeli Prime Minister
the region of their status as refugees
Benjamin Netanyahu basks in the
— a highly evocative issue tied to the
unmitigated support he gets from
Palestinian “right of return” demand.
Trump, top Israeli security officials
Critics contend that this refugee sta-
are worried. Some of them told the
tus (imparted as well on descendants
Israeli Cabinet that the move could
of those Palestinians who fled during
backfire badly on Israel, “setting fire to
Israel’s creation
the ground,” according to a report on
in the 1948 war)
Israeli television. Others are cautioning
artificially perpetu-
that the void created by any decline in
ates the conflict,
UNRWA services would be filled by the
impelling refugees
Islamist Hamas group.
to believe they may
The reasons for the concern are not
someday return to
difficult to discern. As an international
their homes inside
diplomat in Jerusalem once told me,
Israel. “This relates
UNRWA is effectively a “quasi-govern-
to the core of the
ment” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
Palestinian narra-
providing education, health and other
tive,” Lt. Col. Alon
essential services to some 2 million
Eviatar, a retired
people.
Israeli intelligence
In the West Bank alone, nearly 800,000 officer with long
Palestinians are registered as refugees,
experience in
many residing in the 19 refugee camps
Palestinian affairs,
scattered across the territory (camps is
told me. “It could
a misnomer; these days, they are urban
have even more dra-
concrete slums usually connected to
matic implications
major Palestinian cities). Almost 50,000
than the budget
pupils study at the 96 schools UNRWA
cuts.”
operates, with the agency responsible
The Trump
for an additional 43 health care centers,
administra-
8
September 13 • 2018
jn
tion, though, hasn’t just stopped with
UNRWA. Late last month, the State
Department announced that it was cut-
ting $200 million in aid to Palestinians
in the West Bank, primarily develop-
ment and infrastructure projects run
through USAID. Beyond the larger
damage to the Palestinian economy
of stopping these initiatives — roads,
sewage, electrical transmission, water
and the like — there is a more personal
and immediate problem. All told, tens
of thousands of West Bank Palestinians
benefit, whether directly or via extended
family circles, from employment in
these projects.
“In terms of work, there aren’t alterna-
tives for all these people,” Eviatar said.
“If you cut one hand, then you have to
make sure the other hand feeds [them],”
he said, alluding to the wider danger of
a political vacuum.
Tellingly, the United States refrained
from slashing direct aid ($60 million) to
the Palestinian Authority security forces,
a sign that Washington does value their
work, especially the tight cooperation
with their Israeli counterparts. Yet even
if continuing this funding were politi-
cally tenable for the Palestinians — an
open question given the tattered state of
their relations with the Trump admin-
istration — this is arguably a limited
understanding of security.
For more than two years, the Israeli
military has aggressively promoted
a policy of economic development
in the West Bank in an effort to dis-
incentive violence against Israel and
allow Palestinians to live reasonable,
undisrupted lives. As one senior Israeli
security official told me last year, “I very
much value the civilian and economic
component … it was the reason why
there wasn’t a Third Intifada.”
In two fell swoops, the Trump admin-
istration may undo much of this hard-
won stability, potentially putting untold
numbers of Palestinian workers, stu-
dents and refugees out onto the streets.
“It’s clear to me that there will be a
storm and [these steps] may lead to a
wave of terror,” Col. Grisha Yakubovich,
a retired Israeli military officer who
served in the unit that oversees civilian
affairs in the Palestinian territories, told
me.
The administration is clearly hop-
ing that the economic pressure will get
the Palestinian Authority back to the
negotiating table, pressure Hamas in
Gaza, and force reforms on a bloated
and inefficient UNRWA. But Eviatar, the
retired Israeli intelligence officer, said
the chances of success were not high.
“They’ll get the opposite result,” he told
me, referring to the Trump team. “The
Palestinians won’t come back to the
table. It just won’t happen.”
Kushner, meanwhile, doesn’t seem
to mind if the collapse of UNRWA and
these other intricate moves cause col-
lateral damage. “Our goal can’t be to
keep things stable and as they are …
Sometimes you have to strategically risk
breaking things in order to get there,” he
said earlier this year in an internal email
leaked to Foreign Policy.
An easy thing, perhaps, for someone
thousands of miles away to say, but a
different proposition altogether for all
those on the ground — Palestinians and
Israelis both — who risk getting broken
in the process. •
Neri Zilber is an adjunct fellow with The
Washington Institute and coauthor (with Ghaith al-
Omari) of the paper State with No Army, Army with
No State: Evolution of the Palestinian Authority
Security Forces, 1994-2018.