JERUSALEM (AP) – The United Arab Emirates drastically reduced its funding to the United Nations High Commissioner for Palestine in 2020, the year in which they negotiated a normalization agreement with Israel that was heavily criticized by the Palestinian Authority.
The agency known as UNRWA provides education, health care and other essential services to approximately 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, mostly descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 war around the creation of it.
The UAE donated $ 51.8 million to UNRWA in 2018 and again in 2019, but it only gave the agency $ 1 million in 2020, the agency’s spokesperson Sami Mshasha said on Friday after the Israeli media first reported it has.
“We really hope that in 2021 they will return to the levels of previous years,” he said.
Emirates officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Saturday.
Last year, the United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel, with a long-standing Arab consensus that recognition should come only in exchange for concessions in the peace process with the Palestinians, who have been dead for more than a decade.
Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco concluded similar agreements shortly afterwards, which the Trump administration regarded as a historic diplomatic achievement. President Joe Biden welcomed the agreements, saying he would encourage the resumption of direct peace talks.
However, the Palestinian Authority regards the agreements as treason and has sharply criticized the UAE. This may have led the Federation of Oil-Rich Sheikhdoms, which includes Dubai and Abu Dhabi, to lower their aid.
Critics of UNRWA say it creates the refugee problem created by the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and the Palestinians’ demand for a “right of return” for the refugees and their descendants. Israel has definitely rejected the idea of a right of return, which would leave the country with a Palestinian majority.
The Trump administration cut all funds to UNRWA in 2018, one of several unprecedented steps it has taken to support Israel and isolate the Palestinians. The US previously gave the agency about $ 360 million a year.
The Biden administration announced last month that it would restore aid to the Palestinians, including refugees, and said it would work to revive peace talks. The two parties have not held substantial peace talks since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in 2009.