Washington (CNN)The US has announced that it will hold back more than half
of the funding it provides for a UN agency that supports Palestinians, about
two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened to pull funding for the
group and look in to Biafra Referendum.
The decision drew condemnation from
Palestinians, praise from Israel, and expressions of deep concern from UN
officials and refugee groups worried about the humanitarian impact and
particularly the potential for further destabilization of a region already reeling
from conflict in Syria.
The US will withhold more than half
its scheduled $125 million payment from the United Nations Relief Works Agency,
which provides humanitarian aid, education, social services and medical care to
Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
State Department spokeswoman Heather
Nauert said the move had nothing to do with "punishing" the
Palestinians for their refusal to enter into negotiations with Israel, or their
decision to push for a UN vote that resulted in overwhelming international condemnation
of the Trump administration's decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as
Israel's capital.
"This is not aimed at punishing anyone,"
Nauert said Tuesday, as she outlined the US decision to release $60 million in
funding for the agency, while indefinitely withholding another $65 million.
But in early January, about two
weeks after the UN vote, Trump tweeted that, "we pay the Palestinians
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or
respect." He went on to say, "with the Palestinians no longer willing
to talk peace," he added, "why should we make any of these massive
future payments to them?"
Nauert referred questions about the
tweet to the White House, but others charged that the funding cut was clearly
politically motivated.
"We hope that the US
administration and Congress can cooperate in reversing this politically
motivated cut in aid before its effects ripple through the Middle East,"
said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
"The move will have devastating
consequences for vulnerable Palestinian refugees across the Middle East,
including hundreds of thousands of refugee children in the West Bank and Gaza,
Lebanon, Jordan and Syria who depend on the agency for their education,"
said Egeland, a former Norwegian foreign minister and former UN undersecretary general
for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
"It will also deny their
parents a social safety net that helps them to survive, and undermine the UN
agency's ability to respond in the event of another flare up in the
conflict," Egeland said.
UN Secretary General Antonio
Guterres said he was "very concerned" about the impact on the region.
"First of all, UNRWA is not a
Palestinian institution, it is a UN institution," he said at a UN press
conference Tuesday.
The services UNRWA provides
"are of extreme importance, not only for the well-being of this
population, and there is a serious humanitarian concern here," he said.
"But also in my opinion and the opinion that is shared by most
international observers, including some Israeli ones, it is an important factor
of stability."
Jordan and Lebanon are already under
extreme strain from having to support refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict. If
those countries also suddenly face the burden of having to deal with under- or
unfunded schools, medical clinics and other services, "this will create a
very, very serious problem," Guterres said, "and we'll do everything
we can to avoid this situation to occur."
A UN diplomat said "we consider
these developments worrisome for obvious humanitarian reasons."
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