Ref: AD-2724
Summary: while Gazans face a daily struggle for survival and grave uncertainty for what will happen in a month’s time when phase one of the ceasefire ends diplomats bend a knee to Trump and leave diplomacy at the door.
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For millions of Palestinians worldwide, 30 Jan 2025 is set to become yet another painful landmark in their long struggle for self-determination. As of this date, Israel hopes to sever the umbilical cord which ties the Palestinian refugees to their ancestral homeland and, in the process, remove the issue from the future political chessboard.
The instrument chosen for this power play by the Netanyahu Government is UNRWA, the UN agency charged by the international community with taking care of refugees from the 1947-48 conflict, which led to the birth of Israel, until a final peace deal is reached.
Under Knesset legislation that comes into effect today, UNRWA is now barred from working in East Jerusalem and will find it practically impossible to work in the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Without decisive international action, not just hand-wringing objections, UNRWA could collapse within weeks; if it does, more than six million refugees in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the OPT will be bereft of basic services.
For the next few weeks, pending agreement on who will administer the territory once fighting ends, it is expected to continue its essential humanitarian work in Gaza. But the Agency has already been kicked out of its Jerusalem headquarters and forced to stop its education, health, training and other work on behalf of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, legally an integral part of the OPT.
The consequences of these brazen acts, undertaken in flagrant defiance of international law, treaties and agreed diplomatic norms to which Israel is a signatory, go far beyond the fate of an elderly UN agency often taken for granted. They seek to undermine the refugees’ right to return home, a right enshrined in UN General Assembly resolutions and customary international law, and damage respect for the rule of law everywhere.
On the surface, our Government’s stance has been good. The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, met UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, in a signal of support, and the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, recently raised the future of the Agency with his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar. At the UN Security Council, Britain sided with the overwhelming majority during a debate on UNRWA’s future on Tuesday. Only the United States backed Israel’s position, calling it a done deal.
Dig further though and, behind the rhetoric, there has been a clear lack of resolve to use British leverage over Israel and influence with other states on this matter. As the Balfour Project has long argued, Britain has a special role to play, not just because of its history in the region but because of its prized position as a permanent member of the Security Council. The fact that this Labour Government says it stands for international law globally only adds to the burden and obligations that fall on it to act now – with resolve.
To protect the rights of the Palestinian people (not only those registered with UNRWA as refugees); defend the goal of a two-state solution; help the transition in Gaza from a shaky ceasefire to an end-of-war; and promote regional security, the Balfour Project calls on our Government to work urgently with others to devise a way out of this crisis.
The moral starting point must be protection of the interests and rights of the refugees themselves. In turn, this will help promote stability in countries like Jordan, a key ally. Equally non-negotiable should be the legal obligation that will then fall on Israel, as the occupying power in the OPT, to assume the burden of caring for the refugees’ essential needs. The 1993 Oslo Accords did not absolve it of this responsibility. Israel’s failure to act would add to growing calls in the UN General Assembly and elsewhere for it to be suspended from the world body for egregious breaches of its Charter. Credible threats such as this would likely give Israelis serious pause for thought about whether the reckless direction in which their Government is heading is in their long-term interests.
There is too much at stake to leave matters to the uncertain whims of the Trump Administration in Washington. Instead, working with a coalition of like-minded allies in Europe, the Arab world and the Global South, Britain must give a lead.