President Donald Trump claimed to have resolved the issue of Jerusalem’s future when he “took it off the table,” according to his disquieting declaration in January, by announcing US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December. With this matter supposedly behind him, Trump is now turning to the issue of the 1948 Palestinian refugees.

His envoy Jared Kushner is reportedly pushing to annul the refugee status of millions of Palestinians and shutter the UN agency tasked with their welfare. Just as US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, even if justified historically, only served to move the issue to center stage and sever Palestinian ties with the US administration, the attempt to unilaterally shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) will only serve to deepen the enmity between the Palestine Liberation Organization, the United States and Israel.

True, the UNRWA should no longer exist, and like many other organizations in the world, its continued operation stems mostly from inertia. It was founded in December 1949, the same month the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 on resolving the plight of the Palestinian refugees displaced by the founding of Israel in 1948. It is the only UN organization devoted to dealing exclusively with only one group of people.

At the time, the Palestinians, as well as the Arab states, vehemently rejected Resolution 194 because it fails to reference the refugees’ “right of return,” resolving only that those “wishing” to return “should be permitted to do so.” It also stipulates the possibility of return on each refugee’s willingness to live in peace with his or her neighbors. It would take years for the Palestinians to decide that they should adopt the resolution, which they have since invoked as proof of their “right of return.” Israel then became the recalcitrant party, playing into the hands of its enemies.