Israel requests that US not cut aid to UNRWA

Israel requests that the US continue to fund UNRWA in order to prevent a deterioration of the security situation. 

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Despite the recent violence at the Gaza border, the rocket attacks last week and ongoing kite arson, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not changed his mind about the need for the United States to continue funding  the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that supplies hundreds of thousands of Gazans with aid, according to a report Monday in the Israel Hayom daily.

Sources told the paper that Israel clarified its position with the Americans due to the Trump administration’s re-evaluation of  UNRWA’s role over the past several months.

Last week, internal emails from January by senior advisor Jared Kushner surfaced, which said, among other things, “This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.”

Around that time, the Trump administration withheld tens of millions of dollars from UNRWA, seeking reform of the organization.

The changes requested included longstanding  issues flagged by Israel for years, such as Hamas terrorists’ use of UNRWA facilities and UNRWA school textbooks’ incitement of Jew-hatred  and anti-Israel sentiment. Officially, Israel’s position is that UNRWA has long passed its expiration date.

Palestinians have sharply criticized the US for freezing aid, turning to the EU instead.

Yet when asked their opinion, said the report, Israeli security officials told the Americans that, unlike Judea and Samaria, there is no other organization that can help the Palestinians in Gaza in the manner that UNRWA does.

Indeed, UNRWA remains one of the biggest sources of income, health services and food aid in the coastal enclave.

Israel therefore asked that specifically in Gaza, American aid not be cut.

In addition to humanitarian concerns, Israel may also sense that further lack of resources in Gaza may leave Hamas with nothing to lose by instigating another war with Israel.

The Trump administration is expected to publish within the coming weeks its report on the true number of Palestinian refugees, said Israel Hayom. UNRWA claims to support 5.2 million “refugees,” while the number who fled Israel in 1948 was only 700,000.

Only Palestinians retain refugee status in succeeding generations, a status that both the executive and legislative branches of the US government is reviewing to evaluate aid.

In June, when Kushner and other officials visited Arab capitals to discuss the as-yet unrevealed Trump peace plan, they reportedly talked about disbanding UNRWA and having the host countries of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants absorb them instead, with the Americans’ erstwhile contribution to UNRWA going to help them to do this.