The Albanese government and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have gambled with their integrity and accountability by reinstating Australia’s funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, an organisation heavily discredited in terms of its relations with Hamas.
Announcing the decision, Wong said the government now had the “necessary confidence” that Australia’s $6m of humanitarian funding would go to those in need in Gaza and that the government was finalising an agreement with guarantees of staff neutrality.
Australia has cover for its decision. Canada, Sweden and the EU have taken such steps. Wong said more nations that had paused funding were expected to follow these leaders. Australia’s decision follows intense pressure on Labor to restore its aid, urgent moral invocations to action and the warning from UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini that the agency was “at risk of death”.
Wong has a justified reputation for caution and competence as a long-serving Labor minister. But this is not a cautious decision. It is not a safe decision. It is hardly a national interest decision. It is, however, an overwhelming domestic political decision. Indeed, it was probably politically untenable for Labor to reach any other decision given the intensity of this issue within the left of politics and the scale of Gaza’s suffering.
Wong said: “The best current advice from agencies and Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organisation and that existing and additional safeguards sufficiently protect Australian taxpayer funding.” That is, the government is not breaking the law by funding UNRWA. It is not betraying the Australian public by funding a terrorist organisation. Be thankful.
But this assurance cannot justify Labor’s decision. The case against UNRWA has never been that it is a terrorist organisation. The case against UNRWA is that it has been complicit with terrorism. And this is a fact; it has employed terrorists. In January the appointments of some UNRWA staff were terminated after allegations that they participated in the October 7 massacres in Israel.
Concerns about UNRWA have existed for years but the Hamas attack on Israel gives them fresh salience. Israel has long accused UNRWA of being complicit with Hamas, and Lazzarini accuses Israel of seeking to destroy the agency.
When Liberal senator Dave Sharma finished up as Australia’s ambassador to Israel he recommended that Australia review its funding of UNRWA. On taking office the Albanese government doubled its core funding to $20m annually. When Wong visited Israel in January she announced an extra $6m contribution.
After accusations by Israel of UNRWA complicity, the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, the organisation’s highest investigative body, launched an investigation into the allegations. A separate review was appointed, headed by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, to assess the neutrality of UNRWA and its efforts to ensure neutrality.
Wong referred to both reviews in her statement. Neither has reported. Wong welcomed such “decisive actions” but they are not decisive enough for Australia to await the findings. It is frontrunning the reports. For Labor, the politics is urgent; it is acting now and will read the reports later. Perhaps the government is confident of the findings. If not, it runs a risk.
Wong said UNRWA was developing “an action plan for donors” including Australia that would mean “strengthened” controls to ensure “guarantees of staff neutrality”. This would provide “the necessary confidence” that our funds went directly to those in need and there would be “no tolerance” for any members of a terrorist organisation.
Sounds good. But what is the plan and when will it be finalised? What exactly are the assurances Australia has got from UNRWA? On what basis is the Australian government so confident?
Wong has produced nothing to substantiate her declaration of confidence – no exchange of letters, no documents from UNRWA, no advice from any senior official or agency within the Australian government. Wong offers nothing to the parliament or public.
She said the national security committee of cabinet – the highest security decision-making body within the Australian government – had reached this decision. But do you believe any senior official or agency would be fool enough to give unqualified advice that UNRWA was free of Hamas influence and supporters?
Wong dodges the real issue. UNRWA has about 30,000 staff across the region including 12,000 in Gaza, the vast majority being Palestinians. It is deeply integrated into the Gaza community, running schools and clinics. UNRWA has admitted that Hamas weapons were stored in schools, its schools are known to promote an anti-Semitic agenda and Israel has outlined how tunnels run under UNRWA buildings.
In its January account of Israel’s intelligence revelations, The Wall Street Journal provided details on the role of UNRWA personnel on October 7, two helping to kidnap Israelis, two others tracked to sites where scores of Israelis were shot and killed, while others co-ordinated logistics including weapons for the assault.
Of the 12 UNRWA employees compromised, seven were schoolteachers.
The Israeli report said 1200, or about 10 per cent, of UNRWA’s employees in Gaza had links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated terrorist groups by the US.
UNRWA repudiates any suggestion of “the institution as a whole” being infiltrated and says investigations of staff since 2022 show only a small number of neutrality breaches.
But the status quo before October 7 reveals the problem with UNRWA – it was a pivotal institution in an area where Hamas was the governing authority.
The Coalition opposes Labor’s decision. It says no Australian taxpayer money should support any agency whose staff might encourage or incite terrorism. It asks what “verifiable undertakings” Australia has got. And it says Australia should have worked with other partners such as the US in imposing binding conditions on funding.
Drawing on his first-hand experience, Sharma has written: “Anyone who has any familiarity with the issues knows the UNRWA is a deeply compromised and problematic organisation. In Gaza, the UNRWA has been infiltrated and co-opted by Hamas. Many of its employees are members of Hamas. Its schools and hospitals are repurposed by Hamas as military facilities. Its aid is diverted to support Hamas military aims. These are ingrained structural features of the UNRWA in Gaza, not anomalies.”
Wong and Labor repudiate these views, along with the Israeli intelligence. In doing so, Wong and Labor, are taking a huge gamble – in effect, they are outsourcing their reputation and integrity with the Australian public to UNRWA.
That is not a safe place to be. It is high risk and dangerous. We will wait to see what the US and Britain do. But what are the prospects in coming weeks and months that more revelations will surface of UNRWA being compromised with Hamas? If that happens Labor will be discredited, having been warned but giving UNRWA a green light.
Wong said only UNRWA had the infrastructure to provide support “on the scale needed right now in Gaza”. That’s right – but it sits with a mounting argument that alternative institutions must be encouraged. Overall, this is a contest in competing moralities.
Wong said “there are people starving in Gaza” – and that’s the humanitarian reality driving the politics. Many supporters of refunding think UNRWA’s credentials or links with Hamas don’t matter, the priority is starving kids. That argument is understandable.
But Labor cannot talk like that. The government had to give UNRWA a clean bill of health and say its assurances were credible as a prelude to reinstating Australia’s funding. The Albanese government has done that – and it will live with the many unpredictable consequences.
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