A March 2021 State Department request shows that U.S. officials privately worried that unfreezing funds for the Palestinian Authority could indirectly benefit terrorists.
State Department officials warned as early as 2021 that sending U.S. aid to areas controlled by Palestinian groups could serve to benefit Iran-supported terrorist groups such as Hamas. A March 2021 internal State Department document that was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon earlier this year and verified by Fox News Digital shows officials privately communicating their concerns that a Biden administration plan to unfreeze over $360 million in U.S.
The document was circulating just a month before many Republican lawmakers were sounding the alarm about the possibility that U.S. aid could indirectly bolster terrorist groups, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sending a letter to the administration in April 2021 calling for an end to any Palestinian aid. But the administration decided to move forward with plans to restart Palestinian aid just months later, something Cruz argued was an obvious mistake.
Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital the decision to fund UNRWA has also 'indirectly benefited Hamas.' 'We can say for certain it indirectly benefits the Hamas government in Gaza,' Schanzer said. 'UNRWA provides services that the government should be providing… this has alleviated some of the Hamas government's burden in the Gaza Strip.
There are perhaps 10,000-20,000 original Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war, and perhaps one could make the argument that they should be recipients of aid from UNRWA, but the rest of the Palestianian population that receives assistance from UNRWA are the descendants of the original refugees,' Schanzer said. 'By providing them with support, by providing them with some kind of social safety net, this defrays the cost of government operations for the Hamas regime in Gaza.
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