Posted on 01/29/2018 6:02:17 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
The State Department is hiding a classified report on Palestinian refugees that insiders say could be a game changer in how the United States approaches the situation and allocates millions in taxpayer funds to a key United Nations agency, according to multiple sources briefed on the situation.
As the United States moves forward with a decision to slash funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the agency responsible for providing education and support to some five million Palestinian refugees, officials on Capitol Hill and elsewhere have been pressuring the State Department to declassify a report that is believed to show the actual number of refugees is far fewer than the U.N. claims.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told the Washington Free Beacon that the State Department first classified the report under the Obama administration and still refuses to provide U.S. officials with the information despite laws mandating its release.
The report was described to the Free Beacon as a potential tipping point in the debate over UNRWA and its mission, which has come under increased criticism in Congress for what many claim is the agency's anti-Israel bias and routine promotion of pro-terrorism doctrines.
Some State Department officials have acknowledged in private meetings that there is no reason the report should remain classified, according to sources who said the over classification is part of an effort to suppress this information from Congress and the public.
"I was informed that there is no justification for classifying the report. Rather, it is the officials at State Department who do not want this information out as it could and would lead to a call to reform UNRWA," said one source briefed on the matter.
While UNRWA provides support to some 5.3 million Palestinians they claim are refugees, the actual number could be closer to 20,000. This disclosure could fundamentally shift the narrative with UNRWA and lead the United States to consider cutting even more of its funding to the agency.
Currently, any U.S. official seeking to read the little-known report's findings must have top-secret security clearance and access to a secure facility containing the documents.
Revelations of this classified report's existence and the potential implications come as the Trump administration announced that it would slash UNRWA's funding by half, from $125 million to $65 million, in order to force the organization to implement a series of reforms.
UNRWA has come under fire from pro-Israel activists and some lawmakers for anti-Israel bias and complicity with radical elements of Palestinian society.
In addition to reports that UNRWA is using anti-Israel content in its classrooms, it has been caught hiding Hamas rockets in its schools on at least three separate occasions.
The U.S. report on UNRWA was first commissioned in 2015 by former senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), who was spearheading an effort to increase the organization's transparency.
Kirk forwarded a congressional amendment to require the State Department to provide Congress with a report on the number of refugees served by UNRWA who actually lived in the territory now known as Israel between 1946 and 1948.
The State Department never acknowledged having completed the report, sources said, and instead classified it.
"State had neglected to tell Sen. Kirk's office," said one source with knowledge of the situation. "It seems that this was intentional."
Once the report's existence was confirmed, Congress, in a 2017 measure, directed the State Department to provide an unclassified version of the report. This, too, was ignored, sources said.
The report is said to confirm that, as opposed to what UNRWA and its supporters claim, the number of refugees is actually in the tens of thousands, not the millions.
Richard Goldberg, a former deputy chief of staff for Kirk, told the Free Beacon that the UNRWA effort was always about exposing the myth that there are millions of refugees who still require aid.
"This is about basic taxpayer oversight of an agency that gobbles up hundreds of millions of dollars ever year," said Goldberg, the author of the original amendment that required the report. "Are we funding a refugee agency or are we funding a welfare agency that nurtures a culture terrorism and violence?"
"There's a moral difference when it comes to U.S. policy and foreign assistance," said Goldberg, now a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "American aid for true refugees is one thing; American aid to subsidize a culture of welfare and terrorism is entirely different."
Pro-Israel advocates are now urging the UNRWA report be provided to the public.
EJ Kimball, director of the Israel Victory Project, a coalition of pro-Israel lawmakers, told the Free Beacon that those under UNRWA's care should be compelled to admit they are not actually refugees in the technical sense.
"If the State Department is interested in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the number of actual refugees from Israel's War for Independence must be publicized," Kimball said. "For the approximately 5 million Palestinian Arabs in need of aid, they should be helped after acknowledging they are not refugees. By doing this, we can break the yoke of victimhood and oppression and give these ‘refugees' the human dignity they deserve. UNRWA has failed and it either needs to be drastically reformed or tossed into the dustbin of history."
The State Department declined to comment on the report or its status when approached by the Free Beacon.
It’s been a myth for about fifty years.
Yes, thanks for the article.
It’s a given that the Obama’s commie minions in his State Department wanted it to be kept under wraps from day 1. When it comes out, the pretzel logic and word salad they used to justify marking it “classified” will be something to see.
What exactly are they “refugees” from? A war they started in 1973?
UNRWA is using anti-Israel content in its classrooms and has been caught hiding Hamas rockets in its schools on at least three separate occasions.
Just an old fashioned fleecing of the people, pockets full they say, we didn’t have enough to get it done..
The entire federal bureacracy is like a rotten moldy chunk of Swiss cheese.
Riddled with holes and crevasses harboring the most putrid, rancid, moral rot and corruption imaginable.
Where ever you look the fetid stink of abomination is overwhelming.
The spirit of antichirst drives the U.N. the way it drives all the Delusional Lying Left which includes Worldwide Islamic Supremacy. All peas in the same pod.
Our answer? A strong, bright America (”MAGA”) which ultimately can only happen by Restoring America’s Free Constitutional Republic. It’s a fight of faith and freedom.
What is preventing the Secretary of State or the President from ordering this report released to the public?
Publish it on the State Department web site.
They are refugees from Jordan, which in 1948 stole the land they were assigned at the creation of Israel.
It's not really an "Obama loyalist" problem. The problem is that the State Department has been fundamentally anti-American for well over 100 years. The transnationalists have been in charge for at least that long.
The only way I can think of to get from 5.3 million down to 20,000 is to stop the practice of counting successive generations as refugees. In all other cases, a refugee is a person who fled a war zone, but does not include their children born after they fled, or their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The UNRWA policy is unique in that it is the only refugee agency that counts every generation as a refugee. If they did an audit of the numbers to count only those who were born in the Palestine Mandate before 1948 (some of whom may have been just children at the time) then they may only have about 20,000.
Another problem that UNRWA and others do not want to acknowledge is that many of the refugees and their generstions have been denied citizenship in their country of exile. In Lebanon for example, a Palestinian has no Lebanese passport even if he was born there by people born there by people born there. Non-citizens are not entitled to hold government jobs or higher education, severely limiting their chances at elevating their conditions and increasing their reliance on handouts. So these generations are forced to live in perpetual poverty, under-educated and under-skilled. This benefits nobody except for the people who work for UNRWA, the terrorist recruiters, and the Palestinian propaganda machine - allowing 5.3 million to suffer for generations just to keep the cause of destroying other people alive.
This is exactly the type of pond scum that prevents clear understanding of what we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on.
Can’t anybody get this to the attention of the President. I bet he could get something done in a hurry to get the report released.
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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arab squatters
One of the worst kept secrets in the world. All you need is a calculator and the contemporaneous newspaper reports, and — Presto! — No more secret.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks Mr. Mojo.
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