US withholds $65 mn from UN Palestine aid

Washington, January 17 

The United States on Tuesday said it would withhold about half the initial aid it planned to give a UN agency that serves the Palestinians, two weeks after President Donald Trump questioned the value of such funding.

In announcing that it would provide $60 million to the UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) while withholding a further $65 million for now, the US State Department said the aid group needed to make unspecified reforms.

Palestine Liberation Organisation official Wasel Abu Youssef immediately criticised the move, casting it as a deliberate US effort to deny the Palestinians their rights and linking it to Trump's widely criticized December 6 decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was unaware of any cut in aid but he was “very concerned” about the possibility because it “is an important factor of stability.”

 UN Relief and Welfare Agency  Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl said in a statement that the reduced US contribution “threatens one of the most successful and innovative human development endeavours in the Middle East.”

The decision to keep back some money is likely to compound the difficulty of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to further undermine Arabs' faith that the United States can act as an impartial arbitrator.

Even if Washington provided the additional $65 million, the $125 million total would be well below the $355 million that a US official said it gave  UN Relief and Welfare Agency in the 2017 fiscal year ended September 30.

While saying the decision would sustain schools and health services, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert echoed Trump in calling on other nations to provide more money because he believes the United States pays more than its share.

The State Department wrote a letter notifying UNRWA of the decision, spokeswoman Nauert said. She said that while  UN Relief and Welfare Agency reforms were a condition of releasing more money, the aid decision was “not aimed at punishing” anyone. — Reuters

Freeze aims to erase refugee issue: Arab League 

• The Arab League chief charged on Wednesday that a US decision to freeze crucial funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees was aimed at wiping out the whole issue. “This decision affects the education and health of Palestinians and aims to eradicate the question of refugees,” Ahmed Aboul Gheit said at a conference in Cairo on the disputed city of Jerusalem.

Role of UN Relief and Welfare Agency 

• The agency was established following the war surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948, in which more than 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were forced from their homes
• UNRWA provides aid for these people and their descendants, now numbering around five million Palestinians across the Middle East
• Israel argues that UNRWA's existence perpetuates its conflict with the Palestinians, who say the agency is a vital lifeline for impoverished people