Urge Congress to Stop U.S. Dollars going to Terrorists via UNRWA
Action Alerts
January 28, 2009
Urge Members of Congress
to Cosponsor H.Con.Res.29,

 

the bi-partisan Resolution Seeking to Stop
U.S. Taxpayer Dollars from
going to Terrorists via UNRWA

 

 

 

Contact your Representative now to express your support for H.Con.Res.29, the bi-partisan resolution sponsored by Rep. Rep. Steven Rothman (D-NJ, 9th District), which seeks greater transparency and accountability of the U.S. taxpayer dollars that President Obama is contributing to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This resolution is an attempt to ensure that not one penny of U.S. money provided to UNRWA is redirected to terrorists, or to activities that support terror or promote a culture of hatred. The ZOA applauds Rep. Rep. Rothman for introducing this resolution and shining a brighter light on the problems with UNRWA. We call upon his colleagues in the House of Representatives to cosponsor this resolution and push it forward to a vote as soon as possible. 

 

 

 

ZOA urges all of its members to contact their representatives in Congress to express support for H.Con.Res.29 and to urge them to become a cosponsor or thank them if they have already a cosponsor. ZOA thanks the current cosponsors of this resolution for their support. The current cosponsors (as of 2/18/09) are:

 

 

 

Rep Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
Rep Dan Burton (R-IN)
Rep Eliot L. Engel (D-NY)
Rep Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Rep Peter T. King (R-NY)
Rep Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL)
Rep Ron Klein (D-FL)
Rep Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC)
Rep John M. McHugh (R-NY)
Rep Sue Wilkins Myrick (R-NC)
Rep Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Rep Ellen O. Tauscher (D-CA) 
Rep Frank R. Wolf (R-VA)

 

 

 

We encourage you to contact your Representative to express your support for the Rothman-Kirk letter asking Secretary Clinton to stop direct contributions to UNRWA, and urge them to support this effort and sign on to this letter.

 

Phone 202-224-3121 & ask for your Member of the House of Representatives. Alternatively, you can obtain this information through our website by CLICKING HERE.

 

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H. CON. RES. 29

 

Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.

 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 

January 28, 2009

 

Mr. ROTHMAN of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. KIRK, Mrs. MYRICK, Ms. BERKLEY, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. TAUSCHER, Mr. ENGEL, and Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

 




 

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

 

Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, employment, or other support to terrorists.

 

Whereas the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949 as a temporary agency to provide relief services to Palestinian refugees and is the only United Nations agency dedicated to one specific group of refugees;

 

Whereas UNRWA’s definition of refugees includes not only the Palestinian refugees themselves, but also their descendants, resulting in a more than 400 percent increase in the number of beneficiaries from 900,000 in 1950 to 4,500,000 today;

 

Whereas since 1950, the United States has contributed more than $3,400,000,000 to UNRWA and is the largest single donor to this United Nations organization;

 

Whereas as of September 2008, the United States has already contributed $148,000,000 to UNRWA for fiscal year 2008;

 

Whereas UNRWA employs approximately 24,000 staff to care for a population of 4,500,000 registered refugees in camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Palestinian Territories;

 

Whereas, in contrast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency tasked with resolving refugee problems worldwide, employs approximately 6,300 staff to care for a population of 11,400,000 refugees worldwide;

 

Whereas despite the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) military disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the 1993 creation of a Palestinian Authority that has jurisdiction over the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, UNRWA remains the primary professional, medical, educational, and social service provider for Palestinians living in `refugee’ camps in the Palestinian territories;

 

Whereas according to UNRWA Report of the Board of Auditors for the biennium ended December 31, 2005, UNRWA does not track recording, deleting, renaming, or manipulation of financial information by staff members or volunteers, and therefore has no means of detecting the alteration of financial data or other types of redirection of UNRWA funding, leaving UNRWA unable to technically comply with section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which ensures that no United States tax dollars support terrorism;

 

Whereas UNRWA has employed staffers affiliated with terrorism, including Said Sayyam, the Hamas Minister of Interior and Civil Affairs, who was a teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003; Awad al-Qiq, the headmaster of an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip who also led Islamic Jihad’s engineering unit that built bombs and Qassam rockets; Nahed Rashid Ahmed Atallah, a prior senior UNRWA employee from 1990 to 1993 who was responsible for the dissemination of assistance to refugees while he was also an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and Nidal Abd al-Fattah Abdallah Nazzal, a Hamas activist employed as an ambulance driver by UNRWA, who confessed in 2002 to transporting weapons and explosives to terrorists in an UNRWA ambulance;

 

Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have reported to have produced several graduates that have gone on to careers affiliated with terrorism, including Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and Abd al-Azis Rantisi, the former Hamas chief;

 

Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have used classroom materials that glorify or honor terrorists or terrorism in the past, and continue to use textbooks that include biased and negative references to Jews and the State of Israel, or omit any reference of Israel’s location on a map entirely;

 

Whereas in 2004, Peter Hansen, then-Commissioner General of UNRWA told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV Network, `I am sure that there are Hamas members on UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.’;

 

Whereas in 2006, at a Congressional briefing UNRWA Commissioner General Karen Koning AbuZayd admitted to not checking the names of those who receive financial aid from UNRWA against any terrorist watch lists, noting that it would be too difficult because `Arab last names sound so familiar’;

 

Whereas, on March 16, 2007, the New York Times exposed a new al-Qaeda cell, Fatah al-Islam, that was organizing, training, and plotting attacks against the United States from an UNRWA-administered and run camp in Lebanon; and

 

Whereas United States taxpayer dollars should never be used for purposes of supporting terrorist cells or activities that support terror or promote a culture of hatred at any of its locations: Now, therefore, be it

 

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress–

 

(1) strongly urges the Secretary of State to take all necessary measures to certify that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) operates in full compliance with section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act and therefore, no American taxpayer dollars are being directed to terrorists or to further terrorist propaganda;

 

(2) calls on UNRWA to improve their transparency by publishing online copies of all educational materials used in UNRWA-administered schools; and

 

(3) urges UNRWA to improve their accountability by implementing terrorist name recognition software and other screening procedures that would help to ensure that UNRWA staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries are neither terrorists themselves, nor affiliated with known terrorist organizations.

 

END

 

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The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. The ZOA is a grassroots organization.

Center for Law & Justice
We work to educate the American public and Congress about legal issues in order to advance the interests of Israel and the Jewish people.
We assist American victims of terrorism in vindicating their rights under the law, and seek to hold terrorists and sponsors of terrorism accountable for their actions.
We fight anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses.
We strive to enforce existing law and also to create new law in order to safeguard the rights of the Jewish people in the United States and Israel.