January 17, 2011: The directors of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, Judea and Samaria have resigned. Neither gave an explanation.

John Ging, director of the UNRWA operation in Gaza since February 2006, found himself caught in the dilemma of defending the legitimacy of his employees, many of whom have connections with terrorist entities and warning those same employees to maintain neutrality while on the job.

It was a difficult balancing act, especially when Hamas police raided a UNRWA warehouse, stealing thousands of blankets and food parcels intended for the region’s poor. He has in the past been the target of recriminations by the Hamas terrorist rulers of Gaza as well.

Ging also has been the target of several assassination attempts over the past year. In November, Israel allowed U.N. Security personnel in the region to arm themselves with four German-made submachine guns to fend off terrorists who have repeated tried to murder Ging.

Despite that, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency, Ging is considered popular in Gaza, where the agency’s operations expanded exponentially in the areas of education and health. UNRWA currently operates more than 200 schools in the Hamas terrorist-controlled region.

Arabs interviewed in the Fatah-governed Palestinian Authority, however, apparently had no problem saying goodbye to Shenstone; she reportedly refused to negotiate with UNRWA workers during a strike a few months ago that shut down services in the region.

According to Ma’an, she had described workers’ demands at the time as “absurd,” and refused to discuss paying “wages they didn’t receive the last time they went on strike…”

John Ging, director of UNRWA’s Gaza operations, will join the U.N.’s New York-based Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, according to a statement by UNRWA commissioner-general Filippo Grandi. Barbara Shenstone, head of UNRWA operations in Judea and Samaria, will return to her native Canada.

Neither Ging nor Shenstone released a statement of their own on the matter. “Barbara and John have made exceptional contributions to UNRWA’s work under the most difficult circumstances: their commitment to ensuring the quality of UNRWA services has been extraordinary,” Grandi added.

“John has got a very impressive appointment to a New York headquarters position and Barbara has wanted to leave for a while. There is no connection at all” between the two resignations, UNRWA’s Jerusalem-based spokesman Chris Gunness. Gunness sidestepped further attempts to probe the reason for the resignations.

In response to a query as to whether the decision was connected to the recent escalation in attacks on Israel by splinter terrorist groups in Gaza, Gunness replied tersely, “Not at all.”

Andrew Whitley the outgoing director of the New York office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency upset Jordan after stating it is time for Arab nations to absorb their brethren who are “refugees” from the 1948 war. Whitley stated that Palestinian refugees must not live in the illusion of achieving the “right to return” and that the Arab countries must search for a place for them in their lands to resettle there.

When UNRWA began its operations providing aid and services to the Arabs living in Israel in 1949, there were approximately 700,000 who qualified as “refugees.” Today, according to the latest statistics, that number has ballooned to nearly five million.

“We recognize, as I think most do, although it’s not a position that we publicly articulate, that the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent,” Whitley told a conference at the National Council for US-Arab Relations. “It’s not a politically palatable issue, it’s not one that UNRWA publicly advocates, but nevertheless it’s a known contour to the issue,” he said.

Taking the proverbial bull by the horns, Whitley then went on to add that instead of continuing to promote that “cruel illusion,” it would be best if Palestinian Authority Arabs began to consider “their own role in the societies where they are, rather than being left in a state of limbo, where they are helpless.”

The Hamas terrorist organization immediately demanded Whitley’s dismissal: a moot point, however, since he was already leaving the agency. Wajih Azaizeh, director general of the Palestinian Affairs Department, told the Petra news agency that Jordan expressed its condemnation in a letter sent to UNRWA Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi.

The letter bluntly reminded Grandi that his agency was established to offer humanitarian and social help and support to the Palestinian refugees, said Azaizeh, until their cause is resolved according to international legitimacy resolutions.

“We have asked the UNRWA Commissioner-General to clarify the U.N. Organization’s official position on such dangerous remarks and procedures taken against this man who held important posts in the agency,” Azaizeh stated.

Political commentator Ben S. Cohen noted last week in a post on Harry’s Place, however, that of the 50 million people who lost their homes due to war and military conflict in the 20th century, “practically none of the original displaced returned to their homes, never mind their descendants.

The historical record shows the refugees like those 17,000 displaced Jews administered to by UNRWA back in 1950 are invariably absorbed by host countries.” The difference, Cohen pointed out, was that the surrounding Arab nations in this case have deliberately positioned the Palestinian refugee issue and the so-called “right of return” as an ongoing obstacle to a final settlement of the conflict with Israel.

“Accepting that the refugees will not go home, that they will live free of the apartheid conditions imposed on them in states like Lebanon and Syria, and that they might even receive some financial compensation on top, is the height of political incorrectness in the Middle East,” he observed.

“It means accepting not only that Israel has the right to exist, but also the right to define itself as the democratic state of the Jewish people.”