Balance of Probabilities UNRWA

CBC News has learned that the Canadian federal government is resuming funding to UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians.

A Palestinian man carries flour bags distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in November. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

Catherine Cullen, of CBC News, reported last month that Canada had not seen evidence backing up the allegations against the employees before making the decision.

Martin Griffiths, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator pointed to two investigations underway into the Israeli government's allegations, saying he hoped they would provide sufficient assurance to Canada and other countries to keep funding UNRWA.

"We're necessary. We're doing what I think is almost the most difficult humanitarian operation," he said, pointing out that more than 150 staff members have been killed in Gaza. (Cullen, 2024)

The Israeli government has long complained about UNRWA and has sought to have the agency defunded.

It accuses UNRWA of perpetuating a Palestinian refugee crisis, allowing members of armed groups to infiltrate it and use its facilities, and allowing its schools to indoctrinate Palestinian children in an ideology of armed resistance to Israel.

UNRWA says it makes great efforts to avoid infiltration by armed groups and works to educate its employees about the importance of neutrality. (Cullen, 2024)

Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a weekly columnist for The National (UAE) and Now Media, and a monthly contributing writer for The International New York Times in an interview with Matt Galloway on CBC The Current defines Hamas in this way. 

This is a religiously millenarian group, that it is apocalyptic and that it believes that it's doing the will of God. And so all of this is divinely mandated and there's a kind of religious imperative here. So I think there is also an irrational belief on the part of Hamas that in the end, if they are sufficiently fervent that there will be some kind of divine aid as well. (Monday October 16, 2023 Full Transcript, 2023) (Galloway, 2023)

An article in the Guardian, Friday, March 1, 2024, is summarized in the post Update on Evidence against UNRWA. The policy of neutrality within UNRWA certainly makes it highly improbable that the terrorist activity of Hamas can be supported in any way.

References

Cullen, C. (2024, March 5). Canadian government will resume funding to United Nations relief agency for Palestinians: source. CBC News. Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-government-resume-unrwa-funding-1.7134961 

Galloway, M. (2023, October 16). Monday October 16, 2023 Full Transcript. CBC. Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/monday-october-16-2023-full-transcript-1.6998168