Op-Ed: Jon Schanzer and Enia Krivine: The Department of Justice's long-awaited reckoning for UNRWA has arrived
The Department of Justice (DOJ) last month took a potentially giant step in the effort to combat the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas by asserting that UNRWA, unlike other UN agencies, is not immune from U.S. criminal and civil law. The decision may not just open the door for victims of October 7 to sue UNRWA for damages, it may enable the Treasury Department to impose terrorism sanctions and shut down a significant terror-financing threat.
UNRWA, formally known as the UN Relief and Works Agency, was established after the Israeli War of Independence to provide services to Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war. Over more than seven decades, rather than resettling refugees to give Palestinians a future, UNRWA trapped generation after generation in refugee status. But not only that. Through its network of schools and other family services, UNRWA indoctrinated millions of children to grow up with a dream of destroying the state of Israel and displacing its Jewish population.
The massacres of October 7, 2023 were a predictable byproduct of an education system imbued with Jew hatred, incitement, and the glorification of terror. In the war that has ensued since, Israeli military operations in Gaza have yielded mountains of evidence proving just how deeply entwined UNRWA was with Hamas.
But as experts will attest, the agency’s profound flaws are not unique to Gaza. URNWA operates in the West Bank, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, too. And while the United States halted aid to UNRWA after October 7, the terror-supporting agency continues to enjoy contributions from around the world that exceed $1 billion a year. The Trump administration now has an opportunity to shut that all down.
In an April 24 filing connected to a lawsuit brought against UNRWA by terror victims, the Justice Department asserted that UNRWA does not qualify for the immunities afforded to the United Nations under international agreements and federal statutes. The lawsuit is currently before a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.
According to the DOJ filing in the case, UNRWA is “a mere ‘affiliate or instrumentality’ of the UN,” not an organ of the UN itself, and has never been granted immunity by any American president under the International Organizations Immunities Act.
This is a reversal from the Biden administration’s 2024 position that UNRWA was immune to prosecutions and lawsuits in the United States. The Biden administration took this position even as incontrovertible evidence mounted that UNRWA employees were directly involved in the kidnapping of Israelis, that UNRWA employees themselves held Israelis captive in Gaza, and that UNRWA facilities were used for storing weapons, harboring hostages, and other military purposes.
DOJ’s April 24 filing challenges UNRWA’s assertion that it is immune from the lawsuit. That complaint was filed by over 100 victims of the October 7 attacks, alleging that UNRWA bears legal responsibility for those attacks. And while that complaint was a civil suit, the DOJ filing indicates that UNRWA could be held to account in other ways — including U.S. sanctions.
Ample evidence exists to substantiate UNRWA's longstanding partnership with Hamas. A strong case could be built rather quickly by the Treasury Department to impose terrorism sanctions on UNRWA.
Treasury sanctions could be a death knell for UNRWA. No country that wishes to do business with the United States would be willing to financially support the agency. No bank would be willing to processes a transaction on UNRWA's behalf for fear of being subject to U.S. sanctions.
An end to UNRWA would by no means cutting aid to over a million Gazans. For many months now, amidst Israel’s war against Hamas, UNRWA has only supplied a fraction of the aid that goes into Gaza. Jerusalem has worked with a multitude of foreign governments and other aid agencies to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Whereas UNRWA once ran a monopoly on a host of services provided in Gaza, dozens of UN organizations and NGOs now provide those services.
When the war is over and the massive task of rebuilding Gaza gets underway, some of these organizations — those that do not partner with Hamas in any way — should remain in Gaza to continue providing support for needy Gazans.
The United Nations should have shut down UNRWA’s mandate long ago. However, that would only happen through a General Assembly vote, which is highly unlikely due to the UN’s anti-Israeli, anti-Western, and anti-democratic bias. But the DOJ may have just forged an alternative path.
Jonathan Schanzer is executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network.
