I had to cancel the event the night before because we received a number of complaints, some strongly worded, that the speaker supported UNRWA, and this led me to fear that I wouldn’t be able to moderate a discussion in which politics dominated.  

This led me first to ask 12 friends if I did the right thing, and then look up UNRWA all over the web.  The web is extremely enthusiastic about UNRWA, giving glowing reports about how it gets an annual billion dollars to help the people of Gaza. (how much is that per person? $500)  Only Israel seems to question its authority entirely – like here https://www.jpost.com/tags/unrwa

or here

UNRWA: an obstacle to peace?

But I don’t get it.  Where does the billion dollars go?  and why do UNRWA sites show people living in tents before we apparently destroyed what we saw in the footage as gorgeous villas and apartment buildings?  

I don’t have the answers – We say that UNRWA is doing the work that a government should be doing, that they are helping Hamas and in many cases are working for Hamas and UNRWA simultaneously, helping Hamas to maintain control.  But we’re the only ones on the web who say that – why?  Because it is false or because they are using their funding to control the news?

My lawyer friends, who are active in politics, never raised these issues, perhaps because they saw my little issue as too trivial to counter or perhaps because they unilaterally agreed that UNRWA is a problem.