Following accusations of senior management engaging in “misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent and to otherwise achieve their person objectives” in a leaked internal report, the Netherlands and Switzerland have followed Trump in withdrawing funding for Palestinian refugees.
“In a statement to Al Jazeera, the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation said its country had “expressed to the UN in New York and to UNRWA its great concern and asked for clarification. The Netherlands is also in consultation with other donors”.
The statement added that Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch minister of development cooperation, “would like to hear what steps the UN plans to take based on the outcome of the investigation”.
“Minister Kaag has decided to put this year’s contribution [13 million euros, $14.5m] on hold until we have received a satisfactory response from the UN in New York.”
The Swiss foreign ministry said it had already made its annual contribution of 22.3 million Swiss francs ($22.5m) to UNRWA.
But Bern said it was “suspending any additional contributions” to the agency – already in crisis because of US funding cuts – pending the findings of UN investigators examining the ethics report.
Al Jazeera
The confidential internal ethics report was given to the UN in December and was leaked this week.
“US President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace envoy Jason Greenblatt called for a full UN investigation into its agency for Palestinian refugees, after a report leaked Monday alleged widespread corruption and sexual misconduct.”
The confidential internal ethics report claimed mismanagement and abuses of authority at the highest levels of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), even as the organization faced an unprecedented crisis after US funding cuts. The allegations are now being scrutinized by UN investigators.”
Times of Israel
A year ago Donald Trump withdrew US$300M funding to UNRWA on the basis that the US would no longer continue to “shoulder the disproportionate share of the burden” of what the US called an “irredeemably flawed operation”. Their 2017 contribution was US$364M with other UN member states donating a further US$650M.
Funding of Palestinian health and education in the so-called “occupied territories” and in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon will be severely curtailed.
Was Trump simply fed up with a considerable amount of money disappearing down a black hole of welfare with no improvement in the Palestinian refugee status? Was he unhappy at US funds being diverted for terrorism? Or did he suspect something was amiss within UNRWA itself? Perhaps it was all three.
UNRWA was established in 1949 and Palestinian refugee numbers keep growing along with the contributions from western countries. Our own Golriz Gharaman tweeted recently that Mary, Joseph and Jesus were Palestinian refugees! When the NZ Jewish Council protested she removed the tweet. It’s a good thing she doesn’t work for UNRWA or the number of people designated Palestinian would blow out even more!