§ § § § § Conditional contributions: UNRWA is pressured and conditioned to take measures to gradually reduce and/or terminate programs and services in order to receive states' contributions. Transferring responsibilities to host countries: Financial inducements are offered to host countries to take on UNRWA’s responsibilities and tasks as a prelude to terminating the Agency’s operations. Diluting UNRWA’s responsibilities: UN agencies, international organizations, Palestinian civil society actors and popular service committees are encouraged and funded to implement tasks and projects, which were originally a responsibility of UNRWA, and/ or play a mediating role between refugees and the Agency. With its deteriorating image and authority, this presents UNRWA as an incompetent organisation and weakens its position. Promoting incompetence of UNRWA and exploiting dissatisfaction of the refugee population: Popular protests against reduced services are depicted as an expression of refugees’ dissatisfaction with UNRWA itself. This promotes the notion of UNRWA’s inability and incompetence and the need to find an alternative, such as host countries or more effective civil society organisations. Changing the definition of refugee: The USA is now working on removing the refugee status from descendants of Palestinian refugees, limiting the definition to those who were actually displaced in 1948. This is not a new US policy, but an accumulation of earlier attempts and policies. The narrow scope of UNRWA’s operational definition that links the refugee to the need for assistance provides an entry point for the US administration to exploit. This structural weakness is utilized by the USA to revoke the legal status of Palestinian refugees and tarnish UNRWA’s image and ultimately results in the shirking of international responsibilities. 15