Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
ZOA praises and thanks President Trump for his pro-Israel, pro-America, philosemitic executive orders, signed on February 4 entitled: “Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations,” and “Imposing Maximum Pressure on the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Denying Iran All Paths to a Nuclear Weapon, and Countering Iran’s Malign Influence.”
These orders:
- defund the terror-permeated United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA);
- withdraw the U.S. from the extreme, biased so-called United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which spends most of its time condemning the peace-loving Jewish State of Israel;
- order reviews of the antisemitic, anti-Israel United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which despicably works to erase Jewish history at the Jewish people’s holiest sites including the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Mount of Olives 3,000 year-old Jewish cemetery (which UNESCO libeled as “fake Jewish graves”) and Hebron;
- order reviews of other UN and international agencies funded by the U.S.; and
- reinstate the maximum sanctions on Iran needed to curb Iran’s ability to fund its terror proxies and nuclear arms program.
President Trump also took similar important steps during his first term of office, but former President Biden undid President Trump’s pro-Israel, pro-America actions.
ZOA condemned Biden’s resumption of sending hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars to terror-front UNRWA; repeatedly demanded that Biden cease funding UNRWA; and condemned Biden’s rejoining the UNHRC; and condemned Biden’s waivers of sanctions on Iran. ZOA thanks President Trump for promptly reinstating his prior wise decisions.
The wisdom of President Trump’s decision to defund UNRWA should be crystal clear to all decent people in light of UNRWA staff members’ direct participation in the October 7 atrocities: UNRWA employees murdered and kidnapped Jews, breached the border fence, coordinated attack logistics, and procured weapons. UNRWA’s other assistance to Hamas included hiding a major Hamas data and operations center in UNRWA’s headquarters; and hiding Hamas’ weapons, communications, tunnels and hostages. For instance, Hamas hid recently-released hostage Emily Damari in UNRWA facilities, and denied Emily medical treatment after shooting Emily twice. Further, at least 10% of UNRWA employees are Hamas or PIJ terrorists. Yet UNRWA Commissioner General Phillipe Lazzarini admitted that UNRWA employees are not even required to declare that they are not members of an armed group; and failed to declare that he would fire any UNRWA employee found to be a member of Hamas.
Moreover, Impact-SE reported, based on recent intelligence, that in 2023-2024, twelve UNRWA school principals and deputies were Hamas and PIJ members; UNRWA (and Palestinian Authority) schools continue to glorify violence, incite antisemitism, vilify Israelis and deny Israel’s existence; UNRWA teachers and staff publicly celebrated Hamas’ and PIJ’s October 7 atrocities on social media; and at least 100 Hamas members committing the terror attacks were graduates of UNRWA’s schools.
The wisdom of withdrawing from the UNHRC is also further demonstrated now, given the UNHRC’s fraudulent “investigations” of Israel; the UNHRC’s support for and amplification of the lawless ICJ and ICC’s anti-Israel actions; UNHRC’s continuing libelous resolutions (e.g., UNHRC Res. 55/28 adopted April 5, 2024) falsely condemning Israel, calling for arms embargoes against Israel, demanding Israel’s withdrawal from Israel’s lawful and historic lands (see ZOA’s condemnation of this UNHRC antisemitic resolution here; and UNHRC’s failures to condemn Hamas and the other terror organizations that murdered, raped, beheaded, tortured and kidnapped innocent Israelis.
There are many additional reasons, extremely cogent why President Trump’s executive order is wise, good for America and Israel, and an important step towards promoting peace. ZOA discussed many of these reasons in a press release praising President Trump for defunding UNRWA in 2018 (reprinted below) and in numerous other ZOA publications, including those linked below:
Morton Klein: Trump Wisely Ends U.S. Funding to UNRWA | Breitbart
September 6, 2018
UNRWA schools teach students to hate and murder Jews, and have served as weapons depots and rocket-launching pads for Hamas. President Trump ended the travesty of U.S. taxpayers funding UNRWA’s cynical use and endless expansion of purported Palestinian Arab “refugees” and their descendants as a weapon designed to destroy Israel. The administration’s decision can ultimately contribute to the eventual creation of peace.
An Obama-era report that recently came to light found that that Palestinian Arab refugees from the 1948-1949 Arab war against Israel only number about 20,000 today – instead of the 5.3 million such refugees that UNRWA falsely claims by fraudulently padding numbers and improperly including descendants. (See “US Report Finds Only 20,000 Palestinian Refugees in the World,” Israel Hayom, July 18, 2018.) That’s fewer than UNRWA’s bloated 33,000 employees.
And even 20,000 is likely overstated, because the Arabs who left Israel in 1948-1949 did not constitute refugees under any customary definition of “refugees.” They were not indigenous to Israel, as UNRWA only required “refugees” to have lived in Israel for two years. Many hailed from Egypt, North Africa, Syria and elsewhere outside of Israel, and only entered Israel after Jews developed barren land in the latter 1800s through mid-1900s.
These Arabs also did not constitute “refugees” because they were also not forced out of Israel – but rather, left at the behest of the invading Arab League, which urged Arabs to “get out of the way” to enable six invading Arab countries to more readily slaughter Israel’s Jews. (See “Article in Breitbart: ZOA’s Morton Klein – The Orwellian Math of Palestinian Refugees,” Aug. 10, 2018.)
Further, fraud has been rife. Even under UNWRA’s exaggerated definition, Lebanon’s recent census found fewer than 175,000 “Palestinian refugees” located there. Yet UNRWA had nearly 500,000 “Palestinian refugees” listed in Lebanon – three times the census number.
This past Friday, the U.S. State Department announced:
The Administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA. When we made a U.S. contribution of $60 million in January, we made it clear that the United States was no longer willing to shoulder the very disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWA’s costs that we had assumed for many years. . . . Beyond the budget gap itself and failure to mobilize adequate and appropriate burden sharing, the fundamental business model and fiscal practices that have marked UNRWA for years – tied to UNRWA’s endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries – is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years. The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation. (“On U.S. Assistance to UNRWA,” U.S. State Dept. Press Statement, State Dept. Spokesperson Heather Nauert, Aug. 31, 2018.)
UNRWA has been an abject failure for the past seventy years. Under the auspices of other refugee agencies, sixty million people displaced in the 1940s (World War II refugees; the Pakistan-India exchange of 13 million refugees; the 1 million Jews expelled from Arab lands where they had lived for millennia; etc.) have all been resettled. By contrast, UNRWA deliberately kept the small number of Palestinian Arab “refugees” from that era in limbo, taught them hatred, and expanded their numbers exponentially.
Eliminating funding to UNRWA can create incentives for long-needed reform. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley reportedly stated this week that if UNRWA “reforms what it does, . . . If it goes and makes sure that they’re not doing those teachings in textbooks, if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account. We will look back at partnering them.” (“U.S. Announces Immediate End to UNRWA Funding,” by Michael Wilner, Jerusalem Post, Aug. 31, 2018.)
The Trump administration should be thanked for finally ending the farce of U.S. funding of this outrageous program.
The original article was posted in Breitbart and can be found here.
Additional ZOA Articles on UNRWA:
ZOA Praises Israeli Knesset for Overwhelmingly Outlawing Hamas-Front UNRWA From Operating in Israel, Oct. 30, 2024
ZOA Praised House & Senate Stopping Aid to UNRWA, Urges U.S. and Other Nations to Do the Same, Mar. 25, 2024
Biden Betrays Israel at WH Press Conference with Jordanian King Who Called Israel an Illegal State on Arab Land, Praised UNRWA, Feb. 13, 2024
Biden Admin. Shows Betrayal & Hostility to Israel this Week at the UN and Elsewhere, Nov. 20, 2023 (condemning Biden administration spokesman for saying, just weeks after October 7, that the Biden administration “remains committed to supporting” UNRWA’s work).
ZOA Demands Biden Stop Arab Terror Funds to Hamas-Led UNRWA Schools and “Pay to Slay” Program, Nov. 23, 2022
ZOA Strongly Opposes Unlawful New U.S. Aid to PA and to UNRWA, Which Support Terrorism, Apr. 8, 2021 (condemning Biden’s resumption of sending U.S. tax dollars to UNRWA).
ZOA Board Member Op-Ed on UNRWA, by Cliff Rieders, Esq., Feb. 20, 2018
ZOA Articles on UNHRC:
ZOA Praises/Supports 68 Senators from Both Parties in Effort to End Persecution of Israel at the UN Human Rights Council, Apr. 7, 2022
ZOA Praises Cong. Chip Roy for His ‘‘No Taxpayer Funding for UN Human Rights Council Act,’’ Feb. 11, 2021
ZOA Opposes Biden Admin Rejoining Israel-Bashing UNHRC, Feb. 9, 2021
ZOA Articles on UNESCO:
ZOA Condemns UNESCO for Anti-Semitic Erasure of Jewish People’s History in Hebron, July 7, 2017
ZOA Condemns UNESCO Resolution Denying Jewish Identity & Name of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Oct. 26, 2016
UNESCO Lies About Mount of Olives “Jewish Fake Graves” While Thousands Gather for All-Day Inaugural Jerusalem Passover Event, Apr. 28, 2016
ZOA Articles related to Sanctions and Maximum Sanctions on Iran:
Biden’s Israelophobic Actions Show Sinister Intent, May 21, 2024 (condemning Biden’s $26 billion of waivers of Iran sanctions
ZOA Denounces Stealth Move by Biden Administration to Lift Nuclear Sanctions on Iran and Benefit Russia, Feb. 8, 2023
ZOA Strongly Supports Bipartisan Senate Bill Extending Sanctions on Iran, Aug. 22, 2022
ZOA Praises Pres. Trump for Demanding Snapback Sanctions on Iran at UN, Aug. 20, 2020