World
Trump Takes on the UN to Break Mideast Deadlock
The president blames Palestinian aid group for the impasse on the West Bank, and cuts off its funding.
BY DAVID A. PATTEN e’re not paying until you make a deal.” That’s how President Trump justified the administration’s controversial decision this summer to cut off all U.S. funding for
UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians. Administration officials and the Israeli government
blame UNRWA for perpetuating the never-ending impasse in the West Bank, and insist it’s time to break the deadlock. In a January email published by Foreign Policy magazine,
special U.S. envoy and senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner explained the administration’s goal “can’t be to keep things stable and as they are.” He added: “Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.” Historically, UNRWA’s existence stems from the dis- placement of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of modern Israel in 1948. The United States has been the organization’s biggest
funding source. But under Trump, the State Department described it as an “irredeemably flawed operation.” Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal J Street orga-
nization, warned in a statement issued after Trump’s move that the defunding would “ratchet up the risk of greater destabilization and conflict across the Middle East, under- mining the security of Israel and countries throughout the region.” After all, UNRWA provides education programs, food assistance, healthcare, and other vital support to some 800,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as 1.3 mil- lion in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are eligible for assistance as well. So far, the predictions that the funding withdrawal
would set the Palestinian tinderbox alight have not been borne out. UNRWA, an acronym for the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, has trimmed its expenses and tightened its belt. Bolstered by a $50 million contribution from the Saudis, it has been able to stave off fiscal insolvency — at least so far. But whether the withdrawal of funds has moved the region any closer to peace is an open question.
ANGER Marchers in Bethlehem denounce the cuts to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees during a rally in September. Former Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor (right) talks to reporters outside the U.N. Security Council during a 2014 debate.
Former Israeli ambas-
sador to the UN Ron Prosor tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview he has launched a new website,
Unrwa-Dynasty.com, to document the fecklessness of the UN’s Palestinian aid policies: UNRWA’s 5.6 million claimed Palestinian refugees receive three times more funding than the world’s more-than 60 million non-Palestinian refugees, who are represented by the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR). “There is a clear discrimination against regular refugees — from Sudan, from Eritrea, clearly,” Prosor says. “Those are the facts.” The UNHCR has a staff of about 10,000 people working to stem the massive global refugee problem. UNRWA manages to sustain a staff of 30,000 — just to attend to the needs of the Palestinians. Many of those workers are believed to be Hamas sympathizers, and some U.N. offi- cials have openly stated they believe UNRWA probably employs some Hamas members. In 2017, according to Prosor’s data, UNHCR successfully resettled 160,000 refugees last year. The number resettled
JANUARY 2019 | NEWSMAX 39
REFUGEES/WISAM HASHLAMOUN/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES / PROSOR/STAN HONDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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