5. Rejecting the Blueprint for Dismantlement The Assessment frames UNRWA’s neutrality as a central concern, yet redefines the concept through the lens of political appeasement. It praises the Agency for developing “one of the most robust neutrality frameworks among any comparable organization,”34 but undermines that very neutrality by emphasizing the Agency’s political and security roles. Simultaneously, it proposes further restructuring in response to donor and host state concerns—concerns driven less by humanitarian imperatives than by political agendas. These recommendations are made without acknowledging how the Israeli regime’s repeated accusations of neutrality violations function as a tool of colonial coercion—a strategy to delegitimize Palestinian institutions, weaken UNRWA’s mandate, and erase the political identity of the refugee population. By centering donor expectations and colonial narratives of the Palestinian people as ‘passive victims’ the Assessment undermines UNRWA’s humanitarian principles and reinforces a double standard. It suggests that neutrality means disavowing any proximity to resistance— regardless of legality, legitimacy, or historical context. In doing so, it ignores the fact that resistance against colonial domination and by all means necessary is a right enshrined in international law.35 Yet nowhere does the Assessment attempt to engage with this context, nor does it assert that UNRWA has no obligation to speak colonial language in defending its mandate. Rather than defending UNRWA’s integrity against these weaponized 34 United Nations. Report to the Secretary-General: UNRWA Strategic Assessment, 2025, 2. 35 BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. The Palestinian People Have a Right to Armed Struggle by Virtue of Their Inalienable Right to Self-Determination. 2023. accessed July 23, 2025, https://badil.org/cached_uploads/view/2023/12/15/resistancepaper-1702636476.pdf. 15