Germany’s ruling party votes to end UNRWA funding, freeze PA aid

The CDU cited Hamas ties and demanded thorough reforms before providing any future Palestinian assistance.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Germany’s ruling party voted at its party conference Saturday to end state funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), citing evidence that many of its employees work for the Hamas terror organization.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) unanimously decided that future German aid to Palestinians should be redirected through other international bodies, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which oversees all other refugee populations worldwide.

“It is not apparent why this should be different for Palestinian refugees,” the motion stated, also questioning why Palestinian refugee status is passed down through generations—an arrangement unique within the UN system.

As a result of that policy, the UN lists between 5.9 and 7 million registered Palestinian refugees, although fewer than one million Arabs fled Israel during the 1948 War of Independence, most of whom have since died.

This has hindered any resolution to the conflict, the motion said.

The “right of return” of these “refugees” has been an inviolable plank in all Palestinian negotiations with Israel, which has rejected the demand as suicidal for the Jewish state.

Israel has aired these criticisms of UNRWA for years, and after documenting during the war in Gaza that roughly 10% of its employees belonged to Hamas, Jerusalem shut down the agency’s facilities in the country.

The CDU also voted to freeze German and European Union funding of the Palestinian Authority (PA) until it meets stringent conditions.

Presenting the motion, Tim Peters, head of the CDU’s Brussels association, condemned the PA’s so-called “pay-for-slay” policy, which provides stipends to families of imprisoned or killed terrorists, with payments scaled according to the severity of the attack, calling it an “irresponsible incentive” for more terror attacks.

The CDU called for the policy’s abolition, as well as sweeping reforms to PA textbooks, which have been documented as containing anti-Israel and antisemitic content and legitimizing violence.

Instead, the motion demands implementation of UNESCO educational standards, which emphasize human rights, respect for diversity, gender equality and nonviolence.

It also requires that any EU- or German-funded projects in PA-administered areas formally recognize Israel’s right to exist and adhere to Germany’s “zero-tolerance” approach to antisemitism.

The resolutions do not automatically translate into government policy.

Although the CDU leads Germany’s governing coalition, its partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), may not fully support the measures, despite officially affirming that Israel’s security and existence are part of Germany’s Staatsräson, or reason of state.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised the vote as “an act of moral clarity.”