Former President Donald Trump might have been an outsider to politics with little to no direct foreign policy experience, but his understanding of geopolitics and ability to recognize friends from foes was far superior to that of many who have spent their lives entrenched in Washington.
The new revelations about the U.N. Relief and Works Agency are just another example of the foresight of the Trump administration.
According to The Wall Street Journal, intelligence reports it reviewed show that over a dozen local employees of the United Nations’ relief agency for Palestinian refugees aided Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
Even more shocking, the Journal reported that about 10 percent of the entire UNRWA staff have ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and nearly half of its employees — 49 percent — have at least one relative with ties to the Islamic terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, a six-page dossier reviewed by Reuters said that some 190 UNRWA employees, including teachers, were also members of militant groups Hamas or Islamic Jihad. It identified 11 employees by name and photo.
It was unknown if this dossier was the same one reviewed by the Journal.
The Journal listed horrific acts committed by UNRWA employees, including abducting a female Israeli civilian, transporting the body of a dead Israeli soldier, distributing arms and ammunition to Hamas and actively participating in attacks leading to mass civilian deaths.
Several employees are said to have enabled or personally joined in an assault on the Supernova music festival, where 360 people were killed. Another allegedly helped massacre 97 residents at Kibbutz Be’eri, the report said.
The document further said a Gaza school counselor and his son abducted a woman in southern Israel, while a separate staffer in central Gaza aided in handling a slain Israeli soldier’s corpse.
Should there be a full investigation into these U.N. staffers?
Israeli authorities used phone tracking and intercepted messages to place numerous suspects at locations of Hamas actions that day.
A senior official told the Journal, “UNRWA’s problem is not just a few bad apples involved in the October 7 massacre. The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’s radical ideology.”
A UNRWA representative declined to comment on the report, but the agency said in a news release Sunday that it had fired nine employees who were involved.
In 2018, Trump stopped funding UNRWA, a move that was criticized by many at the time.
In a column for The Hill, Brookings Institution senior fellow Hady Amr wrote that the Trump administration “made an error on the Middle East that was so profound and misguided that it will haunt us for years to come.”
Amr claimed that UNWRA “is so in-sync with our values that American citizens directly donate millions of dollars to UNWRA each year — more than some countries.”
Now we know where all that money was going.
BREAKING: I spoke with an injured IDF soldier who was shot at from a @UNRWA school. He watched his commander die after Hamas shot him from the school. A few Hamas terrorists were using the @UNRWA school as cover and to store weapons.
This week it was revealed that multiple… pic.twitter.com/bbq22zBr49
— Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) January 29, 2024
GOP lawmakers are now blasting the Biden administration for restarting aid to UNRWA.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas condemned the agency’s “systemic” prejudice and the Biden administration for restarting U.S. financial contributions last year, according to Jewish Insider.
Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the reports “unconscionable” and said he had “warned the Biden administration” not to restore funding to UNRWA in 2021.
Other Republicans have expressed similar views.
The IRS needs to immediately revoke UNRWA’s tax-deductible status. It is an organization that employs terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre. pic.twitter.com/ZUCHH6gPJv
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 29, 2024
The bottom line is that critics have long accused UNRWA of being anti-Israel and having ties to terrorists even as the agency relies heavily on U.S. and Western donors.
Yet despite the new horrific allegations, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres continues to ask for more funding for the organization.
“The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences,” he said in a statement Sunday. “But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
No organization is irreplaceable. There are other groups — including Samaritans Purse — that have been operating in the Gaza region and do not have ties to terrorists.
The continued failure of the United Nations to police itself demonstrates what Trump saw years ago: the need for dramatic reforms of the international system.
