UNRWA held a fundraising conference in New York on Tuesday, raising $113 million to keep the utterly worthless agency going for another few months before the next fundraiser.
23 nations pledged to help bail out UNRWA this time:
The following delegations confirmed 2019 pledges in the following amounts: European Union (€21 million); Turkey ($10 million); Philippines ($10,000); India ($5 million); Sweden ($5 million); France (€20 million); Germany (€29 million); New Zealand ($1 million); Belgium (€11.6 million total for 2019); Estonia (€280,000); Ireland ($22 million); Norway ($2 million in addition to $26.4 million already paid); Indonesia ($200,000 in addition to the $1 million already paid); United Kingdom ($24 million for a total of $83 million for 2019‑2020); Switzerland ($1 million to the $21 million already paid in 2019); Kazakhstan ($50,000); Pakistan ($250,000); Cyprus (€100,000) and the Holy See ($40,000).
The following delegations indicated pledges pending approval: Austria (€1.95 million to a UNRWA health programme), Mexico, Malaysia and Italy.
Not a single Arab state contributed a dime (although Qatar pledged $16 million for 2019-20 the last time this was done.)
Instead, the Arab nations paid lip service to helping Palestinians via UNRWA:
Further support for UNRWA was expressed by representatives of Jordan, Lebanon, Republic of Korea, Egypt, Algeria, China, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Tunisia and Iraq with no specific pledges announced.
Once again, the rich Arab nations are far less interested in wasting their money on their fellow Arab Palestinians than the West is.
Trump’s decision to cut UNRWA aid was not regressive – it was ahead of its time. UNRWA is a poor investment if one is interested in actually solving the Palestinian issue. Their fellow Arabs know this very well. The EU is too blind to see.
UNRWA’s budget is $1.2 billion a year, so while this $113 million makes a dent, asking for that amount of money ten times a year will turn old quick. One day, not too distant, citizens of Ireland and Switzerland and Norway will ask their government why paying for medical and educational and housing services for nearly 2 million Jordanian citizens, and even more residents of “Palestine” who cannot be considered refugees under any definition, makes sense.
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