[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 428 Introduced in House (IH)]
110th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. CON. RES. 428
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take
immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA)
in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding,
employment, or other support to terrorists.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 24, 2008
Mr. Rothman (for himself, Mr. Burton of Indiana, Ms. Berkley, Mr.
Engel, Mr. Israel, and Mrs. Tauscher) submitted the following
concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take
immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA)
in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding,
employment, or other support to terrorists.
Whereas the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in
the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949 as a temporary agency to
provide relief services to Palestinian refugees and is the only United
Nations agency dedicated to one specific group of refugees;
Whereas UNRWA's definition of refugees includes not only the Palestinian
refugees themselves, but also their descendants, resulting in a more
than 400 percent increase in the number of beneficiaries from 900,000 in
1950 to 4,500,000 today;
Whereas since 1950, the United States has contributed more than $3,400,000,000
to UNRWA and is the largest single donor to this United Nations
organization;
Whereas as of September 2008, the United States has already contributed
$148,000,000 to UNRWA for fiscal year 2008;
Whereas UNRWA employs approximately 24,000 staff to care for a population of
4,500,000 registered refugees in camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, the
Syrian Arab Republic, and the Palestinian Territories;
Whereas, in contrast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
the agency tasked with resolving refugee problems worldwide, employs
approximately 6,300 staff to care for a population of 11,400,000
refugees worldwide;
Whereas despite the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) military disengagement from
Gaza in 2005 and the 1993 creation of a Palestinian Authority that has
jurisdiction over the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and the West
Bank, UNRWA remains the primary professional, medical, educational, and
social service provider for Palestinians living in ``refugee'' camps in
the Palestinian territories;
Whereas according to UNRWA Report of the Board of Auditors for the biennium
ended December 31, 2005, UNRWA does not track recording, deleting,
renaming, or manipulation of financial information by staff members or
volunteers, and therefore has no means of detecting the alteration of
financial data or other types of redirection of UNRWA funding, leaving
UNRWA unable to technically comply with section 301(c) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, which ensures that no United States tax dollars
support terrorism;
Whereas UNRWA has employed staffers affiliated with terrorism, including Said
Sayyam, the Hamas Minister of Interior and Civil Affairs, who was a
teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003; Awad al-Qiq, the
headmaster of an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip who also led Islamic
Jihad's engineering unit that built bombs and Qassam rockets; Nahed
Rashid Ahmed Atallah, a prior senior UNRWA employee from 1990 to 1993
who was responsible for the dissemination of assistance to refugees
while he was also an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine; and Nidal Abd al-Fattah Abdallah Nazzal, a Hamas activist
employed as an ambulance driver by UNRWA, who confessed in 2002 to
transporting weapons and explosives to terrorists in an UNRWA ambulance;
Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have reported to have produced several
graduates that have gone on to careers affiliated with terrorism,
including Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and Abd al-Azis Rantisi,
the former Hamas chief;
Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have used classroom materials that glorify
or honor terrorists or terrorism in the past, and continue to use
textbooks that include biased and negative references to Jews and the
State of Israel, or omit any reference of Israel's location on a map
entirely;
Whereas in 2004, Peter Hansen, then-Commissioner General of UNRWA told Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation TV Network, ``I am sure that there are Hamas
members on UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime.'';
Whereas in 2006, at a Congressional briefing UNRWA Commissioner General Karen
Koning AbuZayd admitted to not checking the names of those who receive
financial aid from UNRWA against any terrorist watch lists, noting that
it would be too difficult because ``Arab last names sound so familiar'';
Whereas, on March 16, 2007, the New York Times exposed a new al-Qaeda cell,
Fatah al-Islam, that was organizing, training, and plotting attacks
against the United States from an UNRWA-administered and run camp in
Lebanon; and
Whereas United States taxpayer dollars should never be used for purposes of
supporting terrorist cells or activities that support terror or promote
a culture of hatred at any of its locations: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress--
(1) strongly urges the Secretary of State to take all
necessary measures to certify that United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) operates in full
compliance with section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act
and therefore, no American taxpayer dollars are being directed
to terrorists or to further terrorist propaganda;
(2) calls on UNRWA to improve their transparency by
publishing online copies of all educational materials used in
UNRWA-administered schools; and
(3) urges UNRWA to improve their accountability by
implementing terrorist name recognition software and other
screening procedures that would help to ensure that UNRWA
staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries are neither terrorists
themselves, nor affiliated with known terrorist organizations.
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