Panicked U.N. Scrambling for Money for Palestinians After U.S. Slashes Funding

The United Nations has been left in a bit of a spot, following President Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding to the Relief and Works Agency, decrying that organization’s siphoning of money to support terrorists and their families.

Now the global group is scrambling to make up the financial difference.

In December, the UN spoke critically of the cut:

And it’s no small change. America cut UNRWA by millions.

Ynet News has more:

The United Nations chief is warning that a US-induced half-billion-dollar funding shortfall for the UN relief agency for Palestinians risks cutting critical services that could “push the suffering in disastrous and unpredictable directions.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed an emergency funding conference in Rome on Thursday after the Trump administration slashed tens of millions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN’s oldest and largest aid agency in the Middle East.

Guterres said investment in UN programs addresses the despair and other factors “that lead to radicalization.”

He also posted on his Twitter account an appeal for supporting UNRWA.

“Supporting UNRWA is not only a matter of human solidarity with Palestine refugees, it is an investment in peace. #DignityIsPriceless,” he wrote.

The Trump administration announced in January it was slashing $65 million this year. But the UN. said the actual cut was to the tune of $300 million because the US had led the agency to believe it would provide $365 million in 2018.

At the time, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert denied the withholding of the $65 million was to punish Palestinians, who have been sharply critical of Trump’s announcement last month that he would move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

After Trump announced that he would be withholding the funds, a number of countries scrambled to fill the shortfall. The head of the UNRWA said that Russia, Kuwait and nine European countries had agreed to speed up their contributions.

On Thursday, a report by the World Bank said that the decline in the Gaza Strip has become too steep to be tackled by international aid and also requires that the Israeli- and Egyptian-blockaded Palestinian enclave be allowed freer trade.

“The (Gaza) economy cannot survive without being connected to the outside world,” it said in a 46-page report issued as world powers convened in Rome to discuss the future of a UN relief agency for Palestinians threatened by US funding cuts.

“Any effort at economic recovery and development must address the impacts of the current closure regime.”