The Biden administration directed $33.7 million from the American Rescue Plan, a COVID-fighting spending measure, to a Palestinian humanitarian group previously accused of giving safe haven to terrorists in Gaza and described as efficiently a wing of Hamas.
According to data from USASpending.gov, the American Rescue Plan, a COVID-19 aid bill was driven through Congress with unanimity Democrat support in the Senate and nearly unanimous support in the House, allocated $33.7 million to the United Nations Relief & Works Agency through the State Department’s Migration and Refugee Assistance program, as part of the $500 million included in the bill for the State Department to fund migration and refugee assistance.
In recent years, UNRWA has come under fire from opponents who claim the organization has not done much to stop aid from accessing Hamas terrorists. According to reports, UNRWA facilities have harbored Hamas activities and propagated Hamas ideology in schools.
The left-wing New Republic labeled UNRWA in 2014 as efficiently a wing of Hamas.
Earlier last year, UN Watch claimed that UNRWA schools were participating in teaching youngsters to despise Jews and glorify terrorists. According to UN Watch, USRWA recognized that teachers “mistakenly” created and distributed inflammatory material but vowed in 2021 that such information would no longer be circulated.
UNRWA confirmed and opposed Hamas missiles discovered at one of its Gaza schools repeatedly in one week in 2014.
UNRWA clearly and firmly criticizes the group or groups involved for this obvious breach of its facilities’ inviolability under international law, the organization declared at the time.
According to Professor Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, UNRWA sites have been routinely used for military reasons by Hamas-Palestinian terrorists as staging grounds, ammunition stores, and hiding places.
They’ve also been employed as shields, providing protection for surrounding military assets. UNRWA officials have had numerous questionable connections with Hamas. When these facts—war crimes—are disclosed, the UN conducts a hasty ‘inquiry,’ sometimes accompanied by a meaningless statement of remorse, and then moves on, according to Bayefsky, who is also the president of Human Rights Voices.
As a result of their previous actions, it is now impossible and risky to take them at their word or to presume they are a neutral party rather than a sponsor of Palestinian terrorism.
Former President Donald Trump shut off UNRWA funding in 2018, prompting the Brookings Institution, among others, to accuse him of cutting off “life-saving” aid to destitute Gaza people.
Despite expressing fears that Hamas could gain from foreign help, the Biden administration renewed such money.
A March 2021 internal State Department document obtained earlier this year by the Washington Free Beacon and confirmed by News Digital shows officials secretly connecting about their worries that a Biden administration plan to unfreeze more than $360 million in US funds for the Palestinian Authority could benefit terror organizations, a trade-off that some officials stated was required for national security.
We believe there is a strong possibility that Hamas will gain an unexpected benefit from US support for Gaza. There is less risk, but there is still some risk that US assistance will benefit other specified groups, the State Department wrote in the letter. Despite this risk, the State Department believes that providing assistance in the West Bank and Gaza to support foreign policy objectives is our national security priority.
Biden Admin Claimed
The Biden admin claimed in July 2022 that it had contributed more funds to UNRWA than any other body in the world.
This contribution solidifies the United States’ position as UNRWA’s biggest donor, the White House said in a news release confirming the donation of $201 million in taxpayer funds to the organization. With these new funds, the United States’ total contribution to UNRWA during the Biden Administration now exceeds $618 million.
According to the New York Post, the administration of Joe Biden has given UNRWA an overall budget of $730 million.
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