The U.S. is right to pull funding from the UNRWA after reports employees

People gather outside UN headquarters in Jerusalem to call for the return of the hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7 Hamas cross-border attack in Israel, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Following its most recent U.N. debacle, it’s time for the United States to stop writing blank checks to the United Nations.

For U.N. observers, anti-Israel bias has long been part of the fabric of the United Nations, which has simultaneously turned a blind eye to many atrocities committed by other nations.

To put the crisis at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) story in proper perspective, it is worth exploring the U.N.’s relationship with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.

Since 1975, the U.N. has condemned Israel more times than any other country in the world. Just this past year alone, the U.N. General Assembly reprimanded Israel 14 times, compared to seven for the rest of the world combined. Compare that with nations like Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Syria, and Yemen, and you will see how many rogue nations have essentially received an international hall pass by the U.N. General Assembly.

Take, for example, the United Nations Human Rights Council, a 47-voting member human-rights-focused body, which includes some countries long associated with human rights violations, such as China and Cuba. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Council has passed as many resolutions against Israel as the rest of the world combined and has a blacklist of companies operating in Israeli-controlled, disputed territories, while no other list exists for any other disputed territory in the world.

Israel is the only country with a standing agenda item, Agenda Item 7. The Trump administration walked out of the body in 2018 after chronic bias against Israel. The U.S. has since rejoined and is a voting member.

So, it should be no surprise that, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has his hands out and is begging its largest single contributor, the United States, and at least fourteen other democracies, including Germany, the U.K., Japan, France, Austria and Switzerland, to reconsider their decision to suspend funding to the UNRWA, following its employees UNRWA’s direct engagement in the October 7th Hamas massacre, rape and kidnapping spree.

UNRWA’s budget last year was $1.6 billion, and the U.S. pledged $344 million in funding in 2022, roughly 21% of its entire budget. In total, the countries that have suspended funding account for 75% of UNRWA’s overall funding.

The Biden administration deserves credit here, but they should go much further and permanently defund this U.N. agency. The Trump administration eliminated funding to UNRWA in 2018 because of its “irredeemably flawed operation” and blamed other countries for not doing enough to support Palestinian refugees. Trump understood that the agency was biased against Israel.

And, the evidence of this is disturbing.

An Israeli intelligence dossier, which Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has described as “highly credible,”  provided explosive evidence that 190 UNRWA employees are militants and as many as a 13 were directly involved in Hamas’ October 7th Israeli invasion and massacre.

Of the 13 UNRWA employees, the intelligence report provides that 10 were Hamas operatives, two were Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, and one was unidentified.

Six of the UNRWA employees invaded Israel, and four were involved in kidnapping Israelis. Three more UNRWA employees were “invited via a SMS text to arrive at an assembly area in the night before the attack and were directed to equip with weapons”.

One former hostage testified that she was kidnapped by an UNRWA teacher. And media reports have provided a finer point — an UNRWA social worker is accused of involvement in the transfer of an Israeli soldier’s corpse to Gaza and coordinating the movements of pick-up trucks used by the militants and of the weapon supplies.

While another UNRWA employee is alleged to have taken part in the massacre at the Israeli border Kibbutz Be’eri, where 100 people were murdered. Another employee allegedly participated in the attack at the music festival, where more than 360 people died.

UNRWA was founded by the United Nations in 1949 to provide a wide range of direct relief and work programs for Palestine refugees. The Agency employs 13,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.