Don’t give more money to the UN’s failed Palestinian refugee agency

Excerpt

With heavy fighting continuing inside a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is asking countries for an emergency bailout — not to secure the camp and prevent terrorists from exploiting international resources, but to establish alternative schooling options while militants occupy the schools that American taxpayers already funded. Instead of throwing good money after bad, U.S. lawmakers should put an end to UNRWA’s safe havens for terrorism — whether in Lebanon, Gaza or the West Bank. 

Five days of heavy clashes broke out in early August between Palestinian terror groups vying for control of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, just southeast of the Lebanese port city of Sidon. 13 Palestinians were killed, hundreds of homes destroyed, and more than 2,000 displaced.  

The fighting began on July 29, when a gunman targeted Islamist terrorist Mahmoud Khalil, but instead killed his companion. Islamist militants held the once-dominant Palestinian group Fatah responsible and killed a Fatah general and his bodyguards the following day. The skirmishes in a dense urban environment featured mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire. Armed groups even commandeered eight schools in the camp. 

Richard Goldberg is a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where David May is a research manager. Follow the authors @rich_goldberg and @DavidSamuelMay. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.