Australia’s federal budget sends a signal
Within a federal budget awash with massive red ink, a modest yet important saving is to be found in the detail of the foreign aid allocations. In the programmes administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is a section called Partnerships for Recovery, Australian Official Development Assistance. There we find Australia’s annual funding of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) is halved from $20 million to $10 million.
If there was a competition for the worst of all international agencies, UNRWA would be a strong nominee. It ticks the boxes of a bloated unaccountable bureaucracy, corrupt leadership, failure in executing its mission, but worse, it demonstrably harms the cause of peace by teaching hatred and inciting terrorism.
When the modern State of Israel declared independence in 1948, it was immediately invaded by the armies of five surrounding Arab countries. The conflict resulted in an estimated 750,000 Arab refugees and 850,000 Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands.
UNRWA was formed in 1949 as an agency dedicated solely to the Arab Palestinian refugees. It adopted a definition of ‘refugee’ quite different to that of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). UNRWA determined that refugee status could be passed on to future generations, even those who had never fled conflict. If the UNHCR definition was applied, there would be an estimated 30-50,000 Palestinian refugees. Using its own definition, UNRWA claims 5.6 million.
Read the article by David Adler in The Spectator.