As Trump cuts funding to the UNRWA, the EU must fill the vacuum

On 31st August, in a move celebrated by Benjamin Netanyahu as a ‘blessed change’, the Trump administration announced it would cut all funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

It was a decision with far-reaching and catastrophic implications: the US has long been the largest individual donor to the UNRWA, which serves millions of Palestinian refugees and their dependents in the Middle East. Despite putting at risk the schooling, healthcare and social services on which these refugees rely, Jared Kushner was dismissive and unapologetic. ‘This agency,’ he said, ‘is corrupt, inefficient, and doesn’t help peace.’

That isn’t the case. The move is a clumsy sweeping aside of the Palestinian right of return, a major sticking point in peace negotiations in the region. The Trump administration aims to force through a lop-sided ‘peace’ deal, and the decision taken in August promises immediate, severe, and tragic consequences. In the Palestinian territories, a humanitarian crisis of vast proportions now looms, job cuts to those who administer aid are certain, and the Arab governments reliant on the UNRWA to take care of the Palestinians to whom they reluctantly give asylum will likely want compensation in return for integrating these refugees.