Palestinian employees of UNRWA in Gaza City demonstrate against the US decision in Jan 2018 to cut contributions to the agency. Photo: Reuters/Mohammed Salem.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) on Friday introduced legislation to cut off funding to the UN agency that assists Palestinian refugees and their descendents unless the agency completes radical reforms to counter its anti-Israel, anti-American, and antisemitic tendencies.

Formally titled the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Accountability and Transparency Act, the bill would require to the US Secretary of State to withhold all US funding to UNRWA unless he certified that UNRWA is subjected to an external audit, does not employ anyone with ties to US-designated terrorist groups, and that its schools and other infrastructure are not used for terrorist activities, among other requirements.

“UNRWA’s lengthy and detailed history of promoting anti-Semitism, violence, and terrorism through ‘educational’ materials, and its continued ties to Hamas, should completely disqualify this corrupt entity from receiving any US taxpayer funding,” Rep. Roy said in introducing the legislation. “UNRWA has failed to meet previous commitments to stop its hostility towards Israel, and it is an obstacle to peace. Israel is one of our greatest allies and closest friends; we cannot say we truly stand with them while helping prop up a corrupt organization like this.”

Should the Secretary of State certify that UNRWA has met all of the requirements in the legislation, the bill would still limit US UNRWA contributions to a level no greater than the highest contribution made by a member of the League of Arab states. In 2021, the most recent year for which full data is available, that state was Qatar, which donated $17 million against nearly $340 million from the US.

Reviews by the State Department and independent watchdog groups routinely find UNRWA using school curricula promoting violent and antisemitic content.

In July 2022, Impact-se, which monitors school curricula, issued a report on UNRWA-produced school materials that noted a grammar lesson that uses the sentence, “The Palestinians sacrifice their blood to liberate Jerusalem,” and “Arabic Drill Cards” for 9th graders that say, “When the [Muslim] nation is negligent in protecting al-Aqsa, then the Jews will dare to defile it.”

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been widely accused by Israel and by human rights groups of using schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including facilities operated by UNRWA, for terrorist purposes, including storing munitions, sheltering militants, and launching rockets. In November, UNRWA admitted finding a “man-made cavity” under one of its schools that constituted a “neutrality breach against the agency,” though it did not name the groups responsible. UNRWA announced similar discoveries in 2021, 2017, and 2014.

Roy’s legislation was co-sponsored by 38 other House and Senate Republicans, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Jim Risch (R-ID).

“When UNRWA was created, its specific purpose was to provide relief for refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli Conflict,” Risch said. “More than 70 years later, the organization has employed individuals affiliated with Hamas, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), and its schools have been used to promote anti-Semitism and store Hamas weapons. It is unacceptable that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to fund this agency.”

Risch and Roy introduced similar legislation during the previous session of congress, but it failed to proceed.

Since taking office in 2021, the Biden Administration has provided $940 million in aid to UNRWA. The Trump administration had previously cut off aid to the agency in 2018.