Michael Chamberlain
Among the many actions President Donald Trump took during his eventful first two weeks was ruling out any resumption of American funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) … again. In his executive order announcing the decision, he noted, “UNRWA has reportedly been infiltrated by members of groups long designated by the Secretary of State (Secretary) as foreign terrorist organizations.”
That was the case when Mr. Trump halted funding to the Palestinian aid agency during his first administration.
It was still true when the Biden State Department reversed the policy in 2021. Leadership at the departments of State and Treasury knew that. As Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) revealed in 2023, documents showed that State officials were warned that there was “high risk” some of the $720 million they wanted to send UNRWA would end up funding Hamas and other terror groups.
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They cut the checks anyway and crossed their soon to be bloody fingers.
When it came to light that at least nine UNRWA employees were suspected of joining Hamas on its Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity excursion into southern Israel, few were surprised — certainly not the State Department. The Biden administration had no choice but to stop UNRWA funding again. (Except that all but $300,000 of the $121 million budgeted for the year had already been delivered, and the administration called the halt “temporary.”)
But it was all predictable, if not inevitable.
PPT has uncovered more proof the Biden State Department was aware of the danger in restarting funding. Documents PPT recently obtained though FOIA request show Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his staff collected evidence that UNRWA was a Hamas ally and then dismissed it.
In an April 2021 memo to the secretary, a Blinken lieutenant detailed incidents and arguments against restoring the funding.
Some were relatively prosaic: UNWRA had made “little to no progress” on UN financial reporting requirements, and a 2020 financial mismanagement investigation resulted in dismissal of three senior officials – nothing that would make a Beltway bureaucrat withhold American taxpayer money.
But there were also the “education” materials UNWRA provided for Palestinian children, which refer to “jihad” and Israeli “occupation.” Such terms were “in line with UN principles … but are viewed as inappropriate by some other audiences.” Other audiences can be so unreasonable.
And there were the “violations of UNRWA’s neutrality policies” 247 of them in 2019-20 alone. These ran the gamut from “slogans, graffiti, or other imagery on the inside or outside of UNRWA facilities” to “armed incursions, armed incidents, unauthorized use of UNRWA installations, weapons, and tunnels.” The memo mentions “three different occasions since the last U.S. contribution [2018], a cavity or tunnel was found under an UNRWA installation.”
UN inspectors found things like hand grenades and “military vests” in UNWRA facilities, including schools, a health center and an aid distribution center.
You have to wonder what, if anything, would constitute a deal-breaker for Secretary Blinken’s team? Any sober, morally serious analysis wouldn’t even consider dumping American money into the UNRWA cesspool. Instead, Blinken’s staff batted around caveats and excuses, noting how nobly UNRWA had struggled on without U.S. largess.
And the agency had “long-standing staff regulations outlining the neutrality, integrity, and impartiality required.” It had processes in place and “conducts investigations into cases of alleged wrongdoing by staff or beneficiaries, including involvement in militant activities, as well as possible breaches of UN neutrality principles.” And whenever anybody found a terrorist tunnel in a UNRWA property, “UNRWA has been very transparent with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and with the United States.” Stand-up guys.
It is difficult to see why the Biden administration was in such a hurry to restart funding to UNWRA. The Palestinians in Gaza were poor, no doubt, but there was no humanitarian emergency until Hamas provoked war with Israel.
There must be humanitarian alternatives to funding terrorist front groups. There must be ways to help educate children without also helping to inculcate bigotry and hatred. The people who ship our money overseas are obligated to look for them.
Hoping for the best is irresponsible and a poor excuse for policy. Were UNWRA just another corrupt, hapless UN appendage, like the risibly named UN Human Rights Council the president also removed the U.S. from in the same executive order, funding it would be just another Washington waste of money, hardly to be noticed among all the rest.
But it isn’t. It has provided funding and infrastructure — and personnel — to terrorists. The Biden administration knew this. Their State Department knew this. For whatever reason they delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to UNWRA.
On Oct. 7, they got what they paid for.
Michael Chamberlain is Director of the ethics watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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