UN Efforts in the Middle East: Helping or Hurting?

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

UNRWA and other peacekeeping forces in the Middle East play an important role in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but do they do enough? Those saying they help argue that they act as buffers between warring factions, preventing wider regional escalation. Those saying they hurt argue they fail to maintain neutrality. Now we debate: UN Efforts in the Middle East: Helping or Hurting? Arguing Helping: Richard Gowan, UN and Multilateral Diplomacy Director at the International Crisis Group Arguing Hurting: Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.6	This is open to debate. I'm John Donvan. Hi, everybody. Today, a focus on the Middle East and Israel and Gaza and the United Nations. It is ironic that a critical moment in the foundation of the state of Israel was the day that it won recognition by the United Nations. That happened in May of 1949 when Israel was new, and frankly so was the United Nations.
0:56.3	So it can be said that the UN played a critical role in the birthing of Israel as a state.
1:02.4	Since then, however, and here's the irony, at many junctures and at a variety of issues, the two have often been in collision.
1:09.9	While the prospects for a permanent peace,
1:11.7	which is a goal of the United Nations to promote, don't seem any closer today than they did in
1:16.7	1949. There has long been tension over one UN agency in particular known as UNRA. Those are
1:22.9	initials that stand for United Nations Relief and Works Administration. Unra has been on the ground in refugee communities, and its defined mission has been to provide
1:32.2	Palestinians with social services like education and health care, which it has been delivering
1:37.1	for decades since 1950.
1:39.0	As you'll hear in this debate, there are widely conflicting views on UNRWA's impact,
1:43.3	and this divide was exacerbated after it was revealed that some on UNRWA's impact. And this divide was exacerbated
1:44.9	after it was revealed that some local UNRWA personnel were involved in the Hamas terror attack
1:49.7	of October 7th that killed more than 1,200 Israelis. They were members of Hamas or collaborating
1:54.6	with it. United Nations officials investigated and confirmed this. And this is a fact that
1:59.7	returned the spotlight to the fraught relationship between Israel and the United Nations.
2:03.6	And that prompts the question we're taking on in this debate.
2:07.6	Is the UN helping or hurting in the Middle East?
	...

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