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Fathom Highlight – ‘UNRWA: an obstacle to peace?’ by Einat Wilf / 9 January / 2018

What is UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and why is US President Donald Trump now threatening to cut its funding? Our Fathom Highlight this week is Einat Wilf’s ‘UNRWA: an obstacle to peace?’ first published in Autumn 2013. Wilf, a former MK for the Israeli Labour Party and research fellow at the Washington Institute argues that UNRWA may be perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by providing support for the impossibilist goal of a full ‘return’ of every Palestinian refugee into Israel within the Green Line.

Our Voice of the Week is Palestinians voicing their concerns following President Trump’s threat to cut funding to UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority, 3 January 2018.

Our Image of the Week is Iranian journalism Nada Amin, who received asylum in Israel, organising a demonstration at Jaffa Gate, in Jerusalem’s Old City, in support of the Iranian people and their protests against the regime in Iran, 2 January 2018.

UNRWA: an obstacle to peace?

by Einat Wilf

For the sake of peace, reform of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is urgently needed, argues Einat Wilf. One of the greatest obstacles to peace, and certainly the least acknowledged, is the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem and the inflation of its scale by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Whereas the actual number of Arabs who could still claim to be refugees as a result of the Arab-Israeli war of 1947-1949 is today...

Voice of the Week

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