US aid cuts amount to blackmail — analysts

Dubai: The decision by the United States to downsize its contribution to the UN agency supporting the Palestinian refugees is an “existential threat” to millions of Palestinians refugees, UN officials and political analysts have said. US President Donald Trump said earlier this year that Washington would stop its financial aid to the Palestinians if they do not resume their negotiations with Israel.

Later, the US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the US had sent $60 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), but withheld another $65 million, calling on other nations to increase their contributions. By contributing nearly one-fourth of its budget, the US is the biggest donor to the UNRWA.

Washington’s threat will not only impoverish the already underprivileged Palestinian refugees, but will also risk the Israeli regime’s security, political scientists said.

“The US is blackmailing the Palestinians with the aid it is offering,” said Jehad Harb, a West Bank-based analyst.

“The party that will be impacted directly by the US aid cut in its different forms would be the Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon,” Harb told Gulf News.

 The US is blackmailing the Palestinians with the aid it is offering. The party that will be impacted directly by the US aid cut in its different forms would be the Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.”

 - Jehad Harb | Analyst 

He was referring to aid the US provides to the Palestinians through UN agencies, or directly either through the Palestinian National Authority or to its security organisations.

Threats to downsize aid is a “threat to the existence of UNRWA,” said Adnan Abu Hassnah, a spokesperson for the agency based in Gaza.

It “has nothing to do with UNRWA operations or the quality of its services. It is a political thing”, he told Gulf News.

He was referring to Palestinian anger at Trump’s decision to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The fate of occupied East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state, was left to the final phase of the talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.

The Palestinian leadership said Washington had lost its credibility as a broker in the peace talks. When Vice-President Mike Pence visited the region recently, the Palestinian president was in Brussels holding talks with European Union officials, calling them to recognise occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.

“None of UNRWA services has stopped,” Abu Hassnah said. “UNRWA has funds for the next two to three months. If it doesn’t find alternative donors or new ones, it will hit the wall, and it will declare crisis mode,” he said.

Today, UNRWA supports nearly 5.3 million Palestinian refugees who lost their homes and are living in refugee camps as the result of the 1948 Arab-Israel war, after which the state of Israel came into existence. It also caters to refugees from the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Nearly half a million of aid recipients are students in 700 UNRWA-funded and run schools in West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. There are also 140 medical clinics in the five regions that received 10 million visits last year, and there is also a food programme for nearly 1.7 million refugees, one million of them in Gaza. Of these, 460,000 live in abject poverty.

“Surely, any interruption in UNRWA services will lead to refugees paying the price,” Abu Hassnah.

Also, “in my opinion, the one who will [also] be impacted by the downsizing of American aid is Israel”, said Harb.

“UNRWA is a stabilising factor in the region, and is preventing Palestinian refugees from reaching a point of hunger and poverty, a point that would risk Israel’s security,” he said.

The UN agency has started an international campaign to raise funds in different parts of the world, including traditional and non-traditional donors, private organisations, banks, individuals as well as Palestinians in Diaspora.

Many analysts, including Harb, believe the shortfall of $65 million to UNRWA can be covered by the international community. The more the US cuts its aid, “the more it withdraws from its international commitments and loses influence in the international arena”, said Harb.