Co-operation with Hamas important for us – UNRWA Gaza director

SS:From what we hear is that UNRWA employees in Gaza are picketing your office, there are people standing with signs that say “Matthias out”. Why hasn’t the agency done more to keep its rank and file employed?

MS: Well, you know, for me the answer to this is that we have here in Gaza 13 thousand employees, a thousand of which work on what we call the Emergency Appeal. We have several pots of money, one of which is the Emergency Appeal. For the Emergency Appeal we ran out of money completely at the end of June. We had to take a loan to continue food distribution to one million people. It’s hugely significant that we’re able to continue this. 300 people out of a thousand were able to keep their jobs full time; about 600 had to be moved to part time just simply because we don’t have enough money; and just over a hundred had to be separated. Now it’s dramatic and tragic for the hundred losing their jobs, but as a manager I have to say that it’s overall remarkable that we could limit it to these numbers.  

SS:The US aid to you numbered 365 million, correct? And like you’ve said, other nations stepped up and reduced your agency’s deficit to 65 million. I mean, that’s really huge. Why are there still layoffs if the loss of American money is not as severe as was thought?

MS: You’ve mentioned - there’s still a deficit. I have been very clear - the deficit is sizeable - it’s more than 60 million dollars, which is not small by any standard. So we’ve significantly reduced it, but we’re still below sea level, we are still struggling to breathe, and when you don’t have enough money, it sadly then affects a couple of other people. I’ve been consistently saying from the beginning of the year and after announcing these decisions in July: if we get our complete deficit covered and new money for the Emergency Appeal on top of it, we can reconsider these decisions. We are sadly not in that situation yet. 

SS:There are other downfalls as well. While the agency is laying off local workers, angry mobs are threatening international employees - I hear you had to evacuate people. Is UNRWA in Gaza in real danger from all sides now?

MS: No, I wouldn't say that. And we didn’t evacuate people because their lives were threatened. What we did was - there was indeed a serious security incident - but what led up to this is that some of our angry employees had really been preventing us from working in our main office, had chased us around our alternative work locations in Gaza. And then there was this one nasty incident which could have turned into something very problematic. So I then decided with my leadership that it would be prudent for a limited time to withdraw non-essential staff from Gaza to essentially give the clear message to the rulers here that UNRWA is getting a lot of money to keep its services open and for that we need to be functional. Then a few days later our union actually stopped its industrial action. We’re currently in ten days of a “grace period”, as they call it, to negotiate, and we brought our international colleagues back because at this point we’re functional again. 

SS:Let’s talk a little bit about the role of your agency. UNRWA has taken care of Gaza like nobody else - since almost half of Gazans are unemployed, and most of them are considered refugees by your agency. Your agency provides Gazans with education, job training, health services, microcredit, not to mention basic stuff like food. Are you, guys, essentially taking on a government role here, have you become like the Palestinians’ social ministry?

MS: That’s a good question. I indeed myself often say, that the core of what we do here in Gaza is to provide the government-like services to 70% of the population. We run 275 schools for 280 thousand children at this point. We run 22 primary healthcare centres, which are visited each 3 months, each quarter by one million people to get essential basic medical treatment and care. And we do some social work. So these three areas - education, health and social services - are indeed government-like, and because 70% and more of the population here are refugees we are indeed the biggest public service provider in the Strip. In addition we are providing a couple of other services. The biggest one is food distribution to a million people - half of the population - that I call “humanitarian aid”. It’s a response to the three wars that had happened here. And we’re doing in addition to our public services humanitarian work like the food distribution and cash-for-work activities.   

SS:Now that your funding has been cut, will Hamas be able to fill in the hole that will be left?

MS: That’s not really on the table at all because we have a clear mandate from the United Nations General Assembly to provide these services to the registered Palestinian refugees. The way this would end - UNRWA stopping these services and potentially handing them over to host authorities - would be if the General Assembly decides that there is actually a just solution for the Palestinian refugees and the question of Palestine. This is not the case at all. So from a political and mandate point of view there’s absolutely no reason why we should hand over these services to anyone else. We need a political just solution for the refugees and then we can start discussing how we eventually hand over to whatever authority is relevant.

SS:But Dr. Schmale, have you ever thought that taking care of the Palestinians in such an all-encompassing way means that you treat them like little kids unable to fend for themselves?

MS: Listen, we get asked this question from time to time, but I don’t think that providing basic education from classes one to nine and providing healthcare makes people (children) dependent because all we’re doing at the end of the day is preparing them for adult life and making sure they are healthy. Everything else in not under UNRWA’s responsibility and by that I mean in particular the economy - I think, you made earlier a reference to very high unemployment here - of over 50% by now. So UNRWA doesn’t take care of all aspects of Palestinian refugees’ lives. What we basically do is give them some hope and a basic chance to make use of the opportunities that come their way. We aren’t like parents and certainly do not treat the refugees like parents.  

SS:You wrote that “good governance” and “unity government” is what Gaza needs to offset the effects of the Israeli blockade and the lack of solution to the Palestinian conflict. That’s great, but, I mean, if we were to get real, where will that good governance really come from, if it hasn’t been there for all these decades?

MS: That’s a good question, I think, the same question must be asked everywhere in Palestine. As a representative of the United Nations, of course, what we would say is that good governance comes from elections. I mean, people, citizens, inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and any country need to give a proper mandate to the political parties and actors that present themselves for elections. What we would urge is that there are proper political processes like elsewhere, and as you know, part of the so-called reconciliation talks that started last year, about a year ago, was indeed an essential element, to at some point reach elections. I think, until the space is created for proper political processes, we won’t see good governance. We need good solid political processes including elections.   

SS:Ok, but once again, how will they know who to vote for if their government services are provided by you and not their own officials?

MS: There’s a lot more that the government does than providing these essential services. I’m thinking of infrastructure, roads. I’m thinking of water provision, electricity. I’m thinking of security. I’m thinking of a legal framework for the economic sector, for the private sector. All those things are essential government responsibility. And if there was a free and fair election here and authorities came into being who took care of these services that would not at all contradict with what UNRWA is doing for the refugees in terms of education, health and social services. I think, this could still be seen as very complimentary. The elected government, as it had happened here in the past by the way and is ongoing, - the 30% of the population that are not registered as refugees are being taken care of in education and other terms by local authorities already.  

SS:Dr. Schmale, Gaza is obviously very hurt by the Israeli hostility, that is one thing, but the fight between Palestinians is another. Just recently, West Bank Palestine tried to stop a shipment of fuel for a power plant into Gaza Palestine. How does this rivalry affect what you have to do in Gaza? How do you offset the effects of this infighting?

MS: Listen, we’re not directly affected by the challenges among the Palestinian leadership because, as we discussed earlier, our job here is to provide key public-like services, education, health and other social services that are not dependent on the local authorities. We need to have good co-operation, but they are not dependent on any infighting or differences of opinion. What is happening though is that whenever they fight and do not agree, when the West Bank or PA takes measure, of course, it affects population at large. If there’s not enough fuel to run electricity, everyone is affected including the refugees, and that increases the pressure from the population - the refugees in our case - for additional services. So there’s a knock-on effect in terms of additional humanitarian needs, but it doesn’t directly the rift between the West Bank and PA and it doesn’t directly affect the provision of our core services.

SS:Fatah in the West Bank is trying to make life worse for Hamas in Gaza; life gets worse; Hamas sends people to the Israeli border to blow some steam off; clashes  break out; people die; next thing you know there’s another Israeli operation in Gaza, spurred by the inter-Palestinian rivalry, and then schools get bombed and your employees die, etc. How can you be working in a place like this and stick to the “mandate” when you see how the politics of this whole affair are making it almost impossible for you to be successful?

MS: The two comments I would have to that is number one - we sadly have had three wars here over the last decade or so and through these three wars and hostilities UNRWA kept working, we kept providing our basic services. The 2014 war was largely in the summer, so we were lucky then in the sense that schools weren’t working because of the summer holidays. Instead our schools became shelter for desperate people trying to flee and seek shelter from the hostilities. But in essence our health centres, for example, through all three wars have been operational. So that’s one comment. The second comment is that we all hope that there will not be another break-out of hostilities and war, because you’re right with your question: if that were the case it will not only make everyone’s life here more miserable, put lives in danger, it will also make the provision of our core services much more difficult, and if it’s an outright war - probably impossible. So for the sake of the 2 million citizens here including 1.3 million refugees, we must do everything possible, and the political players from all sides must do everything possible to avoid another war.  

SS:Let’s talk about Hamas. Hamas is considered by most of the world a terror organisation, and it’s not exactly a democratic, UN-values espousing group. How do you deal with Hamas interfering in your activities? I heard, for instance, that Hamas firebombed your mixed-gender summer camps; that extremists tried to kill one of your predecessors - why is Hamas in conflict with you, I mean, you’re not even part of this large war anyway?

MS: Listen, there are many different sides to Hamas, and I don’t really want to be drawn in the political discussion of Hamas. I want to describe to you how we work together. You cannot work as United Nations - that’s not just UNRWA, but the UNDP, World Health Organization, and in fact other international organisations, like the International Committee of the Red Cross, - you cannot work in a place like Gaza without a pragmatic co-operation with local authorities which are Hamas in this case here, or have been for most of the last few years. What that pragmatic co-operation looks like in the interest of the people we are serving is on the one hand technical co-operation with line ministries. For example, throughout the last couple of years, the Ministry of Health here which is under the control of the Union Government has done a good job, and we have pragmatically worked with them. Our health teams have worked with health professionals in the Ministry of Health. Similarly with the Ministry of Education - we have an overall healthy pragmatic relationship with the ministry which is also linked to the PA. So there’s this kind of pragmatic technocratic co-operation, let’s say. And then the other area is security. Hamas de facto controls security here, and we wouldn’t be able to function, none of us from the international side - that includes visitors, media people, - if Hamas didn’t provide the basic security. For most of the time they actually do provide that. This doesn’t mean we agree with them politically, I’m not making a political statement on what Hamas does in political terms or in military terms, I’m purely describing to you that we have overall a functional pragmatic relationship with them.  

SS:Well, your organisation also comes under fire from the pro-Israeli side. One of the many American arguments against UNRWA is that it enables a mass of people to live on entitlements. Do you feel that your work, while providing livelihood to so many people, also makes them used to you, dependent on aid, not being able to live without it basically? From an American point of view it’s like having people on welfare all the time, do you see their point here?

MS: No, I think, it’s a nonsensical argument. If indeed the 1.3 million people were dependent entirely on us in terms of their livelihoods that would be an argument we would have to deal with. But to repeat what I said earlier, what we do is providing basic education… If you go to any American city like Chicago or New York there’s a public education system. If you go to any city in the United Kingdom, for example, or Germany there’s primary health care provided by the state. No one talks of people using those services being totally dependent on the state. And our relationship with the refugees is the same. We provide core services like education and health to give them a chance in life to have prospects because they have basic education; to keep them healthy. In terms of what they make out of their lives that is not our responsibility - that is each individual’s responsibility, and also, of course, the responsibility of the refugee and other political leaders.

SS:What I keep reading everywhere, what your critics say in Israel and in the United States is that your agency inflates the number of Palestinian refugees, that if the UN criteria is to be applied, their number would be ten times less than the way you count them - I don’t know if it’s true or not. But if it is, why is your criteria for Palestinians, even those who have citizenship or citizen rights in other countries, different from other UN agencies’ criteria?

MS: First of all, it’s just incorrect disclaim that we use criteria that are different from the ones that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) uses. It’s nonsense. The UNHCR similarly has for certain situations a system where they register and support descendants of an original refugee population. You can find examples of this in Afghanistan. So it’s simply not true that we have different criteria and different approaches. The reason we keep registering the descendants of the original generation of 700 thousands or so years ago that were thrown off their land, is the question of justice. We think that as for any population in history if you get removed from your land forcibly you’re entitled to a just solution. So the main purpose of our registration of refugees, even those who may, for example, by now be in the United States, Germany or elsewhere, is to keep alive the question of justice, because if ever there’s a just solution then all these registered people will be able to participate in that just solution. It doesn’t mean obviously that a refugee who now lives in the United States and possibly has a green card there, benefits from our services. We only provide the services we’ve talked about to the refugees who are actually here in Gaza in this case and need them. So there’s a difference between the registration as a witness function, a justice function and the provision of services.   

SS:Another thing Israel says is that by broadly designating Palestinians as refugees, your agency indirectly supports the Palestinian political cause - the “right of return”, mainly. Do you think that’s the main reason for the United States and Israel to be hostile towards your organisation?

MS: Our perception, as is the perception of others, the refugees themselves to start with, is that there are indeed attempts to take the refugee question off the table. What I mean by that is to take the question of justice off the table. The United States is one of the member states, as is Israel by the way, of the United Nations, that has made clear commitments through various resolutions of the General Assembly to the Palestinian refugees to find through a dialogue with Israel a just solution. So for us it’s not the question of perpetuating the problem through the refugee status and giving them services. The real problem is the absence of a just and fair solution. And the United States and Israel and the international community indeed need to as a whole not focus on UNRWA and what we do, but must focus on the question of where is the just solution. Once there’s a just solution UNRWA will go away. I would love nothing more than to be the last director in Gaza not because we run out of money, but because there’s a just solution and we’re no longer needed to provide services to the descendants of those who were thrown off their land.  

SS:Dr. Schmale, just really briefly, you’re part of the UN, your organisation is adamant about being neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. But still by supporting the right of return, aren’t you losing your neutrality, since in case of this particular conflict, it’s a major political issue?

MS: I understand the question. We are not a political organisation. We are a service provision instrument, as we’ve talked about. The right of return is found in resolutions of the General Assembly. There are political processes within the United Nations, chiefly in the General Assembly, which all the member states are part of. That’s where all discussions are taking place. We focus on providing services to the refugees until the politicians find a solution to the problem.

SS:Thank you for this interview. We were talking to Dr. Matthias Schmale, Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, discussing how the US funding cuts will affect its help to refugees.