OPINION:
After Hamas terrorists perpetrated the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, most assumed that President Biden would be hesitant to provide them with any financial assistance. That’s why the administration’s hasty decision to allocate a $100 million aid package to Palestinians in Gaza following retaliatory Israeli airstrikes is a glaring misstep. Assuring the public that the funds will flow through “trusted partners including UN agencies and international NGOs,” the White House continues its well-documented inability to prevent aid management and diversion to terrorist organizations. It should, therefore, immediately reverse this dangerous decision.
A sizeable chunk of the $100 million will likely end up with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a body completely defunded by the Trump administration in 2018 but which the Biden administration has already funded to the tune of $1 billion.
UNRWA has faced severe criticism for its antisemitic textbooks and employees who praise Hamas terrorist attacks. But far from just praising the attacks, UNRWA schools have stored Hamas weapons, and its workers’ union is led by Hamas. Even UNRWA staffers who aren’t associated with Hamas are incapable of preventing it from exploiting aid, as seen during the current war when UNRWA admitted in a since-deleted thread on X that members of Gaza’s Health Ministry (meaning Hamas) stole 24,000 liters of fuel and medical supplies from its facilities.
The Biden administration’s unwavering support for UNRWA in the face of such malfeasance is reflective of its inability to ensure the proper use of its funds within the UN system in accordance with its supposed agenda. In another example, a mere two months after rejoining UNESCO and pledging $619 million after President Donald Trump’s 2017 withdrawal, the organization recognized Jericho as a heritage site for the “State of Palestine,” undermining the Jewish connection to ancient Israel.
Furthermore, the Human Rights Council, which Mr. Biden rejoined in 2022 after Mr. Trump withdrew in 2018, continues to disproportionately target Israel more than all other countries combined, despite promises by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to reform both agencies. Additionally, the U.S. recently voted to extend UNIFIL’s mandate, an impotent peacekeeping force meant to secure the Israel-Lebanese border, which it consistently fails to do, including during the current escalation.
These failures prove once again that the U.S. must drastically overhaul its approach to U.N. engagement and either defund or withdraw membership from the aforementioned bodies.
In addition to the ineffectual funding of U.N. agencies, U.S. aid has repeatedly ended up in the hands of terror-linked NGOs. Take, for instance, a 2018 report by the Department of Defense’s Inspector General, which found “numerous instances of possible or confirmed [aid] diversions to armed groups in Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria, including Ha’yat Tahrir Al-Sham,” a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. That same year, a partial audit by USAID’s Inspector General revealed that the agency granted $696 million without adequate measures in place to prevent terror diversion. In 2019, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Lebanese Jammal Trust Bank for aiding Hezbollah’s unauthorized financial activities just one year after USAID touted a $250,000 grant to the organization.
It’s this type of pervasive aid mismanagement and Hamas’s tyrannical rule of the Gaza Strip that led the Trump administration to cut $200 million in aid to the Palestinians in 2018. This decision was vindicated in a March 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office which found that USAID did not have adequate terror prevention mechanisms in place for subgrantees. Also in 2021, State Department officials wrote in a private communication “We assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza.”
This assessment was proven correct in June 2022, when an Israeli court convicted World Vision’s Gaza Strip Director of embezzling $50 million of international aid to Hamas.
The administration has exhibited remarkable apathy regarding the high likelihood of Hamas exploiting US aid, despite the examples above. When addressing concerns of aid diversion to Hamas and other terror groups, Mr. Blinken stated that“We’ll be the first to condemn it and we will work to prevent it from happening again.” As if a tepid condemnation and “assurances” – which we already know based on experience aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on – would rectify such an injustice.
The Biden administration’s policies in this regard reflect either a distressing naivety or a sheer reckless disregard. Until America’s foreign aid policies are drastically overhauled to ensure genuine compliance with anti-terror regulations, the administration or Congress should completely halt the flow of aid into Gaza and risk inadvertently strengthening one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups.
Likewise, the administration’s repeated missteps at the U.N. warrant a similar overhaul, including exiting the UNHRC and UNESCO, cutting off aid to UNRWA, letting UNIFIL’s mandate expire, and beginning to push for long-overdue systemic changes in the world body.
• Dr. Kontorovich is director of George Mason University’s Scalia Law School’s Center for the Middle East and International Law, and one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Arab-Israel conflict.
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