Gaza and Charities at War: UNRWA and the “starvation caucus”
Congress is still playing its triannual “kick the can” game. Today is the deadline and Congress has apparently agreed on a spending bill that will keep the government running until the fall. There is a rider cutting off U.S. donations to UNRWA. That, apparently, was the holdup. We have previously reported that the U.S. has temporarily suspended donations to UNRWA on the strength of a still unsubstantiated Israeli allegation that Hamas has infiltrated that organization. Unsubstantiated according to the State Department and other western countries so don’t go calling me anti-Semitic for saying so. Besides, right now I am mad as hell that innocent men, women, boys, girls, dogs and cats are starving and suffering. If all I can do is rant, that’s what I’m gonna do.
So look. We are giving hundreds of billions in military aid to Israel — I’m ok with that so cool your jets. At the same time, we are cutting off a tiny fraction of that amount used to feed, treat, clothe and save people dodging bullets and bombs we supplied in much higher amounts. For fear that a teeny tiny fraction of that tiny fraction we donated to save people might help Hamas. Is it just me? Enemy infiltration is what happens in war. You find and kill the got damn Nazi Hamas infiltrators, you don’t go vilifying civil society and starving noncombatants.
Anyway, here is an excerpt from one media report about the bill:
A $1.2 trillion government spending package that Congress is expected to pass by this weekend would prohibit U.S. funding for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees for at least a year as Gazans living under Israeli siege face increasingly catastrophic hunger. Buried at the end of 1,012 pages of legislative text unveiled early Thursday is a section that says funds appropriated under the bipartisan bill “may not be used for a contribution, grant, or other payment” to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which Gazans rely on for food and shelter. The U.S. is historically the largest donor to UNRWA.
The proposed freeze would last through March 2025. Many Republican lawmakers are calling for a permanent end to U.S. funding for the agency, which has faced shortfalls since the Biden administration and other Western governments paused donations in late January following Israel’s unsubstantiated claims that UNRWA staffers took part in the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel. Ahead of the release of legislative text, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “touted” the UNRWA freeze to members, The Associated Press reported Wednesday—days after a report warned that Gaza’s entire population is facing “high levels of acute food insecurity” and “famine is imminent” in the northern part of the enclave.
Congressional progressives, meanwhile, have urged the Biden administration to immediately restore UNRWA funding. In a floor speech on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) castigated lawmakers and others backing UNRWA cuts, calling them members of a “starvation caucus.”
darryll k. jones