The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it Resolved, western governments must resume funding to UNRWA

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

14 countries, including Canada and the US, suspended funding to the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency in response to Israeli allegations that 12 employees were involved in the attack on Israel on October 7th, and roughly 10% of their employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Human rights workers argue that this is a form of collective punishment that will have dire consequences on a population already suffering from widespread hunger, displacement, and disease. Furthermore, cutting off payments to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria could destabilize an already volatile region. UNRWA’s critics argue that by keeping Palestinians in a perpetual state of refugee status, the organization prevents them from setting down roots elsewhere in the region and thus acts as an obstacle to peace. Given the irrefutable evidence of its ties to Hamas and support of terror against Israel, they argue, there is no reason to continue to fund an agency openly committed to the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the elimination of the Jewish State.  Arguing in favour of the resolution is Kenneth Roth, the former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Arguing against the resolution is Einat Wilf, former member of the Israeli Knesset and the author of The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace Vote on who you think won the debate at https://munkdebates.com/podcasts/unwra-debate/   SOURCES: ABC News, UN WATCH   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths  Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/   Executive Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch  Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don't help the poor by making everybody poorer. The media has a frame, and the frame is Israel is the oppressor, and the Palestinians are the oppressed. I shouldn't be forced to acknowledge my privilege unless I desire for that to be part of my interaction with somebody else. What I know to be true and what all of my fellow Gen Z know to be true is that this is the most talented generation yet. With respect to every indicia of disadvantage, there is still a racial hierarch. And though I am, of course, an Anglo. I'm certainly not a Fri-Saxon. Welcome to the Monk Debates.

Every episode we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day. Our goal is to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, it resolved. Western governments must resume funding to UNRWA. The United Kingdom has suspended funding to a UN aid agency for Palestinians after allegations.

some of its staff were involved in the Hamas attack on October 7. The UK joins the US, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Finland in suspending funding to the agency. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. Well, 14 countries have now suspended funding to the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency in response to Israeli allegations that employees were involved in attacks on Israel on October 7th. Israel's security services allege that roughly 10%, fully one in 10 of UNRWA's employees, have links to Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic jihad. Human rights workers and Palestinian leaders argue that this is a form of collective punishment,

that being calls to cancel funding for UNRWA. They will have dire consequences on a population in Gaza, already struggling with widespread hunger, displacement, disease, and a public health crisis in its hospitals. Here's Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohamed Stey. At this critical moment, aid is more needed, and Anurwa, as I said, contribute largely to this aid. Anurwa is the accumulative memory of the Palestinian refugees

and also a symbol of Palestinian right to return in accordance and in line with the United Nations Resolution 194. UNRWA's critics argue that by keeping Palestinians in a perpetual state of refugee status, the organization has become an obstacle to peace. Here's Halal Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch. The core problem of UNRWA, the very purpose of the agency, is to perpetuate the war of 1948, to send the message to Palestinians that the war of 1948 is not over.

Don't use cement to build homes, hospitals, and schools here in Gaza. use it to build hundreds of miles of terror tunnels to tunnel into Israel, to invade Israel, to go back to what your homes are. That is the message of UNRWA. We should not be surprised what happened on October 7th, because that is the message that these Palestinians got for more than 70 years in UNRah schools.

Given the credible evidence of ties to Hamas and support of terror against Israel on October 7, critics of UNRWA argue that there's no reason to continue to fund this agency that allegedly is supporting Hamas and a Palestinian insurgency against Israel. On this installment of the Monk Debates podcast, we challenged the essence of these arguments

by debating the motion, be it resolved, Western governments must resume funding to UNRWA. Arguing in favor of the motion is Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch. Arguing against the resolution is Aynat Wilf. She's a former member of the Israeli Knesset and the author of a number of best-selling books, including the War of Return,

how Western indulgence of the Palestinian dream has obstructed the path to peace. Kenneth, Anad, welcome to the Monk debates. Good to be here. Thank you. An important debate for us today, be it resolved Western governments must resume funding of UNRWA.

Kenneth, you're arguing in favor of the motion. Let's put two to three minutes on our show clock and turn the program over to you. Okay, well, thanks. I think it's widely known that, you know, the reason that so many Western governments have now suspended funding to UNRWA was because the Israeli government has put forth evidence suggesting that a dozen employees of UNRWA were participants are somehow complicit in the horrible October 7th Hamas attacks

in Israel. And it's interesting to look at what UNRWA did with that information, because from my perspective, it did exactly the right thing. The leadership immediately announced that this is horrible. It said it would suspend any of the employees who were implicated. It vowed an investigation. It talked about prosecution. You couldn't have asked for anything. But nonetheless, beginning with the U.S. government and then everybody else, has suspended funding. And this could not come at a worse moment front. Because even though these dozen employees are just a dozen out of 13,000 employees operating in Gaza. So just a tiny, tiny percentage, everybody is being penalized. And as we all know, the Palestinian civilians of Gaza are facing enormous hardship because beyond

the Israeli bombardment, there's the Israeli siege. And because of that siege, today, some 93% of the civilian population in Gaza is facing acute food. insecurity. 17% or about 377,000 people are facing catastrophic or famine-like conditions. And UNRWA is the principal agency that is responsible for taking humanitarian aid delivered at the Rafa border of Egypt and trying as best they can in the midst of war to distribute this to 2.3 million Gossans. Now, there are a handful of other agencies there, but they've gotten together, they put out a statement and said, even all of our agencies collectively cannot begin to do what unread does. No one comes close to its 13,000 employees. And Anra

has no reserves because Trump had already suspended funding during his presidency. And so it is kind of in a hand-to-mouthed situation. And it has said that if funding is not resumed, it's going to run out of money at the end of February, and we're going to see even more intense starvation than already exists in Gaza today. Thank you for that opening statement. Kenneth, now a same opportunity for you, Enat. We're going to give two to three minutes on the show clock and have your opening remarks, please.

Certainly. In order to understand why Gaza can never move forward, can never be better until UNRWA is completely removed. closed and dismantled. We need to look at something called Ankara. Ankara was an agency, like UNRWA, a temporary agency established to settle refugees at about the same time from the war in Korea. It settled 3.1 million refugees, more than four times the number of the Arab refugees at the time. It did it with a third of the budget that UNRWA had at the time. And within three to four years, all 3.1 million Korean refugees were settled, not in their homes, in the new places.

And look at South Korea today. It could have been Gaza. It could have been the Arabs. Throughout the 20th century, empires collapsed, new states were established, new lines of borders were delineated. Tens of millions of people became refugees, fleeing across borders, Germans, coals, Ukrainians, Hindus, Muslims, Turks, Greeks, Jews, they all moved on. They all received the same message. It's tough, it's tragic, but you move on. Those are the consequences of war, except one group, the Arab refugees from the war. They themselves refused to be like all the other refugees. They refused settlement. And the reason was that they refused to accept that the Jewish state emerged from the war and declared independence.

They were determined to keep themselves as refugees forever in order to maintain a permanent question mark over the existence of a Jewish state and to keep the war of 1948 as an open case until the war is resolved to what they believe should have been the outcome of that war that there would be no Jewish state. Once you understand that this is what UNRWA is,

Fundamentally, UNRWA is not an age agency. It's not a distribution agency. It's a Palestinian organization run by Palestinians, the employees, everyone. They're Palestinian, except a very thin top facade of Europeans who ask for money. It's a Palestinian agency entirely dedicated to keeping the war of 1948 alive. Once you understand that, you understand that Gaza, the Palestinians peace, never stands a chance as long as you have this entire organization keeping the war open. And also, as a result, it's no coincidence that UNRWA always gives rise to murderers. The perpetrators of the massacre of the Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics are graduates of the UNRWA schools.

The planners, the perpetrators of October 7, they're also graduates, not just employees. This is woven into the fabric. This is Palestinian ideology. So if we are ever to move forward to peace, this organization that keeps telling Palestinian never ever settle with the idea of a Jewish state, there will come a day when from the river to the sea will all be Palestine. that is an organization that keeps the war forever. So if someone wants perpetual war, by all means, support funding UNRWA.

But if you're actually someone who wants to move forward, UNRWA must not only be defunded, it must totally be dismantled, and the Palestinians should receive the message that all refugees received 75 years ago. Move forward to build new lives where you are. Thank you, Enut. Two great opening statements. Our resolution today, be it resolved, Western governments must resume funding for UNRWA. Kenneth, you're arguing in favor of the motion. Your opportunity now for a short rebuttal to Ennett's opening statement. Well, Ennets, first of all, not getting into certain key facts. And the reason why there are Palestinian refugees today is because in 1948, Israel ethically clans. 600,000 Palestinians from the territory that today is Israel. And what Ened is basically saying is, let's forget about that. That's not a problem. You know, let's move up. So that's why there is a

Palestinian problem that people were forcibly fled or they fled in terror. And of course, Israel doesn't welcome back because it's easier to maintain a Jewish majority if they don't get them back. But that's the basic problem. Now, to blame UNRWA for that is a bit owned because UNRRA is a humanitarian agency. It provides health services. It provides education. It provides, basic means for people. As every humanitarian agency, every development agency in the world, it's mostly local people with a handful of internationals at the top. But to blame UNRWA for the fact that Palestinians still think of themselves as Palestinians is trying to avoid the root cause of this problem, which was the original so-called NAQBA. That's what the Palestinians

refer to it. The tragedy, the catastrophe. of having forcibly made all these people leave. Now, this doesn't mean perpetuate the war. You know, nobody's saying that. But there are, you know, many Palestinians who would like to return to their ancestral homes. Not all of them by any means. You know, many of them have settled where they are.

If you look at Jordan, most Palestinian refugees are now citizens of Jordan and they are making their lives there. So the fact that, you know, somebody had an ancestral home in Israel doesn't mean they necessarily want to come back, but some do, and that should be their right. Thank you for that succinct rebuttal. Inut, your opportunity now to do the same. Certainly.

Let's talk about history. In 1947, the United Nations proposed partition for the Jews to have a state, a Jewish state, recognizing the historical connection between the Jewish people and the land, their right to self-determination, the right recognized of all people, Slovaks and Czechs and Ukrainians, and it recognizes the Arab right. But as Ernst Bevin, the British Foreign Minister, said before partition in February 47, he says that the conflict in the land is irreconcilable. And he says it in February 47.

There are no refugee yet. There's no occupation. There's no settlements. And he already says it's irreconcilable. Why? He says, look, the Jews and Arabs in the land each have a top priority, the thing they care about more than anything. He says, the Jews want a state. They want sovereignty.

says the Arabs, as a matter of top priority, want the Jews not to have a state anywhere in the land, and they are determined to prevent to the last establishment of such a state. So when the United Nations proposes two states, a Jewish and an Arab state, there needed have been war. There could have been two states celebrating independence side by side. No one would have been displaced. But the Arabs, true to their top priority of no Jewish state anywhere in the land, wage an entirely unnecessary war against the establishment of a Jewish state. And they make it very clear that this is their goal. This is a war in which they fail to accomplish their goal and no Jewish state.

And as in any war from the time, there's nothing special about it. Again, empires collapse, new states are established, new borders are different. delineated, tens of millions of people flee across borders, and Jews are actually ethnically cleansed from the West Bank, from the Jewish border. In Israel, Arabs flee. Some are expelled in the course of war. There is nothing unique about that. And again, all other refugees in the world are told you move on. It's the Arab refugees who uniquely refuse to move on. It's not that Everyone kind of continues to seethe and demand to go back to the way things were before the war. It's only the Arab refugees because they uniquely oppose the idea of a Jewish state in any part of the land.

You cannot argue that after they waged a war and they became refugees, that's the cause of their anger. No, their refusal for a Jewish state predated and is the cause of their being refugees. The demand that they go to their homes, that was not for any other refugees. There is no such right, a right to go back to a state in which you are never a citizen, that rights does not exist in international law. Resolution 194 does not grant that as a right. But it is precisely this. I mean, we're dealing with the core issue.

It is the Arab insistence that there will not be a Jewish shift. their insistence to keep themselves as refugees in perpetuities. Their insistence that there is such a thing as the right of return, which means that their vision of when they say two states is an Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza and another Arab state to replace Israel. There has never been a moment when the Palestinians, when the Arabs of the land accepted the idea that anywhere in the land the Jews possessed the equal right to self-determination.

That is the core. And UNRWA initially established with the best of intentions to be a temporary agency to settle the Arab refugees from the war. Israel settled the Jewish refugees. UNRWA wanted to do that for the Arab refugees. They could have been settled, I said, like the Koreans. They could have looked like South Korea. But their top priority was first for the Jews not to have a state.

So once they ensured that UNRWA would never close, which is why UNRWA after 75 years is still amazingly a temporary agency, they took it over and turned it into a Palestinian agency run by Palestinians for the purpose of the Palestinian cause of no Jewish state. It is birth essentially this national Palestinian ideology of return, of perpetual refugeehood, of no Jewish state. And that is the reason that we can never move on. There is a very simple idea. If we are ever to make peace, war must end. And the war that must end is not the war in Gaza. That needs to end. But the real war that must end is the century-long war that the Arabs have been waging against

Jewish self-determination in any part of the land. I mean, first of all, you know, it seems to be saying, you know, back in 1948, because there were some Palestinian militia that, you know, fought with the Israeli militia at the time opposed the creation of an Israeli state, that therefore all innocent Palestinian civilians must suffer in perpetuity. Because of the 600,000 people who were expelled, the vast majority were women, children, elderly, just ordinary people who were, you know, kicked out of their homes. In fact, the only place in large numbers where Palestinians were not ethnically cleansed was Nazareth, the largest Palestinian community within Israel today, because the Canadian Jewish commander there refused to follow the orders to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.

So there's a significant Palestinian population there. The rest were mostly ethnically cleansed. Now, Enid says, oh, Palestinians, they're inevitably, in altruly opposed to a two-state solution. Now, obviously, there's some people who are like that, Moss is like that. But if you look today, the Palestinian Authority, so the official leadership of the Palestinian people wants a two-state solution. That's what they're there for. The main opponent of a two-state solution is Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who refuses to this day to endorse the concept because he would lose his far-right ministers and lose power. So, you know, if there's a problem today, it's the Israeli

government through its endless settlement expansion, which is basically precluded a two-state solution and is rather seeking to impose apartheid on millions of Palestinians in the occupied territory. So, you know, the irony is that also the Palestinian refugees say in Lebanon or Syria could theoretically return to the West Bank or Gaza. Many people would say that would be returning to their home in Palestine. The obstacles of that is the Israeli government. It doesn't let them. So it's not just a matter of returning to Israel proper.

The Israeli government doesn't even let Palestinian refugees return to Palestine. So again, you know, where is the problem there? Final point, you know, Enid says, oh, people, their refugees, they just move on. The Palestinian refugees are different from other refugees in this key sense. Most refugees flee persecution. They're afraid to go back on and they want to resettle. And indeed, they seek refugee status in order to gain the right to resell. any place. The Palestinian refugees are different. They want to go home. They're not fleeing persecution.

They were fleeing originally ethnic cleansing, but today they're just prohibited by the Israeli government from returning through Israel or Palestine. So they're not fleeing persecution. They want to go home. And that's why all these analogies to other refugee situations are completely inept because they're just, they're not the same kinds of populations. If you're enjoying the Monk Debates podcast, come over to our web, website at triple w monk debates.com. That's MUNK Debates with an S.com and check out our free monk membership. As a complimentary monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and benefits, access to our weekly email, summarizing our best debates, and sticking privileges at our main

stage debates, special news, information, and offers all courtesy of the monk debates. You can grab your complimentary monk membership again right now at triple w monk debates.com. Simply look to the top navigation on the website and follow the links. Thanks in advance for joining our community. So let me join now and refocus this debate a bit more specifically to our resolution today, be at result for Western Governance must resume funding of UNRWA. I want to talk to you about the situation right now in Gaza, an acute human. humanitarian crisis, food shortages to the extent that there are reports of threats of starvation breaking out among certain segments of the Gaza population. While you might think that

UNRWA doesn't have a long-term future, would you concede that right now, Western governments must resume funding to deal with the humanitarian crisis on the graph? Someone who has studied and dealt with UNRWA for more than a decade, there is always the argument that at this moment we really need UNRWA. But UNRWA is exactly like the person who breaks the glass and then sells the glass. So they are the ones who create the problem and then somehow they pretend that they are the savior. Why is Gaza in the situation that it is? At one point, we need to ask that question and to see how we get out of it.

Gaza is in the situation that it is is because 75% of the people who live in Gaza, and we can all, despite whatever political opinions are, we can all agree that Gaza is Palestine, it's between the river and the sea. So we have by now people who went to the fifth generation who are born in Palestine, living in Palestine, never left Palestine, and yet they are registered as refugees from Palestine, something that

doesn't exist anywhere else. It makes no sense unless, again, you understand that their vision of being a refugee from Palestine is from the river to the sea once there is no Jewish state. As a result, when the Gazans finally were in control of territory, and contrary to all the fake maps, When Israel leaves Gaza completely, it leaves 80% in the 90s, with the Azo Accords, it leaves completely in 2005. When Israel leaves completely and the Arabs of the land, the Palestinians finally for the first time in their history, control land. Do they say, excellent? We are going to use this land in order to make it the Singapore of the Mediterranean, the Dubai of the Levant. No, they say excellent.

we now have territory from which we can launch our efforts to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea. I have by now books and essays and lectures all saying the same things to the donor countries. You are guaranteed, and I'm saying it for years, you are guaranteed that every dollar, every bag of cement that goes into Gaza, every salary paid to a teacher, given that the ideology of the people of Gaza, is that the Jews have no right to a state anywhere between the river and the sea. And there are no dissenting voices on that. Then you are guaranteed that your money, your cement, your salaries will go into turning Gaza into a highly effective war machine to liberate Palestine from the river to the city.

Okay, you know, let me come, that's a critical point because that's also on the mind of a lot of our listeners. So let me come to Kenneth on this. Kenneth, you know, we have seen credible reports that, UNRah schools have been used as sites for weapon storage by Hamas, that there are tunnels connecting different UNRWA facilities to UNRA schools to UNRA supported hospitals. How can one credibly make a claim that UNRA is separate from Hamas, that it is different from Hamas, that support for UNRA isn't aiding Hamas's militarization of the Gaza strip over the last decade or more? First of all, I mean, even the Israeli government doesn't claim that UNRWA is Hamas.

I mean, the Israeli government claim is that 10% of UNRWA employees are linked to Hamas. They never define what that is, you know, could be a family member. It could be that their employees, you know, that they are somehow related to some political side of Hamas because Hamas is not simply a military force. It's also, you know, a political agency. you know, yes, of course, you know, Hamas has tunnels everywhere place. Hamas is a military dictatorship. You know, it does what it wants to do.

But to equate UNRWA with Hamas is just crazy. You know, what UNRWA mostly does is provide health care to 1.3 million Palestinians on a regular basis. What UNRWA does is it provides schooling to, you know, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children. You know, that has nothing to do with Hamas. That's just providing basic services. But, Kenneth, again, just as an uninformed observer here in the West, how does UNRWA the United Nations respond to the fact that a variety of tunnels and infrastructure, the use of the hospitals by Hamas as military planning centers, as strategic nodes?

I mean, are we to believe that United Nations officials in New York, officials working in the Gaza Strip, did not see or realize this level of integration between UNRWA facilities and the kind of military infrastructure of Hamas. Was it just simply, we'll just take people on their word on that? You're reading too much Israeli government propaganda here.

What the government said was that Al-Shifa hospital, which is actually not an unworth facility, it's an independent facility, that Hamas had a major command center underneath it. And it repeated that over and over. We actually saw diagrams of what the command center looked like.

Then they took it over. You know, it's shut down the most important health facility in all of Gaza. and what do they show us? A handful of rifles in one tunnel, which it turns out the Israelis had built when they had set up the hospital

before they pulled up. So don't, you know, believe what Israeli intelligence says. That in fact, you know, of course there's a, you know, be a situation here or there where there may be, you know, a minor, you know, weapons depot someplace or somebody uses a facility.

But the vast majority of our facilities today are being used by displaced people who are cowering in them, trying to avoid the indiscriminate Israeli bombard. There is no systematic evidence that UNRWA is Hamas. It's just not true. UNRWA is a humanitarian agency. And as I said, even the Israeli government doesn't claim them.

You know, it gives these vague things about 10% of employees without giving any evidence behind it. Okay, let's hear ENET then on that point. You know, there's, according to Kenneth here, a credible argument that there just simply isn't this link and that we're rushing to judgment here. UNRWA is an independent United Nations agency with a mandate to provide humanitarian services, and it is doing that to the best of its ability in an incredibly challenging circumstance. So first, a bit of background. Anra is actually a mechanism, a temporary mechanism established by the General Assembly to

settle the Arab refugees. It should have even had the letters UN. It was going to be called Rewa or NER. the Arabs insisted that it would include the letters UN as part of their longstanding view that they are not responsible for anything. They're not responsible for waging war. They're not responsible for the refugees that emerged in the course of an unnecessary war. Everything is the responsible of the UN, the responsibility of UNR.

Now, what we see right now is that let's understand the link between UNRWA and not just Hamas, every terrorist organization, every terrorist Palestinian organization in history. UNRWA is the ideological backbone, the schooling system, the entire system is the ideological backbone of the Palestinian ideology of no Jewish state, of the fixation on the fictional idea of return, which again is not a right. Refugees don't have that right. This is the ideological backbone. Once you understand that this is the ideological backbone, that generation after generation, year after year, raises people to know that they don't need to settle where they are. They don't need to move on with their lives. They're not getting the message that tens of millions of refugees

in the world got, and the parallels are the same. They're being told, wait. Wait, because one day there will be no Jewish state. And your job is to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea. So of course, everyone coming out of those schools will, people will join the organizations that claim to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea.

And we need to understand that October 7th is the Palestinian vision of return. Return was never an innocent idea. You read the Arab texts of the 50s and 60s and 70th. return was always triumphant, violent, butchery. So UNRah is not really UN. It's not really humanitarian.

It's the ideological backbone of the Palestinian ideology of no Jewish state, which is why it always gives birth to terrorist organizations. And one more thing that we've learned after October 7th. One of the chief people of Hamas is after on television. Why are you not letting your people use the tunnels for their protection? He says they're for us. UNRWA is responsible for the people of Gaza. And what becomes clear after October 7 is that not only is UNRWA the ideological underpinning

of every terrorist organization of the entire Palestinian ideology from the river to the sea, UNR essentially funnels Western money to release the butchers to do their job because they know that they can use whatever money comes in to build tunnels, to plan the attack, and Western money will take care of everything else. Now imagine for a moment if the Gazans and the Palestinians, and I know it's a radically shocking idea, were asked to actually take care of themselves and be responsible. that Hamas had to pay the teacher salaries rather than the EU and the U.S. Perhaps they would have built 200, 300 kilometer fewer tunnels.

That raises another point I wanted to bring to Kenneth, and it refocuses us back on our resolution today, be it resolved Western governments must resume funding to Enra. Kenneth, why is this, in your view, an obligation of the West? I mean, there are wealthy Gulf states, for instance, Arab states that could or should conceivably fund UNRWA and other humanitarian issues and causes in their region. Why isn't this an opportunity to ask those nations in the region that do have the resources and they are numerous and wealthy to pick up the ball, so to speak, on UNRWA? Why is this

the responsibility of Western governments specifically to continue funding? What's interesting is that Qatar, you know, a wealthy Gulf state, was the principal funder of Hamas with Netanyahu's permission. Because Netanyahu wanted to keep Hamas going because he thought so long as that was there, he wouldn't be under pressure to pursue negotiations toward a two-state solution. So, you know, we've got to be very careful here about, you know, who would blame for Hamas. Indeed, Hamas was an Israeli creation in the beginning to try to, you know, divert. from the Palestinian Liberation Organization, again, so it wouldn't face a kind of a unified Palestinian front demanding a two-state solution. Let me just go back, though, because I noticed that, you know, Roger, your initial question doing that had been, you know, okay, give me the evidence

that, you know, Unra was complicit in Fumas military operations, and she didn't have any, so there's none there coming from you. What she said instead is that Unra is responsible for the ideology. You know, it's responsible for teaching children not to accept Israel as a state. Now, you know, this is an odd sense of causation. So, you know, we're going to ignore the fact that Israel ethnically cleansed 600,000 Palestinians in 1940s. We're going to ignore the fact that 75% of the Ghazan population are descendants from those ethnically cleansed Palestinians. In that says, well, why don't the, you know, Gazans just support themselves? We're going to ignore the fact that Israel has imposed a blockade for the last 16 years. So, you know, why does Gaza not have an

airport? Why did Gaza not have a seaport? Why are so many Gazans unable to travel for education or for commerce? It's because of the Israeli blockade. You know, working with Egypt, they prevent all. And so, you know, that is why Gaza is in a situation of perpetual humanitarian need because it's not allowed to develop an economy by Israel. Now, you know, would they like to do that? Of course they would. Nobody wants to be dependent on aid. Of course, they'd like to have a thriving Singapore economy. The Israeli blockade has precluded that. And I guess one final point, you know, yes, Hamas took funds that could have gone for humanitarian purposes or other purposes and built tunnels.

You know, Hamas is an awful organization. It's a military dictatorship. The people of Gaza have no control over it. You know, you start protesting, you get shot. You know, we'll all agree Hamas is terrible. But should, what, you know, two million? probably two plus million, Gazans, civilians suffer? Should we shut them off?

Should we force them to go deeper into starvation? Because we don't like UNRWA? And the idea that, you know, teachers are somehow perpetuating the idea of refugees, you know, UNRWA could disappear tomorrow. And the 75% of Gazans who are descendants of the people ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948 still are going to think of themselves as Palestinians. They still are going to want to go back to their home. Going back to their homes in Israel doesn't mean, you know, getting rid of an Israeli state.

I mean, indeed, there are lots of options. But, you know, to assume that just because somebody wants to go back to their ancestral home, therefore they want to wipe out Israel, that's Hamas thinking, but that's not how the vast majority of Palestinian civilians think. So I think we have to kind of be careful with this magical thinking. You know, if UNRID disappeared tomorrow, the people of Gaza would still think of themselves as Palestinians who are chased from their home, who's refugees, and who many of whom want to go home.

Okay, let's come back to In and I'm conscious of our time in this debate. So I want to start moving us towards closing statements. But Enette, if we, again, I just want to press you on this again because we're all conscious of, you know, the effects of this war on everyone, on Israeli society, on Palestinian society. And there is an acute crisis of very simple things like the efficient and effective delivery of life. saving medicine and food in Gaza. Would you concede that for a period of time, you tell us how long Western government should be funding UNRWA to try to stabilize the growing humanitarian disaster in Gaza? And why isn't that, frankly, in the interest of the Israeli government right now as it

prosecutes this war and tries to shore up international support, which, let's face it. it has been buffeted and damaged by the humanitarian crisis that countries around the world see unfolding inside Gaza. One of the things I'm most proud of in the book, The War of Return, is that we gave the Palestinians the respect of taking them at their ward. So let's assume that I'm wrong. And UNRWA is really just an innocent aid agency, delivering aid. and it's not a mechanism of politically perpetuating the war of 1948,

keeping alive this idea of perpetual refugeehood. Let's test it. Let's say Western governments are more than welcome to say that we want to give triple 10 times the amount of money that we're giving to UNRWA. We're going to give it to the Palestinians. But in order to know that this time, the money, the aid, will not go into turning Gaza into a war machine, we want to know a few simple things

that you Palestinians understand that actually you're not refugees, that you do not possess a right of return, and that you only want to build Gaza for yourselves, that you want to live next to the Jewish state of Israel rather than instead of it. There's 10 times the budget of honor waiting for you if you tell us that you really, this is your goal.

And let's see what happens because even from the last few days when the money of UNRWA has being suspended, what you hear from Arabs, not from pretend white saviors, what you hear directly from them is UNRWA is the guarantor of our status as refugees, our right of return. They don't talk about what we talk about here as if it's humanitarian. They are very clear that UNRWA's purpose is to funnel Western money and legitimacy for the goal of no Jewish state. That is why they always claim that they need it. So if I'm wrong, and if really this is just about humanitarian issues, by all means, make it clear that the West is happy to resume funding, triple it, 10 times it, but it wants to know that it's not. a political mechanism, and therefore the people of Gaza understand their non-refugees.

Ken already says that he recognizes that the people of Jordan are not refugees. It would be nice that $2.2 million will be taken off the rosters of UNRWA, that there's no such thing as a right of return, and that their real vision of peace is to live next to the Jewish state of Israel rather than instead of it. If they say a resounding yes, by all means, give them all the money. in the world. Let's go to closing statements. Kenneth, your opportunity to wrap up what you've heard just now from Enad or reflect on any

other part of this important debate on be it resolved Western governments must resume funding to UNRWA, which you're arguing in favor for. First, I think, Roger, the question you asked, you know, isn't this going to be a disaster? If UNRWA were to disappear, you're going to have 2.3 million starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are going to have to turn to Israel. And the reason the Netanyahu government doesn't look at that as a disaster is because they have another plan in mind. If you listen to the far right ministers like Smote Rich and Ben Giver, what they have in mind is precisely mass starvation to push people into Egypt. They want to make life so measurable. They've already destroyed,

you know, half the housing. They've already gathered people at Rathwa. the southernmost town. They now are threatening to attack Rapa. And the plan all along, which Netanyahu refuses to repudiate, is to push them into Egypt. Now, the Egyptian government doesn't want that. The U.S. government doesn't want that. That's the plan. They are going to get away with it if they can. So destroying UNRWA, which they're clearly trying to do, is part of that plan. They would love to see starvation. Now, you know, Enid keeps saying, oh, why don't we just have two stays living side by side? You know, I mean, Enid probably, you know, is a, it's a in that respect, a bit of a liberal within Israel society, but that's not who Netanyahu is.

You know, Netanyahu appeared before the UN General Assembly in September, lifting up a map which showed Israel only from the river to the sea. No palismen. That's the way he governs. You know, he has been building settlement after settlement, expanding them. The idea is to render it impossible to have a Palestinian state. Now, he's not thrilled about having to live with apartheid, which when he's left with. So this idea of expulsion helps to kind of, you know, change the democratic balance sheet a little bit and get rid of a couple million Palestinians. That clearly is part of his aim. Final point, you know, Eni keeps pretending that there's something unique about refugees continuing to think of themselves as refugees into the second, third or whatever generation.

In fact, that's completely normal. If you look at, say, you know, the Somali refugees in Dadaab in Kenya, if you look at the Sarawai refugees, from Morocco, if you look at Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in Bangladesh, the Bhutanese refugees from Nepal. I mean, I can go on and on. It is very common for refugees to consider themselves as long-term residents of their native country and to want to return if it were safe to do so, if they were permitted to go back. In fact, I myself am an example of that. My father was a Jewish refugee from Germany. You know, he fled to New York. I have recovered German citizenship.

I now am a dual U.S. German citizen because German recognize my second generation deputy status that I could come back if I wanted to. So this happens all the time. It is not that unusual, but Ennett tries to pretend that the Palestinians are somehow unique in not just forgetting about who they are and wanting to kind of, you know, not wanting to give up on their ancestral homes. It's just not true. Thank you for that closing statement.

Kenneth, Enette, as per debate can, We're going to give you the last word in today's debate, be it resolved Western governments must resume funding for UNR. You've been arguing against the motion. Conclude this debate for us. Certainly. Through that, what we've seen is, and it's very typical of people who discuss the conflict, they reverse cause and effect. Why are there Arab refugees? You can say ethnically cleans a thousand times. It doesn't make it true. Because the Arabs waged an unnecessary war with the clear presentation. They said it for there not to be a Jewish state. They failed to

achieve their goal. They became refugees. Why are they still refugees? Because they insisted not to settle in order to keep a question mark over the Jewish state. Why don't they have their state? Not Netanyahu. They walked away from proposals by Barack in 2000, Ulmer in 2008, to have a full Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, no settlements, no occupation. Capital in East Jerusalem, they walked away because they said, we insist on return, on having Israel as well. It's not enough to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank of Gaza. You cannot reverse cause and effect.

This has always been the conflict. And I drove home from the German case. When Nazi Germany lost, Germans were extremely. The Arab refugees, that was in the course of war, mostly felt. Some were expelled. Jews were ethnically cleansed. The Germans were brutally expelled. They wanted to go back to their homes. They wanted high care to return. But they got the message of tens of millions of refugees, the ones that the Arab refugees, the Palestinians, were indeed uniquely not given. This is it. This is the outcome of the war. And you move forward. And you're right. It's not.

not that the next day that they move forward, but after a generation, they ultimately recognize that there will be no return and they move forward. This has been the message for all other refugees in the world. And I want there, the reason that I'm working so hard on it is that I continue to be a two-stater. I call myself these days a long-term peace activist because for there to be peace, And if you agree that in a two-state solution, one of the states is Jewish and that the Jewish people as a people have the equal right of every nation to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, then it must be recognized that the Palestinians can have their own states next to the Jewish state of Israel, but not instead of it. And if we want to move forward to that kind of vision, UNRWA, it's perpetual. of this refugee issue, the inflation of the numbers, the placing the Palestinians of this eternal limbo of never coming to term with the existence of a Jewish state is the guarantor

that we will never have peace. So if people want eternal war, by all means, resume funding. And I'll just end with this. I've learned in my life that there's a big difference between doing good and feeling good. Feeling good, what some people call today virtue signaling, yes, fund the money, do it, use words like ethnic cleansing

and apartheid and feel good about yourself. But you want to actually do good, you want to truly bring peace. Doing good requires things that sometimes don't feel good. And that means making it clear that the war of 1948 is over, that the Jewish state is here to stay,

that the Palestinians can have their own state next, to it rather than instead of it, and that it means that they are not refugees, they do not possess a right of return, and they can move forward to build a future like the Koreans did, and they could have done more than 70 years ago. Thank you, Anat, and thank you, Kenneth. Look, this is one of the hottest and most debated topics right now around a conflict that's caused a lot of debate itself. So both of you have brought civility and substance to this conversation.

You've been willing to have this debate. Many people were not. So for that, I congratulate you. This has been an informative and educational dialogue. And I know it'll be deeply appreciated by our membership. So thank you both for your time today. Thank you. Well, that wraps up today's debate.

I want to thank our participants, Kenneth and Aina. You certainly gave us a lot to think about. If you have questions or feedback on what you've just heard on this or any of our podcast, please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. While I've got you, let me make a quick pitch for Monk Debate membership. You get access to our incredible back catalog of debates and a growing number of on-stage performances of terrific one-on-one and two-on-two

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again for listening.