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To be clear, any UNRWA employees found guilty of terrorism or other crimes committed on Oct. 7 deserve no sanctuary and no mercy. And, to be sure, UNRWA has big questions to answer about this and other instances of some of its 13,000 employees in Gaza seeming to support violence against Israelis. But the Biden administration’s action is not only cruel; it will have ripple effects that will make solving all the Middle East’s problems more difficult.
“Suspending aid before an investigation is completed is catastrophic from a humanitarian and strategic perspective,” said former State Department official Wa’el Alzayat, now CEO of the Muslim-American political organization Emgage USA. “There are millions of people, mainly children, who depend on this aid. It’s inhumane to deprive them of this while the bombs are still falling on them. Strategically, ending aid puts pressure on every country that’s hosting Palestinian refugees, including key allies like Jordan.”
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UNRWA is the largest provider of food and health services for civilians in Gaza, by far. According to USAID, approximately 1.4 million of Gaza’s 1.9 million internally displaced civilians are sheltering inside UNRWA sites and another 400,000 are relying on UNRWA assistance. UNRWA also operates overcrowded schools and struggling health clinics, and assists in the delivery of food and hygiene products trickling into Gaza from Egypt. UNRWA was already facing a nearly $500 million shortfall for its needs to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. More than 140 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza since the war began.
The aid cutoff could also impair UNRWA’s ongoing efforts to support an additional 3 million Palestinians living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. These refugees have been supported by the United Nations for decades, and many are descendants of Palestinians who left Israel involuntarily after 1948. The Israeli government has long sought to strip these Palestinians of their refugee status, which Palestinians associate with their right to return to Israel.
If UNRWA’s ability to operate ceases, the governments in those countries, especially Jordan, will be left holding the bag. That means the Biden administration is placing more burden on regional partners that are already dealing with the added risk and instability caused by the growing regional violence.
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During the Trump administration, increased regional instability was one reason the State and Defense Departments resisted cutting off U.S. funding for UNRWA. In late 2018, then-President Donald Trump eventually sided with his U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, who wanted to defund UNRWA to pressure the Palestinian Authority into resuming diplomatic negotiations. Trump held back hundreds of millions of U.S. funds, but it didn’t work.
When the Biden team restored funding in 2021, it said that supporting Palestinian and regional stability was consistent with U.S. interests and values — and important to advancing the cause of a negotiated two-state solution. Now its actions will serve to undermine all of those objectives.
The Israeli government says that other aid agencies can fill the gap, but that’s “magical thinking,” Janti Soeripto, chief executive and president of the aid organization Save the Children said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “There is no way that the collective humanitarian sector can completely replace UNRWA, you know, in the short space of time that that will be necessary,” she said.
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Perhaps the Biden team acted quickly to get out ahead of any political criticism of its past support for UNRWA during an election year. But that won’t appease Biden’s critics — and comes at the cost of undermining the administration’s argument to its supporters that it cares about the Palestinians’ plight.
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration was “determined to do everything we possibly can to ameliorate the situation for men, women and children in Gaza.” Now, he is essentially pulling the rug out from under the Gazans’ primary means of getting vital food and medicine in the middle of an already historic humanitarian catastrophe.
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Many in Washington were rightly shocked last week by allegations that 12 U.N. employees in Gaza participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. But the Biden administration’s knee-jerk reaction to suspend vital food and health aid to Palestinians across the region will only deepen their suffering, undermine U.S. long-term goals, and push more burden onto already struggling allies. It’s an inhumane and strategically stupid policy.
On Monday, more details emerged about the evidence the Israeli government provided about the alleged actions of these employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Israel alleges several UNRWA employees took part in violence and kidnapping of Israelis, even using UNRWA vehicles and facilities. UNRWA has said two of the accused are already dead, and the others have been fired while the United Nations conducts a full investigation.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday that the actions of a few UNRWA employees should be punished, “but that doesn’t impugn the entire organization.” Nevertheless, the State Department did not wait for the results of the investigation before announcing Friday it had “temporarily paused” additional funding for UNRWA, while acknowledging that the organization “plays a critical role in providing lifesaving assistance to Palestinians.”
Nine countries followed the U.S. lead. The European Commission announced it would withhold action until all the facts come in. And even though the State Department said it will continue disbursing funds previously obligated, the effects for the aid organization are already devastating. UNRWA’s head, Philippe Lazzarini, said Saturday the organization’s program inside Gaza, where it supports 2 million desperate people, “is collapsing” due to the pending aid cuts, which he called “additional collective punishment.”
To be clear, any UNRWA employees found guilty of terrorism or other crimes committed on Oct. 7 deserve no sanctuary and no mercy. And, to be sure, UNRWA has big questions to answer about this and other instances of some of its 13,000 employees in Gaza seeming to support violence against Israelis. But the Biden administration’s action is not only cruel; it will have ripple effects that will make solving all the Middle East’s problems more difficult.
“Suspending aid before an investigation is completed is catastrophic from a humanitarian and strategic perspective,” said former State Department official Wa’el Alzayat, now CEO of the Muslim-American political organization Emgage USA. “There are millions of people, mainly children, who depend on this aid. It’s inhumane to deprive them of this while the bombs are still falling on them. Strategically, ending aid puts pressure on every country that’s hosting Palestinian refugees, including key allies like Jordan.”
UNRWA is the largest provider of food and health services for civilians in Gaza, by far. According to USAID, approximately 1.4 million of Gaza’s 1.9 million internally displaced civilians are sheltering inside UNRWA sites and another 400,000 are relying on UNRWA assistance. UNRWA also operates overcrowded schools and struggling health clinics, and assists in the delivery of food and hygiene products trickling into Gaza from Egypt. UNRWA was already facing a nearly $500 million shortfall for its needs to help Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. More than 140 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza since the war began.
The aid cutoff could also impair UNRWA’s ongoing efforts to support an additional 3 million Palestinians living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. These refugees have been supported by the United Nations for decades, and many are descendants of Palestinians who left Israel involuntarily after 1948. The Israeli government has long sought to strip these Palestinians of their refugee status, which Palestinians associate with their right to return to Israel.
If UNRWA’s ability to operate ceases, the governments in those countries, especially Jordan, will be left holding the bag. That means the Biden administration is placing more burden on regional partners that are already dealing with the added risk and instability caused by the growing regional violence.
During the Trump administration, increased regional instability was one reason the State and Defense Departments resisted cutting off U.S. funding for UNRWA. In late 2018, then-President Donald Trump eventually sided with his U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, who wanted to defund UNRWA to pressure the Palestinian Authority into resuming diplomatic negotiations. Trump held back hundreds of millions of U.S. funds, but it didn’t work.
When the Biden team restored funding in 2021, it said that supporting Palestinian and regional stability was consistent with U.S. interests and values — and important to advancing the cause of a negotiated two-state solution. Now its actions will serve to undermine all of those objectives.
The Israeli government says that other aid agencies can fill the gap, but that’s “magical thinking,” Janti Soeripto, chief executive and president of the aid organization Save the Children said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “There is no way that the collective humanitarian sector can completely replace UNRWA, you know, in the short space of time that that will be necessary,” she said.
Perhaps the Biden team acted quickly to get out ahead of any political criticism of its past support for UNRWA during an election year. But that won’t appease Biden’s critics — and comes at the cost of undermining the administration’s argument to its supporters that it cares about the Palestinians’ plight.
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration was “determined to do everything we possibly can to ameliorate the situation for men, women and children in Gaza.” Now, he is essentially pulling the rug out from under the Gazans’ primary means of getting vital food and medicine in the middle of an already historic humanitarian catastrophe.
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