Report: Kushner Aims To Shutter UNRWA, End Refugee Status For Millions Of Palestinians

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner reportedly is pushing to close the United Nations Works and Relief Agency, as a prelude to removing the refugee status of millions of Palestinians. UNWRA, which was created solely to attend to Palestinian refugees—while the rest of the world’s refugees are overseen by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—is unique in that it grants refugee status to the descendants of Palestinians displaced from Israel during the 1948 war. While the number of still-living Palestinians who left or fled the nascent Jewish state is estimated in the tens of thousands, because of UNWRA’s unusual definition the number of Palestinians with refugee status has ballooned to some five million people. As such, many in the Israeli government view the body as an obstacle to peace due to its perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee crisis, in stark contrast to the UNHCR’s goal of resettling all other refugees in third-party countries. In this respect, a major sticking point in past peace talks has been the Palestinian leadership’s demand that these millions be granted a “right of return” to Israel, an influx that would effectively overturn the country’s Jewish majority. “It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote in an email obtained and published by Foreign Policy magazine. Dated January 11, just days before the Trump administration froze $65 million in funding for UNRWA, the missive added, “[UNWRA] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.… Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.” The report also quoted Palestinian officials claiming Kushner recently asked Jordan’s King Abdullah II to remove the refugee status of some 2 million Palestinians in order to end UNRWA’s operations in the country. While the White House did not comment directly on the story, an anonymous official quoted described the administration’s position on UNRWA as “under frequent evaluation and internal discussion.” Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported this weekend that President’s Donald Trump’s Middle East envoys have started staffing a policy team in anticipation of unveiling an 18-months-in-the-making Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. While the timing of the proposal’s release remains uncertain, the report claimed that the State Department, Pentagon and Congress have been asked to task personnel to the White House for up to one year.