US to Stop UNRWA Funding and Withdraw from UN Human Rights Council
President Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order today withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights Council and removing all US funding for the Gaza agency UNRWA. Politico has the story.
The actions, which reinstate policies in place during the last Trump administration, will come on the day the President is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington. The US has long accused the council of bias against Israel and of giving cover to governments with human rights abuses. It comes after the Biden administration paused funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, known as UNRWA, following reports that staffers were involved in the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israel.
A White House official said Monday afternoon that the executive order signing had been moved to Tuesday.
It also comes as the Trump administration has put the future of the United States Agency for International Development — which also promotes human rights abroad — into question over concerns whether it aligns with the President’s “America First! policy and how its dollars are being spent.
UNRWA is the main agency providing aid for Gaza’s population amid the humanitarian disaster caused by Israel’s offensive in the area after the October 7th attack. But the UN fired several staffers last summer after an internal investigation found they may have been involved in the attack.
It’s also the next chapter in the country’s complicated, back-and-forth relationship with the UN Human Rights Council, which was created during the George W. Bush administration. Under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the US engaged with the council; under Bush and Trump, it did not.
A spokesperson for the United Nations declined to comment.
The White House, in a fact sheet obtained by Politico, said the council “has not fulfilled its purpose and continues to be used as a protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations” and condemned its stance on Israel.
“The UNHRC has demonstrated consistent bias against Israel, focusing on it unfairly and disproportionately in council proceedings,” the document says. “In 2018, the year President Trump withdrew from the UNHRC in his first administration, the organisation passed more resolutions condemning Israel than Syria, Iran, and North Korea combined.”
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Looks like Trump will be one of the greatest US presidents ever. Please let’s become the 53rd US state after Canada and Greenland.
Yes he’s certainly a man that gets things done, I’ll give him that;
https://x.com/DonnaLouise1212/status/1886511613307490439
He has certainly spent the last 4 years paying attention and learning where it went wrong in his first term. Others have wondered if the theft of the 2020 election is proving to be a blessing as he has learned a lot and the US has suffered 4 years of DemoTwat communo-fascism.
Just to remind ourselves the Israeli attack on Gaza was to eliminate Hamas which is based there, controls it and took over 100 Israelis and other Jews hostage.
The response was to the Hamas murderous attack on a music festival where hundreds were brutally murdered and mutilated by Hamas.
just in case anyone might read your excerpt and conclude Israel attacked Gaza without reason.
Well, firstly, Israel has failed to eliminate Hamas, as shown by the videos of the release of the first hostages. Hamas indeed took over 100 Israelis hostage, in what people like Larry Johnson (https://sonar21.com/) described as a purely military operation. Hamas clearly targeted the Israeli military forces guarding Gaza (the ‘Open-air prison’) and wanted to take as many Israeli hostages as possible. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics currently lists 18,700 ‘Detainees’ held by the Israelis, whereby there is little difference between a hostage and a detainee, since the latter are not only severely mistreated but also seldom actually charged with any offence other than perhaps throwing a stone at an Israeli soldier. (Among the ‘detainees’ are hundreds of children.) The purpose of Hamas taking hostages was, of course, to force negotiations and the release of Palestinian hostages or detainees. The ‘murderous attack on a music festival’ can more likely be ascribed to the Israeli reaction to the outbreak, where both Apache helicopter pilots and tank crews were unable to distinguish between Hamas fighters and Israelis and, mindful of the Hannibal directive, just fired away at anything that moved. There are photographs of dozens of cars burned to the core,… Read more »
A narrative that just isn’t supported by Hamas’ own go-pro cameras.
Sorry, which narrative? I read a report some time ago which maintained Israeli propaganda actually showed violent video scenes shot in a completely different conflict (South America?) but I of course cannot confirm that. The Israeli stories of rape, beheaded babies, etc., were however definitely debunked.
Except they weren’t. Your narrative. It’s fairly obvious that the thought of Israelis not being responsible for their own slaughter was something you found difficult to contemplate, hence your nonsense about South American conflicts.
My narrative is as follows. If you travel to a foreign land, demanding you have the right to live there based on ancient biblical references, then a certain degree of diplomacy will be required, especially to those who originally occupied that territory. Israel’s diplomacy for the last 80 years has seemingly been based on violence, displacement and bombs. And today Israel continues this course not only on its own territory but also among neighbouring countries. How do you expect everyone to react to this continued slaughter? What should be the relationship of a Palestinian Arab to Israel, who has been displaced from his own land or whose house has been bombed, or both? Or when his wife, son, daughter, or parent has been shot or imprisoned by Israelis? What should a Lebanese think of Israel when his property has been bombed flat by that country? What should a Syrian think, and so on? Israel has powerful global support, primarily from immensely wealthy individuals, which is why they can convince the US President (https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/biden-lied-about-seeing-photos-beheaded-israeli-children), as well as the German Foreign Minister (https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/german-foreign-minister-says-she-saw-nonexistent-7-oct-rape-video) to outright lie, all in the name of what: unquestionable Israeli superiority? You must therefore be aware that scepticism… Read more »
Sorry, I forgot to add this link: https://electronicintifada.net/content/evidence-israel-killed-its-own-citizens-7-october/41156.
Your narrative is easy to turn on its head. And when we turn it on its head we then have to ask why you have criticism for Israel and no interest in any other, more barbaric nations. So here goes: My narrative is as follows. If you travel to a foreign land, demanding you have the right to live there based on nothing more than a lust for conquering, then a certain degree of diplomacy will be required, especially to those who originally occupied that territory. Turkey’s diplomacy for the last 700 years has seemingly been based on violence, displacement and bombs. And today Turkey continues this course not only on its own territory but also among neighbouring countries. How do you expect everyone to react to this continued slaughter? What should be the relationship of an Anatolian Greek to Turkey, who has been displaced from his own land or whose house has been bombed, or both? Or when his wife, son, daughter, or parent has been shot or imprisoned by Turks? What should an Armenian think of Turkey when his property has been bombed flat by that country? What should a Kurd think, and so on? …Now you could… Read more »
Why do you suppose I support Turkey’s past, present and future crimes? (Future, because USA is about to drop its protection of the Kurds in Syria and Turkey is about to set up military bases in Syria – more fun to come with Israel there.)
The sole attribute that separates Israel from its surrounding countries is that Israel’s Jews came from outside the area – primarily from Europe and USA.
If you think that a ‘historical connection’ gives you the right to move to a foreign country then good luck with trying. Of course, if you have all US politicians bought and paid to support your cause, then you will likely succeed. But should England be handed over to Italy because Romans ruled the country 2,000 years ago?
“The sole attribute that separates Israel from its surrounding countries is that Israel’s Jews came from outside the area – primarily from Europe and USA.”
As I said, this isn’t about where people originate, is it?
I seem to recall the MSM used to refer to President (sic) Biden or Joe Biden whereas they routinely refer to “Trump”.
Any reason, do we think.
Good bring the entire corrupt edifice down
So many edifices, so little time.
Well, Trump can either go down as the epic peace-maker he maintains he wants to be, or else just a follow-on to Genocide Joe Biden. And for all those who maintain Israel is not committing genocide, I recommend Susan Abulhawa’s report in The Light newspaper (https://thelightpaper.co.uk/assets/pdf/Light-53-Web-Final-Jan-25.pdf) : ‘When I was in Gaza, I saw a little boy no more than nine years whose hands – and part of his face – had been blown off by a booby trapped can of food that soldiers had left behind for starving children. I later learned that they had also left poisoned food for people in Shujaiyya, and in the 1980s and 90s Israeli soldiers left booby trapped toys in southern Lebanon that exploded when excited children picked them up. The harm they do is diabolical and yet they expect you to believe they are the victims. Invoking Europe’s holocaust and screaming antisemitism, they expect you to suspend fundamental human reason to believe that the daily sniping of children with so-called ‘kill shots’ and the bombing of entire neighbourhoods that bury families alive and wipe out whole bloodlines is self-defence. They want you to believe that a man who had not eaten anything… Read more »
Falls on intentionally deaf/ignorant ears I’m afraid.
One has to marvel though at the moral and mental gymnastics performed by most on here to justify genocide.
How many more civilian deaths would it take to maybe make some on here think that the IDF and those controlling the USA’s 51st State might just be a little bit evil.
On the other hand it does show the benefits of money, power but above all, control of the narrative.
Israel learnt well the power of propaganda, MSM, books, magazines and above all, Hollywood.
The latest video from DDN (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k6pmbagWKM) really shocked me, showing how Keir Starmer was able to ‘force’ Metropolitan Police chiefs to be overly aggressive towards people protesting against the genocide. Quite why the police chiefs did not tell him it was their duty to be impartial, I do not understand; nor do I understand why police officers themselves do not object to losing their supposed impartiality. Have they no pride? Instead everybody is apparently taught to bow down to such groups as the Labour Friends of Israel or the Board of Deputies of British Jews. I thought the police were supposed to uphold the law and not practise politics.