US will 'cut all funds to UN agency for Palestinian refugees'
The US is reportedly preparing to slash all funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, prompting outrage from Palestinians and warnings that the move could spark unrest in region.
The Trump administration is expected to announce in coming weeks that it is ending all aid for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which supports Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank and Gaza as well as neighbouring countries.
The US is the single largest donor to UNRWA, giving around $350 million (£254 million) per year, and the cuts may force the agency to pare back education and medical services for 5 million Palestinians.
The White House is also expected to announce that it is abandoning the traditional definition of a Palestinian refugee and will only recognise around 500,000 Palestinians as having actual refugee status.
Taken together, the moves would represent a dramatic shift in US policy on one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The changes closely align with the goals of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to close down UNRWA and take the question of refugees off the negotiating table in future peace talks with Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority warned that destabilising UNRWA would “create unimaginable suffering and would destabilise the entire region”.
UNRWA was created in 1949 to support the 750,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes in what is today Israel by the fighting between Jewish and Arab forces. The displaced people settled in refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The agency recognises the descendants of the original 750,000 as also being refugees, meaning their current number stands at more than 5 million.
Palestinians insist the refugees have “the right of return” and must be allowed to go back to their pre-1948 lands under any peace deal. Israel has always opposed this because a large-scale return would drastically shift Israel’s demographic make up.
Mr Netanyahu argues the refugees are used as a political pawn by Arab leaders, who have encouraged them to hold on to false hopes of one day returning to Israel. He believes UNRWA perpetuates this idea and therefore makes the conflict harder to solve.
Leaked emails from Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and point man on Israel-Palestinian issues, show a similar thinking. “This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace,” Mr Kushner wrote, according to emails published by Foreign Policy.
The US announced an initial cut to UNRWA funding earlier this year and the agency has already begun laying off some staff. Crowds stormed an UNRWA compound in Gaza in protest at the cuts.
Former US and Israeli officials have warned that bigger cuts will weaken both the Palestinian Authority and the government of Jordan, which relies on UNRWA to give services to 2 million Palestinians living in its territory.
Israel has close security cooperation with both Jordan and the Palestinians and the prospect of either collapsing is a major concern for Israel’s military.
Peter Lerner, a retired Israeli officer who served as the army’s spokesman, warned that “hardballing the Palestinians into submission is likely to blow up on Israel’s doorstep”.
“Will this doctrine bring peace, or will more, and potentially escalated, violence prevail? After all, in our region, poverty has been a breeding ground for radical recruitment, violence, and terrorism,” he wrote in an article for Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.
European governments have signaled they will boost funding for UNRWA to make up some of the shortfall and the agency also hopes to extract more money from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Arab governments.
