President Joe Biden’s administration is moving closer to the policy put in place by his predecessor for funding a United Nations program aimed at aiding Palestinians in strife-torn areas. Or, more precisely, not funding it.
The Biden administration on Jan. 26 suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is supposed to provide humanitarian services in Gaza and elsewhere. The move came in light of recent allegations that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, which claimed 1,200 lives. In Israel’s post-Oct. 7 counteroffensive, an estimated 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, though a significant fraction of that is believed to be Hamas terrorists.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States hasn’t done an investigation into Israel’s claims about UNRWA. But Blinken called them “highly, highly credible.”
How much the Biden administration UNRWA move makes a difference to those involved remains to be seen. The U.S. has provided $120 million to UNRWA in the current fiscal year, with just $300,000 being held back.
Still, the move is significant because UNRWA recently fired several employees in light of new information that Israel provided to the agency. The dossier detailed the connections of those UNRWA employees to the Oct. 7 attacks.
“Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, said in a press release.
That professed shock and outrage drew skepticism from some congressional lawmakers, analysts, and observers of the Middle East. They’ve argued for years that UNRWA’s operation in Hamas-controlled Gaza inherently supported the terrorist group. Partly out of ideological affinity for the anti-Israel cause. But more for utilitarian reasons, to stay in the good grace of the power-wielding group Hamas.
Hamas has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997. Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it seized power in a coup over the Palestinian Authority — two years after Israel evacuated the 140.9-square-mile territory, which fell under its control from Egypt after beating combined Arab nation armies in the 1967 Six-Day War.
What began as a small agency providing tents, food, and other emergency relief for refugees of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence has grown into an organization operating in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Western nations pay for most of UNRWA’s roughly $1.3 billion budget, with the U.S. often providing a significant chunk of funding. Western donors are now questioning whether the agency has become irrevocably radicalized. The U.S. is among 18 countries that have suspended funding, including Germany, traditionally the second-biggest donor after the U.S., along with Australia, Canada, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and others.
Echoes of the Trump administration
The Trump administration ended all U.S. UNRWA funding in late August 2018, with the State Department at the time calling the agency “irredeemably flawed.” But the Biden administration reversed course once in office. Blinken announced on April 7, 2021, that the U.S. was reversing former President Donald Trump’s cuts in aid to the Palestinians, including for UNRWA funding at the U.N.
Nearly three years later, the Biden administration has moved the other way on UNRWA funding, at least for now. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said it never should have been reinstated in the first place. McCaul said he was “appalled but unfortunately not surprised” by revelations of UNRWA’s alleged staff involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli towns in the nation’s southern tier. “UNRWA is not a neutral arbiter, and their anti-Israel bias is widespread and systemic.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-MD) said he was “outraged” by the allegations of UNRWA’s complicity with Hamas terrorist groups. Cardin said the U.N. must immediately establish an “independent mechanism” to probe UNRWA employees’ involvement on Oct. 7. “Among other persistent concerns about violations of impartiality by the organization,” Cardin added.
However, some lawmakers called the UNRWA aid stoppage shortsighted.
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“Cutting off support to @UNRWA — the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans — is unacceptable. Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible. The U.S. should restore aid immediately,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in an X post.
UNRWA serves Palestinian refugees exclusively. The agency says there are 5.8 million of them in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. Many have disputed the 5 million number as a gross inflation that purposefully overstates the true refugee population to undermine Israel at the U.N. It’s the only organization within the U.N. system that focuses on a specific set of refugees. All other refugee groups are handled by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
