Biden Administration Re-engages With Disgraced UN Palestinian “Refugee” Agency

The Biden administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, met virtually on April 21st with Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini. According to an official readout of this meeting, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield “underscored the critical role that UNRWA plays in providing vital services to a vulnerable population and reiterated Secretary [of State] Blinken’s pledge of partnership with the agency.” The Biden administration wasted no time announcing that it would restore $150 million in financial assistance for an agency that is long past its expiration date. UNRWA will get the money without first having to demonstrate that it has cleaned up its act and stopped doing the bidding of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

The Trump administration saw through UNRWA’s lies and corruption

The Trump administration saw through UNRWA’s lies and corruption. It drastically cut U.S. funding for the agency. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley minced no words when she declared that the Trump administration would be willing to become a donor again and partner with UNRWA only if the agency fundamentally reformed its ways and arrived at a truer number of who should be allowed to claim legitimate refugee status. That did not happen. Nevertheless, the Biden administration will subsidize UNRWA with its history of corruption, anti-Israel bias, and fundamental mistruths. Haley’s opinion of UNRWA has not changed. On April 8th, she tweeted: “The Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, is among the most corrupt and counterproductive of all UN agencies. President Trump was right to abandon it. President Biden is wasting millions of American tax dollars and undermining the great progress being made on Middle East peace.” UNRWA defines a Palestinian “refugee” in terms of an inherited status that passes from generation to generation ad infinitum. What began as 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 has now turned into 5 million plus. The Palestinian “refugee” population continues to grow with many more new births than deaths per year. In the last 10 years, the Palestinian population has grown by more than 1 million. By 2030, the Palestinian population is projected to grow to approximately 6,341,000 from nearly 5,223,000 today. Once any refugee in the world other than a Palestinian “refugee” becomes a naturalized citizen in his or her adopted host country, the refugee status normally comes to an end. No so with the Palestinians. Only Palestinian refugees can obtain citizenship from other countries while also maintaining their refugee status. This is the case in Jordan where many of the more than 2 million Palestinians living there are considered citizens of Jordan. Yet they can still maintain their registration as “refugees” with UNRWA. Thus, under UNRWA’s way of counting Palestinian “refugees,” the trend line is ever upward. No matter what amount of money the Biden administration decides to drop down UNRWA’s money pit, it will never be enough to keep up with the ever-increasing pool of dependent beneficiaries. Moreover, UNRWA continues to lull the Palestinians into maintaining their dependence on the self-perpetuating UN agency as “refugees” until they are permitted to return to their so-called “homes” in pre-1967 Israel.

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Biden administration recklessly decided to resume U.S. financial aid to UNRWA without first conducting a careful audit

UNRWA’s former Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl resigned in disgrace after allegations of misconduct and mismanagement surfaced in 2019. The Biden administration recklessly decided to resume U.S. financial aid to UNRWA without first conducting a careful audit to determine if effective controls against corruption are in place that can be monitored on an ongoing basis by UN member states. Close ties between UNRWA employees and Hamas leadership have been a fact of life in Gaza for years. UNRWA schools have been used to hide the terrorist organization’s weapons. UNRWA’s schools use textbooks and teachers’ manuals prepared by the Palestinian Authority (PA). “The full range of hate and terror promotion is found in the PA schoolbooks used by UNRWA,” said Palestinian Media Watch founder Itamar Marcus, whose organization has studied this issue. Marcus added that “presenting all of Israel as ‘occupied Palestine’ teaches Palestinians children that they are inherently victims since the day they were born, and Israel is the usurping enemy. This keeps Palestinian hatred simmering under the surface all of the time, so that when the PA wants terror, a pool of angry, self-pitying, ‘victimized’ young Palestinians are waiting and eager to answer the call.” UNRWA’s current Director-General Philippe Lazzarini insists that UNRWA does not teach students in its schools to hate Israel or to admire terrorists as martyrs. Yet UNRWA distributed its own materials, intended to complement the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum, this past January that referred to Israel as “the enemy” and stated that “Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise.” Lazzarini claimed the materials were distributed in error but did not explain how it happened without detection or what specifically was done to replace the offending materials. Why didn’t the Biden administration do a deep dive to make sure that all educational materials used in UNRWA schools do not contain anything that can be considered hateful against Israel before contributing another dime to UNRWA? The reason is simple. Just as it is demonstrating by trying to rejoin the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, the Biden administration is willing to throw Israel under the bus to gain favor at the United Nations and with the globalist crowd.