Israel warms to UN body it long scorned

By Adam Entous 
March 31, 2006
Reuters
Original Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30698108.htm
 
JERUSALEM, March 31 (Reuters) - Israel has asked a United Nations agency to expand its humanitarian programme in Gaza and the West Bank, setting aside criticism of the organisation it accused of siding with militants. 
Israel's request to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) could see the agency assisting Palestinians who are not refugees, Israeli officials and U.N. diplomats said. 
The decision is an about-face in Israel's position on UNRWA after years of bitter relations. 
In the past, we have had serious concerns about patterns of behaviour within UNRWA, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, said in reference to past Israeli charges that UNRWA employed Hamas members and provided assistance to militants. 
Israel went so far as to look into the possibility of phasing out the agency's operations in Gaza as recently as last year when Israel pulled out of the strip, sources close to the government said. 
Relations have since improved, Regev said. 
Because we won't be working with a Hamas-controlled government, we are looking at different alternatives and one of them that's being discussed is UNRWA, which has an infrastructure in place to deliver aid, Regev said. 
Unlike their American counterparts, U.N. diplomats are not legally barred from dealing with Hamas. 
Officials said the United States and the EU could also use to UNRWA and other U.N. agencies as a legal means to funnel humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians without going through Hamas-run ministries. 
CONTINGENCY PLANNING 
UNRWA's commissioner-general, Karen Koning AbuZayd, said her agency was in the process of contingency planning for a possible expansion of UNRWA's assistance programmes for Palestinians, particularly for refugees who do not currently receive assistance in the West Bank. 
It can be done, she told Reuters in an interview. But we'd be very concerned about our capacity. 
Other U.N. officials also sought to play down the ability of UNRWA and other U.N. agencies to take over functions now provided by the Palestinian Authority. 
We can do food aid. We can do job creation. But taking over a health ministry is not something that we're equipped to do, David Shearer, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Reuters. 
U.N. diplomats have been warning donor nations against completely cutting off funding to key Hamas-led ministries like health and education -- the very institutions that would be needed to form any future Palestinian state. 
UNRWA was specifically set up in 1950 to support Palestinians who had fled homes on lands which became part of the new state of Israel in 1948. The agency lists more than 1.6 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 
The Israeli overtures mark a surprise turn in the Jewish state's stormy relationship with the United Nations. Many Israelis see the world body as pro-Palestinian and have been especially suspicious of UNRWA's activities in Gaza. 
At the height of a Palestinian revolt, Israel accused UNRWA of ignoring use of its vehicles and facilities by militants. UNRWA denied this. 
Relations plummeted after UNRWA's then commissioner-general, Peter Hansen, said in an October 2004 television interview: I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll. 
One of those employees was senior Hamas official Saeed Seyam, a former teacher who was sworn in on Wednesday as the new Palestinian Interior Minister. 
They used to hate UNRWA because of its contacts with Hamas. Now they love UNRWA because of its contacts with Hamas, a Western diplomat said of Israel. How the pendulum has swung. 
AbuZayd said of Israel's changing view of her agency: Circumstances change, so solutions change. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)