The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was created in 1950 to help Arabs displaced during Israel's war for independence. It has since established itself as an enemy of the state of Israel by aiding, assisting, and harboring Hamas terrorists.
In February, Donald Trump signed an executive order defunding the agency. It was an action long past due. American tax dollars had been sent to UNRWA and used to teach hatred of Israel to Palestinian students and to support the terrorist actions of Hamas.
In 2023, Congress suspended payments to UNRWA after it was proven that several employees had assisted and even participated in the October 7 terror attack that killed more than 2,000 Israeli civilians. But Biden restored the funding after UNRWA fired seven employees named by Israel who helped Hamas during the attacks.
After Trump defunded UNRWA, the Department of Justice looked at the problem in an entirely different way. There's a billion-dollar lawsuit against UNRWA filed last June in the Southern District of New York. Joe Biden determined that the agency had immunity afforded to international organizations from prosecution in America.
The lawsuit names the organization and seven of its past and current officials, including its career administrator, Philippe Lazarrini. The UN says that it maintains its immunity and will continue with its mission.
But the Trump DoJ is making the argument that UNRWA should not have immunity because they are a separate, independent agency from the United Nations. The Justice Department submitted a letter in the court case that lists several exceptions to the immunity statute.
“This is a very big deal,” a South Texas College of Law professor and Supreme Court watcher, Joshua Blackman, told the New York Sun. Immunity for the UN is an important principle in international law.
"We don’t want people engaging in diplomacy in our courts," said Blackman.
UNRWA, Blackman argues, is different because it “has long been viewed as some soft of benevolent charitable organization, but October 7 has cast a new light on it, and the Trump administration has recognized what has long been the case: UNRWA is not entitled to sovereign immunity.”
UNRWA is a “corrupt organization that has been silent about — and at times complicit in — the murder of Israelis should rightly not be immune from lawsuits in the U.S.,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, told the Sun. “UNRWA has resoundingly failed in its humanitarian mission and has become nothing more than a front for terror.”
The legal reasoning that Trump's DoJ is using is sound and impactful.
According to the new DOJ filing, certain UN bodies, “like specialized agencies,” do not enjoy immunity from prosecution unless so designated by an executive order of the president. UNRWA, it argues, acts separately from the UN General Assembly. The agency’s staffers are exempt from certain restrictions and most of its funding is from sources other than the UN budget.
As UNRWA differs from other UN agencies, Mr. Lazarrini and the agency’s other officials named in the suit do not “benefit from the derivative immunity that attaches to certain UN officials,” according to the Justice Department’s letter.
“The position of the United Nations is longstanding and clear: UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and, as such, is entitled to immunity from legal process under the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations,” a spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterras, Stephane Dujarric, told the Sun.
One returned hostage reported being held in an UNRWA facility for a time. Emily Damari told British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Hamas held her in facilities belonging to the UN refugee agency. UNRWA claims that it wasn't in control of the facility, but what about UNRWA employees? The corrupt organization needs to not only be defunded, but disbanded as well.
There is no moral or strategic excuse for shielding UNRWA from the consequences of its actions and those of its employees and affiliates. Those actions include the allegations that its schools work with Hamas to steep children in anti-Jewish hatred and serve as weapons depots and staging areas for attacks on Israelis. The Trump administration’s actions don’t go as far as declaring this arm of the U.N. a foreign terrorist organization, as Andy McCarthy has suggested. But that threat can still be held in reserve.
The future of Gaza and the West Bank is currently up in the air. Hamas believes that if it's patient and waits out Israel and the West, things will eventually go back to normal, and funding will resume.
After October 7, there's no going back for Israel. Nor should there be any going back for the United States.
