The Palestinian Authority said it could turn to the UN General Assembly
and Security Council to counter the US administration’s decision.
By Tovah Lazaroff, Michael Wilner
Israel welcomed the United States’ decision to cut its funding to UNRWA
as a positive step forward in the peace process, while the Palestinians
and the Jordanians warned it would inflame the Middle East.
“Israel supports the American move,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
office said on Saturday night. It explained that the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency’s fixed determination of who is a Palestinian
refugee is “one of the main problems perpetuating the conflict.”
“It is worth giving the money to other parties that will make good use
of it for the welfare of the population and not for the perpetuation of
the [Palestinian] refugees [status],” Netanyahu’s office said.
The Palestinian Authority said it could turn to the UN General Assembly
and Security Council to counter the US administration’s decision.
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the
US decision a “flagrant assault” against the Palestinian people, and a
“defiance of UN resolutions.”
“Such a punishment will not succeed to change the fact that the United
States no longer has a role in the region and that it is not a part of
the solution.”
Jordan, which is home to 2.1 million Palestinian refugees serviced by
UNRWA, had already begun seeking additional donor funding even in
advance of the US’s announcement.
On Saturday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “Disruption
of UNRWA services will have extremely dangerous humanitarian, political
and security implications for refugees and for the whole region.”
“It will only consolidate an environment of despair that would
ultimately create fertile grounds for further tension. Politically it
will also further hurt the credibility of peacemaking efforts.”
Safadi said a meeting on September 27 in New York in the United Nations –
which the kingdom was co-sponsoring with Japan, the European Union,
Sweden and Turkey – would seek to “rally political and financial support
for the agency”.
“We will do everything possible to ensure that UNRWA gets the funds it
needs to continue offering its services to Palestinian refugees,” Safadi
added.
Israel’s former ambassador to the US Michael Oren, who is also an MK
from the Kulanu party, said: “The US government’s decision to end its
aid to Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA is crucial for any future peace
agreement. UNRWA eternalizes the Israeli-Arab conflict by artificially
inflating the number of refugees, teaching young Palestinians to deny
Israel’s right to exist and demand the right of return, while providing
shelter to terrorists and concealing their weapons.”
“UNRWA is not essential to peace but rather a roadblock on the path to
peace. UNRWA’s support of schools can be picked up by other charitable
organizations as well as the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees,” Oren
said.
“The Palestinians must recognize that the US’s decision to rescind its
support of UNRWA is a result of the administration’s efforts to revive
the peace process and to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating
table. From now one, any side that leaves the negotiation table is
expected to pay a price,” he added.
Right-wing Israeli and US politicians have long argued the organization
created in 1948 to service Palestinian refugees had become a stumbling
block to the peace process because of its decision to confer refugee
status on the descendants of the more than 750,000 Palestinians who fled
their homes during Israel’s War of Independence.
Until last year, the United States was the largest donor to UNRWA,
contributing some $360 million of its one billion dollar budget to
service over five million refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan,
Lebanon and Syria.
This year, the US gave only $60m. and on Friday the Trump administration
cut the funding as it questioned the organization’s “fundamental
business model” of servicing an “endlessly and exponentially expanding
community” of declared Palestinian refugees.
The move was previewed by US media outlets in recent weeks after e-mails
from President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were leaked
showing his interest in “disrupting” the UN body.
“The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that
the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA,” the
State Department said in a statement. “When we made a US contribution
of $60m. in January, we made it clear that the United States was no
longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden
of UNRWA’s costs that we had assumed for many years.”
“Beyond the budget gap itself and failure to mobilize adequate and
appropriate burden sharing, the fundamental business model and fiscal
practices that have marked UNRWA for years – tied to UNRWA’s endlessly
and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries – is
simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years,” it
continued. “The United States will no longer commit further funding to
this irredeemably flawed operation.”
“It’s not up to the US administration to define the status of
Palestinian refugees,” argued PLO envoy to Washington Husam Zomlot. “The
only status the US can define is its own role in peacemaking in the
region. By endorsing the most extreme Israeli narrative on all issues,
including the rights of more than five million Palestinian refugees, the
US administration has lost its status as peacemaker and is damaging not
only an already volatile situation but the prospects for future peace
in the Middle East.”
Opponents of the move see the US decision as a de-facto attempt to
redefine who is a Palestine refugee, so as to take the right of return
off the negotiating table.
A State Department official confirmed to The Jerusalem Post earlier this
week that, while the administration would disapprove of UNRWA’s
definition for Palestinian refugees qualifying for aid, it would not
redefine nor enumerate the category.
US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined Kushner in support of the decision.
“UNRWA can stay there, and we will be a donor if it reforms what it
does,” Haley told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies earlier this
week. “If it goes and makes sure that they’re not doing those teachings
in textbooks, if they actually change the number of refugees to an
accurate account we will look back at partnering [with] them.”
The US is not empowered to shut UNRWA down nor can it define the
Palestinian refugee status for the organization. Such decision can only
be made by the UN General Assembly. It can, however, impact funding and
work behind the scenes to eliminate the organization.
Channel 2 reported on Saturday night that it was expected to ask Israel
to halt UNRWA’s ability to work in the West Bank and Gaza.
Safadi told the BBC Jordan had made it clear to the US that it would support efforts to replace UNRWA.
UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl said in response that “the
funding decision of an individual member state – albeit our historically
most generous and consistent donor – will not modify or impact the
energy and passion with which we approach our role and responsibility
towards Palestine refugees. It will only strengthen our resolve.”
He said he believed the cuts were politically motivated and related to
tensions between the US and the Palestinians and was not connected to
UNRWA’s performance.
“It therefore represented an evident politicization of humanitarian aid.
The announcement made yesterday further challenges the notion that
humanitarian funding should be depoliticized. It risks undermining the
foundations of the international multi-lateral and humanitarian
systems,” Krahenbuhl said.
The State Department said on Friday, “We are very mindful of and deeply
concerned regarding the impact upon innocent Palestinians, especially
school children, of the failure of UNRWA and key members of the regional
and international donor community to reform and reset the UNRWA way of
doing business.
“These children are part of the future of the Middle East. Palestinians,
wherever they live, deserve better than an endlessly crisis-driven
service provision model. They deserve to be able to plan for the
future,” the State Department said.
In response to the US move, the German government has pledged to significantly increase UNRWA funding.
“The loss of this organization could unleash an uncontrollable chain
reaction,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said. “We are currently
preparing to provide an additional amount of significant funds,” Maas
said in a letter to European Union foreign ministers that was seen by
Reuters.
Germany had already provided €81m. ($94m.) in aid for UNWRA this year,
he said, and was preparing to increase its contribution. He gave no
figure.
Maas said it was clear that the added German funds would not cover a
$217m. deficit left by the US withdrawal, and urged the European Union
and other states to work toward “a sustainable finance basis for the
organization”.
The EU, which contributed €100 million to UNRWA this year and is its
largest donor, pledged to continue to work with the organization to make
up for the funding gap.
EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini’s spokesperson said, “The
EU and its Member States, and many others in the international
community, including many Arab states, have pledged their support to the
continuity of the work that UNRWA is doing.
“EU Foreign Ministers have discussed this issue at their informal
meeting in Vienna this week. We will continue to discuss it in the
run-up to the UN General Assembly ministerial week, also together with
our international and regional partners, how to ensure sustainable,
continued and effective assistance to the Palestinians, including
through UNRWA, at this difficult juncture.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/37432
Comments
Post a Comment