The United Arab Emirates significantly reduced its funding to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in 2020, the year they signed a U.S.-Israelitization treaty with Israel that has been heavily criticized by the Palestinian Authority.
UNRWA provides education, health care and other vital services to some 5.7 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, most of the descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were displaced from Israel during the 1948 war around its creation.
The UAE donated $ 51.8m to UNRWA in 2018 and again in 2019, but in 2020 it gave just $ 1m to the group, the group said Sami Mshasha said on Friday after it was first reported by Israeli media.
“We very much hope that they will return to previous years’ levels in 2021,” he said.
Emirati officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Saturday.
UAE-Israeli deal
Last year, the UAE forged a normal alliance with Israel, breaking with a long-standing Arab alliance that should only be recognized as a trade-off in the peace process with the Palestinians, who have been moribund for more than 10 years.
Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco struck similar agreements shortly afterwards, in what the U.S. administration had previously described as a historic diplomatic achievement. President Joe Biden welcomed the agreements and has said he will encourage the resumption of direct peace talks.
But the PA viewed the agreements as a betrayal and sharply criticized the UAE.
UNRWA critics say it survives the refugee crisis created by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for the refugees and their descendants. Israel strongly rejects the idea of a right of return, which would leave the country with a Palestinian majority if fully implemented.
The Trump administration cut all funding to UNRWA in 2018, one of several unprecedented steps it took to support the separation of Israel and the Palestinians. The US had donated the group about $ 360m a year earlier.
The Biden administration announced last month that it would restore support to the Palestinians, bring in refugees, and say it will work to revive peace talks. Both sides have not held substantive peace talks since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began in 2009.