Global Policy Forum

By Danielle Haas

U.N. resolutions may have paved the way for the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, but relations have long been troubled both at a political level and operationally on the ground. The deaths in recent days of three U.N. employees during Israeli military operations have sunk those ties to a new nadir.

"The situation, at least on the ground, is pretty bad. A lot of people in the U.N. are quite troubled by Israeli actions," said one regional diplomatic source. Israeli officials charge that Palestinian U.N. employees are providing cover for militants and even take part in terror activities by working for the U.N. by day and as terrorists by night.

"Some U.N. workers are involved in terror," said Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "They are aiding and abetting it, too, by allowing (militants) to operate in the (refugee) camps." U.N. officials deny that any employees in the West Bank and Gaza are connected to extremists, although Hamas identified a U.N. teacher who was killed during an Israeli raid in Gaza on Friday as a member of that militant group.

The round of accusations was touched off by the death last month of Iain Hook, a Briton working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), during a gunfight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded that Israel conduct a "rigorous investigation . . . and hold accountable those responsible." And more than 60 U.N. relief workers issued an unprecedented petition condemning the army in the "strongest possible terms for this wanton act against an unarmed man."

Israel has since released a message that Hook left on an officer's phone minutes before he died in which he said he was trying to prevent armed Palestinians from entering the UNRWA compound in Jenin. It charged the Palestinians with "the cynical use of the civilian population and relief organization buildings" as a cover for terrorist activities. "Palestinians are trying to escalate the situation," said Gissin, "and one way to create friction is to try to do it via the U.N." Angry U.N. officials say there were no gunmen inside the building.

"The accounts that Israeli officials have given regarding the death of Iain Hook run counter to reports from U.N. officials," said Mark Dennis, an aide to the world body's special representative in the region, Terje Roed Larsen. UNRWA Commissioner General Peter Hansen was less circumspect, referring to the deaths of people working for a humanitarian agency as "completely unacceptable."

The ill feeling resurfaced just days later when the U.N.-affiliated World Food Program blamed Israeli soldiers for blowing up a Gaza warehouse that stored food for 40,000 destitute Palestinians. The military said the upper floors were used for terrorist activity. Then on Friday, an Israeli operation against militants in a Gaza camp killed 10 Palestinians, including two UNRWA workers, triggering new U.N. charges of the "indiscriminate use of heavy firepower."

UNRWA was established in 1949 to carry out relief programs for Palestinian refugees who fled or were made homeless in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war until a political solution was found. Fifty-three years later, there is no settlement and the agency continues to provide education, health, relief and social services to more than 3.7 million registered refugees in the Middle East.

Among them are more than 1.5 million in the West Bank and Gaza, the majority of whom live in around 27 camps served by 260 UNRWA schools and 50 health care facilities. "UNRWA is at the point of sharpest conflict right now. But it reflects a broader problem of crisis of confidence that Israel has with the U.N., which it sees as having been co-opted by Palestinians, as corrupt and lacking in professionalism," said Gerald Steinberg, an analyst at Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University.

Posters of suicide bombers have appeared in the walls of UNRWA schools and buildings, including the U.N. girls school in Jenin. "When they kill a martyr, we will kill 100 Jews," reads graffiti scrawled by Hamas on the wall of a nearby U.N. complex. "UNRWA should raise their voices and do something about these terrorists," said Gissin. "But many (officials) are collaborating, and others are intimidated so they don't say a word."

UNRWA not only rejects such allegations but levels charges of its own against the Israeli army, which it says has stymied its crucial work of alleviating Palestinian suffering by firing on schools, ambulances and clinics. "Israel needs us to be here . . . but they don't always respect what we are doing," one official said. Pressure is mounting from some Jewish groups and U.S. congressmen for UNRWA to clamp down on militancy in the camps. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said earlier this year that the United States, which contributes around one-third of UNRWA's annual $310 million budget, should freeze payments if terror continues.

The World Jewish Congress demands that UNRWA staff act to cease providing a "shield for terrorism." Diplomatic sources say the sides are talking to try to smooth over the problems. But there may have to be structural changes before trust can return. "We may see top UNRWA officials being declared persona non grata (by Israel), which would force them to leave," Steinberg speculated. "But one thing's clear: Relations are bad and only getting worse at every turn in the road."

The UNRWA problems are just the tip of the iceberg. Israel has long viewed U.N. members, who only in 1991 repealed a resolution equating Zionism with racism, as favoring Arab nations by frequently adopting anti-Israel motions. Last year, the animosity peaked when it was revealed that Indian U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon had shot a videotape related to the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers, but had not initially passed on the information to the Israelis.

The U.N. Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, also prompted a storm of protest from the United States and Jewish groups, who said Arab- backed anti-Israel resolutions unfairly singled out Israel for criticism. They have also charged the organization with hypocrisy by giving Syria a seat on the Security Council despite its poor human rights record and place on the State Department's list of host countries for terror groups. Palestinians are also critical of the United Nations -- for not being harsh enough on Israel.

They say the organization does little to ensure implementation of resolutions calling for Israel's withdrawal from the land it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. Said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat: "Israel is the only country on earth to get its birth certificate from the United Nations, which makes them feel they have higher protection, and (President) Bush is protecting them. "

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