US decision to halt UN refugee funding portends more trouble for Mideast

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) provides services to about 5 million refugees across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza.

Most are descendants of the roughly 700,000 Palestinians who were driven out of their homes or fled a 1948 war that led to Israel's creation.

The US announcement on Friday that it will no longer support UNRWA has deepened a cash crisis at the agency, and heightened tensions with the Palestinian leadership.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the agency provides health clinics, schooling for 526,000 refugee children and food assistance to 1.7 million people - a million of them in Gaza.

The agency has now a funding gap of $217 million. The US slashed funding earlier this year, paying out only $60 million of a first installment in January, and withholding $65 million. It had promised $365 million for the whole year.

Washington has said the agency needed to make unspecified reforms and called on the Palestinians to renew "peace" talks with Israel as President Donald Trump is dangling his "deal of the century."

Trump had already angered Palestinians by his December recognition of the disputed city of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "capital" and axing more than $200 million in bilateral aid for Gaza and the West Bank.

The US has backed Israel in accusing UNRWA of perpetuating the Middle East conflict by maintaining the idea that many Palestinians are refugees with a right to return to their homeland.

To Palestinians, the right of return is central to their cause and they see the US decision as a new policy shift aimed at undermining it.

Jordan, which is one of just two Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, on Saturday voiced disappointment at the US decision.

"Any decline in the agency's services and any attempt to diminish its role under its UN mandate would threaten dangerous consequences," Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said.

"Cutting refugees off from the agency's services will deepen their feelings of deprivation" and create dangerous tensions, he said.

Hugh Lovatt, an Israeli and Palestinian affairs analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the US decision was an attempt to "unilaterally take the Palestinian right of return off the table."

"But US actions are misguided, dangerous, and won't work... neither Lebanon or Jordan can be expected to play along," he said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Washington of implementing the agenda of "Israeli extremists who have done nothing but to destroy the prospect of peace."

The European Union said in a statement that "the regrettable decision of the US to no longer be part of this international and multilateral effort leaves a substantial gap."

The Cairo-based Arab League said the US move "reflects a desire to take the issue of al-Quds and refugees off the negotiating table between the Palestinians and Israelis."

"Washington will be responsible for the great harms caused by this decision to around five million Palestinian refugees who are dependent on the agency aid," Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said Saturday.

Aboul-Gheit said the US decision will not only harm the refugees, but also the host countries.

Source: Press TV