The revelation that the United Nations staff were among the terrorists who rampaged through Israel on the 7th of October 2023 was followed by a wave of countries withdrawing further funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). However, Slovenia was not among them. On the contrary, it called on the international community to continue funding the UNRWA.
So far, the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Austria, Iceland, Romania and Sweden have all cancelled funding for the said agency. The European Commission has also stopped funding it.
But the government of Robert Golob has clearly formed a different opinion from that of its closest allies. The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs responded to a press inquiry about the funding by writing: “Slovenia joins the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in calling for the continuation of funding for UNRWA, as the withdrawal of funding would jeopardise the agency’s operations and thus the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza and the entire Middle East region. UNRWA is one of the most important organisations providing protection and humanitarian assistance to millions of Palestinians, which is why Slovenia has allocated 1,200,000 euros to UNRWA in 2023, which is the highest amount it has ever sent the organisation.” They also expect the UN Agency to launch an investigation into the involvement of UNRWA staff in the Hamas terror attacks on Israel that happened on the 7th of October, 2023.
The view of the Slovenian Ministry that the agency should continue to be funded despite the recent media revelations has also echoed abroad. The Visegrad profile on the social network X thus wrote: “The Slovenian government has announced it will continue funding UNRWA and is calling on other states to continue sending money to it. Slovenia’s left-wing government is among the most anti-Israeli in the European Union and is the only one to have supported South Africa’s case against Israel in The Hague.”
With Minister Fajon at the helm, Slovenia is leaving the West behind
This is the second such move by Foreign Minister Fajon that places Slovenia outside the circle of Western countries; the first was Slovenia being the only EU country to support South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel. Instead, it is now in the company of some countries in the developing world. We have thus found ourselves on the opposite side of the countries that have now stopped funding UNRWA (the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, France and others).
Ž. K.
