Obama administration UN ambassador Samantha Power tweeted:
Every US president since Truman has funded @UNRWA so Palestinians have basics like food, health, education. Trump admin’s 80% funding cut is another failed negotiation tactic that will force kids out of school https://t.co/DJmwKTlVkE— Samantha Power (@SamanthaJPower) June 26, 2018
Either Power is shockingly ignorant or purposely deceptive.
The only Palestinians who deserve "refugee aid" are the ones who have fled within or out of Syria - and that should come from UNHCR, not UNRWA.
There is no reason that the world should fund the education and healthcare of a single Palestinian Arab citizen, who should go to Palestinian public schools and use Palestinian medical facilities. They are not refugees - they are living in the land that they claim as theirs.
There is no reason the world should fund the education and healthcare of the vast majority of Jordanian Palestinians who are full citizens of Jordan. They are not refugees.
There is no reason that UNRWA should claim 450,000 refugees in Lebanon when nearly half of their "registered refugees" have moved to Europe and elsewhere.
And, of course, after 70 years there is no reason to maintain a huge bureaucracy that does nothing to actually help "refugees" get settled in their host countries, or anywhere else.
Moreover, Power certainly knows, there is not an unlimited amount of aid money worldwide. She is implying that maintaining the excellent support Palestinians get from UNRWA is more important than needy refugees in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan and Myanmar.
The Trump administration is actually working harder to help Gazans - with the "deal of the century" - than Power and Obama ever did, as they kept sticking to the fantasy that peace in the Middle East is not a regional issue but bilateral. The leaked plan for Egypt would do more for Gazans than Power ever could imagine.
But to Power, and her fellow dinosaurs who insist they know what they are doing even though they have failed for 25 years post Oslo, Israel is the problem and Palestinian rejectionism is fully justified.
The contrast between Power and Nikki Haley is gigantic, and it shows how the Obama administration hamstrung itself by holding to an almost religious pro-PLO viewpoint that ensured no compromises on the Palestinian side.