SUPPORT UNRWA| STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH 5M PALESTINIANS AT RISK

US has slashed funding of UNRWA, Palestinian aid agency on whose work depends lives of at least 3 million Palestinian people, from health to education and from food to employment.
The US is the largest single contributor to UNRWA. Since 2015, UNRWA’s funding has been decreasing which resulted in dangerous aid cuts that put lives of Palestinians at risk. UNRWA’s aid cuts in the past 3 year have resulted in 34 persons’ death. As you know, as Palestinians, our host countries have been doing a very good job at stripping us of our own humanity, demonizing us and deeming our struggle illegitimate through treating us as second-class ‘citizens’ (for the lack of a better term). We have no access to healthcare or education. No stability, and quite frankly, we have nothing to lose.
Almost all of us went to UNRWA schools. Just 2 years ago, my mother & I were jobless & she got very sick & had 2 strokes & we relied on UNRWA health services & camp clinics to save her because we cannot access any sort of healthcare.
The US has fulfilled the Israeli’s lobby agenda. This is dangerous on so many levels. The US decision, in addition to putting 5m people at risk, also denies our right of return. Israeli Apartheid, which claims it has legitimacy, is telling refugees who still have keys to their homes that they have no right to return. This decision represents a significant shift in US policy toward the Palestinian refugee struggle. It is now adopting the Zionist discourse that views Palestinian refugees as ‘fake refugees’. This discourse is aimed at dissolving UNRWA into UNHCR which is problematic because Palestinian refugees were specifically and intentionally excluded from the international refugee law regime. UNRWA’s mandate has been repeatedly renewed by the UN General Assembly. The current mandate runs until 30 June 2020. Given the recent politically charged decisions, the future of UNRWA is not clear. & it is important to note that the US was behind the establishment of UNRWA, promising the implementation of resolution 194 (11 December 1948)
We are critical of some aspects of UNRWA’s work & policy recommendations and have demanded clear and strategic reforms in the past. However, we will always have to rely on UNRWA & most of us cannot survive without their services.
In 2015, we protested aid cuts. In 2018, we are asking the world to view us as humans.
Seventy years of Zionist ethnic-cleansing has consequences. Trump administration is weaponizing aid to erase our existence.
We need all the help we can get to sustain UNRWA’s operation and to protest this decision.
What can you do to help?
-Join the ten for ten challenge. Donate and help sustain UNRWA’s operations in our refugee camps:
https://getinvolved.unrwausa.org/fundraiser/1603166
- Protest. Protest and protest. There will be protests EVERYWHERE. JOIN.
- Ask the UN why UNRWA isn’t part of the UN assessed contribution system? Why is UN so focused on funding certain international staff posts instead of operations?
