David Lega, Swedish Member of European Parliament
Full remarks:
Dear ambassadors, distinguished experts and guests,
Dear friends at UN Watch,
We are gathered in Geneva, a city long known as a place of refuge and reform-but also intense sectarian strife. And a city which for more than one hundred years has symbolised the dream of peace among all people.
We are gathered on the margins of the Human Rights Council, with Secretary General Guterres and many ministers attending. What will they talk about in 2024? What will they say about Israel? About Hamas? About terrorism? About peace?
Thanks in large part to the essential work of UN Watch, we know UNHCR’s history of resolutions against the State of Israel. More than against all other countries combined. Year after year. Even as UNHCR itself now includes repressive authoritarian members like China and Cuba, to name just two.
Of course there are also other members, with different values. Israel has no better friend than the United States, represented here by distinguished members of Congress,from both major parties.
I speak to you as a Jew. As a Swede. As a human being. And as a Christian Democrat in the European Parliament. What do I see as the path to peace -and specifically about the role of UNRWA?
As I said in October from the floor of the European Parliament: ‘From the river to the sea-all hostages must be free!’ This includes all those in Gaza held hostage for years by Hamas.
How has Hamas held Gaza captive? We have known about their brutality for many years now. But they have in part also been let off the hook of good governance -by the very United Nations agency tasked with meeting the needs of 1948 Palestinian refugees. As the scope and size of that agency has grown over the decades, Hamas hasn’t really needed to fully govern in Gaza. Hasn’t needed to spark sustainable growth, or heal the sick, or provide proper schools for its children. They could focus instead on terrorism and torture, starting with Gazans themselves. UNRWA, to a large extent, would run the hospitals and teach the kids.
What was UNRWA teaching them? Throughout my mandate, I have expressed my deepest distress over the issue of Palestinian textbooks, including some used in UNRWA schools,filled with messages of hate, antisemitism and incitement to violence and jihad against the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Textbooks bought with EU taxpayers’ money. I have repeatedly, and directly, called on the European Commission to account for this -and to stop it.
The EU is UNRWA’s third-biggest donor, not counting EUMember-State funding. My own country of Sweden comes fourth.
But Sweden has now suspended its contributions. And the European Commission is conducting a review. Why?
Two weeks ago, in a joint meeting of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs and budget committees, I challenged UNRWA’s Europe director over credible recent reports alleging several UNRWA staff actively participated in the horrible terror attacks on October 7th, with even more celebrating those attacks in a group chat and as many as 1,200 employees actually members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.This in addition to reports of Hamastunnels-powered by UNRWA electricity -underneath UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters.
It is time to conclude: UNRWA has failed in Gaza-has failed Gazans.The people of Gaza need food and clean water and shelter, and schools fostering respect and peace -not an organisation whose staffers pour fuel on the fire of conflict and even join in acts of terrorism. No organisation is irreplaceable.
So what to do? In the aftermath of October 7th, the EU quadrupled its 2023 Palestinian aid. For 2024, this will go up by yet another factor. In Gaza, this EU aid cannot go through UNRWA, but to other organisations which have proven their greater responsibility and objectivity.
And in the medium and long term? The EU must work together, with transatlantic partners like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, and with regional partners like Jordan, Egypt and the signatories of the breakthrough 2020 Abraham Accords, to create the conditions for a viable two-state solution in the Middle East: which guarantees Israel’s security and which ensures the dignity and self-determination of the Palestinian people. This joint effort must first involve security on the ground in Gaza-after Hamas is defeated. It must also take the lead in providing for Gazans’ humanitarian needs.
The resources are there if there is the will.
October 7th was a dark day. And every day since.
For Israelis as well as for Palestinians. It is time for a new day to dawn - with new ideas, and new partners, for peace.
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