#UN High Commissioner for Refugees

[biglisbonnews]

Recurring floods in Sudan displace refugees and their host communities Countries: South Sudan, Sudan Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees Rainy season and flash flooding have made South Sudanese refugees’ lives harder in Sudan. UNHCR assists the displaced with core relief items such as blankets, solar lamps, jerry cans, and more. https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/recurring-floods-sudan-displace-refugees-and-their-host-communities

[nando161mando]

Tensions come to a head with a proposal to limit the entrance of children of war refugees who are already in the Netherlands and to make families wait at least two years before they can be united.

[madamepestilence]

Just as a reminder as I've just noticed myself - arab.org has more pages to support on

In case you're unfamiliar with how this site works, it confirms ad revenue via your clicks, which allows them to donate money to various funds

These go to:

Children -> UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)

Fight Poverty -> UNDP (United Nations Development Programme)

Environment -> Greenpeace MENA (Middle East and North Africa)

Palestine -> UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency [for Palestine Refugees in the Near East])

Refugees -> UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

Women -> UN Women

Do more with your daily clicks! You can help each one once per individual (perhaps per IP address?) per day, letting you help out with six things at once?

US-specific advice for helping Palestine below cut.

Side note I'm keeping beneath the cut since it's relevant to US folks only: if you're really determined to help Palestine, vote for Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. for President of the United States.

He's the most openly vocal about a free Palestine and is the only candidate who has demonstrably shown he is the most committed and prepared to immediately cease US support to Israel.

Joe Biden isn't going to cave if he gets re-elected. We all know that. Voting third party is a lot less risky than you've been taught - the two party system can replace one or both parties with new parties if they lose public favour.

We have both the people and the ability to unseat the Democratic party and install Socialism, and between Socialism and Republicans, Socialism is going to lock in place immediately and become the dominant political force in America.

Cornel West's Platform

Cornel West's Volunteer Events

Cornel West's Ballot Access Tracker and Ballot Access Plans

Tumblr thread I have of Primary/Caucus polling dates in the US (includes US territories)

Not on your Primary/Caucus ballot? Write-in, "Cornel West," on your ballot, or urge your Caucus representatives to do the same.

In a state where it's difficult for Independent candidates to get ballot access? Dr. Cornel West, Ph.D. thought ahead and has created a new party for those states called the Justice for All Party.

(Addendum: Claudia de la Cruz is not a viable alternative. The Party for Socialism and Liberation has a Conservative 5th Column and has frequent issues with discrimination.)

Free Palestine. Vote for Cornel West.

[talons-and-teeth]

Sharing some of the latest updates on Gaza, as I don’t think many of you reading US media are seeing this.

At least six Israeli bombs were dropped over Gaza’s largest refugee camp, Jabalia, yesterday. At least 100 were killed, including 19 members of the same family, and hundreds more maimed. (Source: Al Jazeera).

Since October 7th, at least 3,457 Palestinian children have been killed. Another 1,000 children are missing under the rubble of Israeli air strikes in Gaza and the West Bank. (Source: Save the Children)

Only 2% of food supplies has been delivered into Gaza, and what has been delivered - mainly rice and lentils - cannot be eaten, as Israel has cut off access to water and fuel. (Source: Oxfam GB)

The Director of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York has resigned in protest. (Source: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)

We are rapidly reaching a stage of no return in this genocide, which has been the culmination of Israel’s decades-long occupation strategy.

[mariacallous]

One major problem is that those who have fled Gaza are not considered refugees. This means that the two U.N. refugee agencies—the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which protects non-Palestinian refugees, and UNRWA, which is solely responsible for Palestinian refugees—can’t support them.

what in the ever loving fuck!

yay UN!

[intersectionalpraxis]

Here is a statement from the ULMWP President regarding Indonesia’s genocide of indigenous people in West Papua, dated December 2023.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C1O0YZXIrip/?igsh=b2ZlMXQ2M3V2aXR3

The Indonesian occupiers displaced more than 80,000 West Papuans in the finals months of 2023, leaving them without shelter, food, or medical care. Indonesian paramilitary units, including some that utilize Israeli-made weapons, are being deployed in West Papua.

Last month, Indonesian soldiers opened fire on a group of West Papuan women and children, and burned dozens of villages to the ground.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Free West Papua Campaign (UK) (@official.fwp.campaign)

"To all the West Papuans, whether women or children living in the refugee camps, students in the cities, or elders in the bush -our home guards, who suffered for years and kept the flame alive by raising the Morning Star during the darkest days of our movement -you are not alone. The world is hearing your cry. This year, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) leaders issues their own communities calling for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to be allowed into West Papua, adding their voices to the existing calls of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS). Thank you to all Melanesian leaders for your consistent support. Indonesia cannot hide their shameful secret anymore[...]"

Free West Papua.

[workersolidarity]

🇺🇳🇵🇸🇮🇱 🚨

UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES CALLS FOR AN IMMEDIATE HUMANITARIAN CEASEFIRE IN GAZA

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, opened the Global Refugee Forum with a demand for an "immediate and sustained Humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."

"A major human catastrophe is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, and so far, the (UN) Security Council has failed to stop the violence," Grandi said in Geneva, addressing the three-day forum.

Grandi went on to point out that the events ongoing in the Gaza Strip are "outside the mandate of UNHCR."

"However, we foresee more civilian deaths and suffering, and also further displacement that threatens the region."

"I cannot open the global refugee forum without first echoing the call of the United Nations Secretary-General (Antonio Guterres) for an immediate and sustained humanitarian ceasefire," Grandi told the Forum.

Grandi also called for the immediate release of all hostages, echoing the resolution that passed the UN General Assembly yesterday calling for a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

The High Commissioner also called for a genuine dialogue between Israel and Hamas, which Grandi said would result in a "real peace and security to the people of Israel and Palestine."

Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has been ongoing since Resistance Forces in Palestine launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, breaking through Gaza's security fence and assaulting Israeli settlements on October 7th.

Since the beginning of the Occupation's aggression in October, at least 18'412 Palestinians have been killed and another 50'100 have been wounded.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[coochiequeens]

Does this guy have citizenship in New Zealand? Would this impact this guys chances of gaining citizenship?

The trans activist at the center of controversy after assaulting English women’s rights advocate Kellie-Jay Keen in Auckland, New Zealand, is a representative for the United Nations who was invited to speak at the UN on International Women’s Day, March 8, a revelation that is now beginning to circulate on social media.

Eliana Rubashkyn, also known as Eliana Golberstein and Eliana Rubinstein, is a male who identifies as transgender and intersex, and uses “they/them” pronouns. Rubashkyn is originally Jewish-Ukrainian from Colombia, but currently lives in New Zealand. He has worked with the UN as a Program Officer at ILGA World (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association).

Rubashkyn boasted about assaulting women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen on March 25 during what was supposed to be a peaceful women’s rights demonstration. Keen, also known by her moniker Posie Parker, had arranged for a speaking tour of New Zealand centered around giving women the platform to express their thoughts on gender ideology. But Keen was forced to cut the tour short after being met with extreme aggression at her first stop in Auckland.

As Keen stood in the rotunda at Albert Park in central Auckland, where the event was scheduled to be held, a mob of trans activists broke through the barriers. With no police in sight, Keen began to express concern about the safety of herself and her supporters as she streamed live on YouTube.

Among the hoard of trans activists was Rubashkyn, who had managed to get inside the bandstand by lying about his identity. As Keen approached, he then dumped a liter of tomato juice onto her and her security. Videos of the incident have since circulated on social media, and Rubashkyn told a local news station that he was able to approach Keen because he lied about his identity, and “they were not thinking that I am a trans person, because I’m intersex and trans but they can’t tell.”

In a statement on the act, Rubashkyn claimed that he targeted Keen because “her words are blood because they are killing our people.” He continued: “That tomato juice represents the blood of the people she is trying to kill.”

The last murder of a transgender person in New Zealand was in 2018. Zenith Campbell was murdered by Paddy Woods, his long-time boyfriend. Since Campbell’s death, however, two transgender New Zealanders have been charged with violent crimes — one of whom tortured a young girl to death.

On social media, Rubashkyn boasted of the attack on Keen, leading many women’s rights advocates to hone in on his Twitter feed.

The images of Rubashkyn at the United Nations were first revealed by women’s rights advocates, and then quickly shared by popular detransitioner Oli London,.

While many were shocked by Rubashkyn’s presence at the United Nations on International Women’s Day, his connections with the intergovernmental organization date back years.

While a student studying at the Taipei Medical University in September of 2013, Rubashkyn visited Hong Kong to update his passport. He had begun taking estrogen the year prior and wanted to update his photograph, but the Colombian consulate in Hong Kong was the closest place he could do it. 

After arriving in Hong Kong, Rubashkyn claims he was subjected to mistreatment by the Hong Kong border authorities, and contacted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees through Amnesty International. The High Commissioner provided Rubashkyn protection under the stipulation he surrender his passport, at which point he was allowed to enter the country.

Without a passport, Rubashkyn became a stateless person, and was effectively stuck in Hong Kong for several months where he faced deportation back to Colombia. While in Hong Kong, Rubashkyn fought to have his legal gender marker changed to “female” in contravention of Hong Kong law, which stipulated that a person must go through genital alteration prior to being legally recognized as the opposite sex. In April of 2014, with the assistance of the United Nations, he became the first transgender person to be recognized as his self-declared “gender” in Hong Kong despite not having undergone any surgeries.

By late 2014, Rubashkyn had been moved to New Zealand where he then fought for refugee status and was granted asylum in May of 2014. The next year, he paid for his Israeli boyfriend to meet him in Auckland where the two married while Rubashkyn studied at a local university. 

According to his LinkedIn, Rubashkyn currently works as a pharmacist, and he is also a Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Officer with the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association via the United Nations.

It is currently unclear what actions, if any, will be taken against Rubashkyn for his attack on Kellie-Jay Keen during the March 25 demonstration. According to the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961, Rubashkyn may have committed assault when he threw tomato juice on Keen and her security guard. The legal definition of assault is very broad in New Zealand, covering any situation where an individual directly or indirectly applies force against another person’s body. Community Law New Zealandnotes that this “includes when you do this indirectly – by throwing something for example.”

But despite Rubashkyn admitting to the act, the Prime Minister of New Zealand has refused to state whether any assaults committed during the Let Women Speak demonstration will be properly investigated by police.

During a press conference today, The Platform reporter Sean Plunket asked PM Chris Hipkins if he could give “general assurance” that justice would be pursued. 

“Those are matters for the commissioner of police,” Hipkins responded curtly, re-stating the line when pressed further.

By Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve is the Co-Founder of Reduxx, and the outlet's Chief Investigative Journalist with a focused interest in pornography, sexual predators, and fetish subcultures. She is the creator of the podcast Women's Voices, which features news commentary and interviews regarding women's rights.

Of all people they could have quoted why did it have to be Oli London? Couldn’t they find a detransitioned person with less controversy?

[biglisbonnews]

UN and partners appeal for $116 million as hundreds of thousands flee Somalia to Ethiopia Countries: Ethiopia, Somalia Sources: GOAL, Norwegian Refugee Council, UN Children's Fund, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Population Fund, World Food Programme The humanitarian situation on the ground is dire, with moderate acute malnutrition observed in many children under five and in pregnant and nursing mothers. There is a high risk of disease outbreaks. https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/hundreds-thousands-flee-somalia-ethiopia-un-and-partners-call-urgent-funding

[davidalxnder]

Latest edit for UNHCR featured in TIME:

[nando161mando]

"Braverman denying asylum seekers £3 a week payment for healthy food for children under 3 and pregnant women, found to be unlawful"

Seeing as Cruella's been found to be breaking UK Law AGAIN, when's she going to deport herself to Rwanda? 🤔

If she's conflicted over the rules she enthusiastically enforces on others, I'll buy her a commercial one way ticket to Kigali International Airport myself... 🤷🏾‍♂️"

[dragoneyes618]

By now we’re all too familiar with the woke litany of white privilege; all white people are irredeemably racist oppressors; all people of color are eternally victims; people of color can’t be racist because being racist depends on having power and non-whites have none. (This latter should come as news to the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, as well as the Mayors of New York, Chicago, and other major cities, the Lieutenant Governors of Virginia and North Carolina, etc.)

A corollary to this ludicrous philosophy is that Jews, who are often considered to be “white adjacent,” notwithstanding that a majority of Israeli Jews are themselves people of color from the Middle East or North Africa, are labeled as oppressors having “Jewish privilege.” What, pray tell, is Jewish privilege? The privilege of being persecuted for millennia? Our temporary economic success in America, which is increasingly being rolled back as the tide of DEI pushes Jews out of corporate America and universities, making it increasingly difficult to be accepted into medical, law, or other professional schools? The privilege of being assaulted on the streets of our major cities and the campuses of our elite universities? As John Stossel would say, “Give me a break!”

In fact, I submit that the real racial privilege in operation today is Palestinian privilege. Before proceeding we should emphasize that unlike the Leftist myth that all whites, even the poorest of the poor in Appalachia, benefit from “white privilege,” in the case of Palestinians the main beneficiaries are their leaders who live in luxury in Qatar and elsewhere on funds skimmed from the billions of dollars in alms they receive from the U.S., the European Union, and other guilt-ridden parties. Let me cite a few examples:

Of all the refugee populations in recent history, only the Palestinians have their own dedicated United Nations relief agency, UNRWA, which serves to keep them permanently in refugee camps awaiting their triumphant return to the land of Israel. All others come under the aegis of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and are resettled in countries that will accept them. There are countries willing to accept Palestinian immigrants, but that solution is unacceptable to the UN and most of its member nations.

Moreover, only the Palestinians are able to inherit refugee status from one generation to the next. Very few of the Arabs who left the Palestine Mandate (Eretz Yisrael) at the urging of their leaders to make room for the invading armies that were expected to drive the Jews into the Mediterranean remain alive. Today’s “Palestinian refugees” are largely their descendants to the fourth and even fifth generations.

Besides keeping the Palestinian “refugees” in squalor, UNRWA works hand-in-hand with their leaders in making their facilities available for storing weapons, in teaching Palestinian children from kindergarten on to hate Jews and want to kill and be killed as “holy” martyrs, providing the hate-filled textbooks they use, and employing members of Hamas as teachers. Some UNRWA employees and affiliates even participated in the slaughter of October 7, as did hundreds of “innocent” Gazan “civilians” who followed the terrorists across the border to participate in the murderous orgy.

Palestinians in Area C, which under the Oslo accords is supposed to be under Israeli security control, are building thousands of illegal structures funded by the European Union in order to encircle and cut off the Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria in preparation for the expulsion of the half million Israelis living beyond the green line, to be aided by American sanctions. They even destroy or discard any Jewish artifacts they find to promote their fiction that Jews have no connections to the Holy Land, with the full cooperation of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which has declared everything from the Temple Mount to the Cave of Machpelah outside Hebron, where our Patriarchs and Matriarchs are buried, as “Palestinian historic sites.” The Israeli government has allowed these practices to proceed virtually unopposed, presumably fearing the reaction of the Western world in the event of interference with the Palestinian project.

In the past three years, during the Biden administration, Palestinian privilege has been elevated to new heights. The U.S. State Department, staffed with anti-Zionist activists at the upper levels, has appropriated funds for investigating supposed Israeli misconduct in Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank). The policy on Israeli “settlements” has reverted back from the Trump policy that they aren’t illegal under international law, and, some say, even from Trump’s predecessors, to the Carter administration policy that they are illegal. The Biden administration, alleging widespread “settler violence,” (most of which is actually self-defense against Palestinian attackers) has begun sanctioning individuals and communities, with the full cooperation of Israeli banks in de-banking these people.

In academia, the delegitimization of Israel is proceeding apace, led by the elite universities, especially by Departments of Middle East Studies, which are largely funded by Qatar. Every Palestinian-inspired accusation of Israeli “genocide,” (even though the Palestinian population has increased sevenfold since 1948) is breathlessly reported and amplified by both the global and American media, and even when the lies are disproved, as in the case of the false report that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza when in fact the explosion was the result of a rocket fired by the Palestinians fell short of its target in Israel and landed in the parking lot (not to mention that the casualty figures were inflated by a factor of ten), retractions are slow in coming, if at all. The same calumnies are now being spread by K-12 teachers across the nation, most notably in Berkeley, California, the birthplace of contemporary student radicalism. After a day or two of sympathy for the Israeli victims – as Dara Horn writes, “People love dead Jews” (just not live ones), even before the Israelis counter-attacked, the world transferred its sympathies to the Gazan civilians, even though they elected Hamas and the great majority still support terrorism and even participated in the slaughter, as previously mentioned.

The Biden-Harris administration is increasingly working to assure the survival of Hamas, as exemplified by the Vice-President’s warning of potential consequences for Israel if it enters Rafah and most recently by abstaining, rather than vetoing, a resolution sponsored by the ten non-permanent members of the UN Security Council and supported by Russia and China, calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza for the month of Ramadan not directly linked to release of hostages leading to a permanent cease-fire. (The latter two tyrannies had earlier vetoed an American resolution that called for a cease-fire linked to hostage release.) There is widespread speculation by supporters of Israel that this action was undertaken to mollify Islamist voters in Michigan and Nevada in advance of the November elections. Going further, the administration has proposed an extraterritorial pier to supply “humanitarian aid” to Gaza under the control of Hamas’ ally Qatar, which assures that it will be used to smuggle jihadis and advanced weapons to the terrorists.

The UN Secretary-General, while deploring the October 7 atrocities, said they didn’t happen in a vacuum, implying that they were justified by Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians.

President Biden, after initially expressing doubt about Hamas’s claim of 30,000 casualties, all civilian, was so chastised on every side that he now accepts all such claims as gospel truth. He now says that Israel has “gone too far” while failing to acknowledge that Israel’s ratio of civilians to terrorist fighters killed is scarcely more than 1:1, the lowest such ratio in modern history, and experienced field commanders such as British Colonel Richard Kemp, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as John Spencer, the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, who served two tours in Iraq and has made two visits to Gaza during the current war to observe operations there, assert that the IDF is the most moral army in the world, exceeding even the US and the UK in its efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

[tieflingkisser]

Level of brutality against civilians in Sudan's war reached unprecedented heights: UNHCR

It’s the first anniversary of the battle for power in Sudan. 12 months of fighting has killed at least 30,000 Sudanese, forced millions from their homes and put millions more on the brink of famine. There's no end in sight to the fighting between government troops and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary. Kelly Clements is the UN Refugee Agency's Deputy High Commissioner and she urges urgent action as Sudan's conflict reaches new heights, stressing dire funding gap imperiling millions.

[thoughtlessarse]

The EU supports, finances and is involved in clandestine operations in North African countries to dump tens of thousands of Black people in the desert or remote areas each year to prevent them from coming to Europe, according to an investigative report published on Tuesday. The year-long investigation was carried out by Lighthouse Reports, an investigative consortium, in collaboration with among others Washington Post, Der Spiegel, El Pais and Le Monde. The investigation focused on migrants in Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia trying to reach Europe. In a previous investigation published in December 2023, Lighthouse reported that the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) had been sharing coordinates of migrant boats in distress in the Mediterranean Sea with a vessel run by a militia in eastern Libya. In the new investigation, the Lighthouse team interviewed survivors and spoke with current and former EU staff members, as well as sources within national police forces and international organisations with a presence in the countries where the dumps are taking place. Using freedom of information laws, Lighthouses was also able to obtain internal documents. According to Lighthouse, the team established that the EU is well aware of the dump operations and sometimes directly involved. Two senior EU sources said it was “impossible” to fully account for the way in which European funding was used. The International Organization of Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are also aware of the operations. The internal documents obtained by Lighthouse show that EU officials had held internal discussions on some of the abusive practices since at least 2019. Crucially, the team matched vehicles used during the round-up and expulsions to vehicles provided by European countries by identifying tenders and carrying out visual analyses. “When they see a black guy, they come,” said 25-year-old Lamine from Guinea who was detained, beaten and dumped in the desert by Moroccan forces despite having refugee papers from UNHCR. In many cases the dump sites are rife with organised crime and trafficking rings, and victims are enslaved and tortured.

continue reading

[eretzyisrael]

In early 2018, President Donald Trump froze a large portion of the funding that the United States provides annually for UNRWA (the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees a in the Near East). Prior to imposing the $125 million freeze, Trump tweeted: "[W]e pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect."

The president's move came in response to the fact that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen yet again were rejectingAmerican and Israeli peace overtures. Yet it was both welcome and necessary for reasons well beyond Palestinian intransigence. UNRWA not only has an abominable record of ties to terrorism, which makes a mockery of its mandate to " provide relief, human development and protection services;" but its entire existence is based on a false premise -- a special UN definition of "refugee" for Palestinians that sets them apart from other people in the world categorized as such. It thus has been able for decades to keep cash flowing freely into its coffers, providing "humanitarian services" for millions of Palestinians who are not refugees by any measure. As the ZOA's Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel recently wrote:

"All this stands in stark contrast to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the international body that deals with all refugee problems other than the Palestinian Arabs. UNHRC observes a universal definition of refugee status, one that applies solely to those who actually fled their country during hostilities, civil war, natural disaster, or other disturbances. UNHCR works to resettle refugees quickly and dismantle the temporary refugee camps housing them. Nor does it count descendants as refugees. "This has immense practical ramifications: in literally all other cases other than the Palestinian Arabs, the number of refugees shrinks over time — chiefly through successful resettlement. In contrast, in the Palestinian Arab case, their numbers continue to expand ceaselessly. "Thus, instead of the living original refugees officially numbering 30,000, UNRWA now services some 5.3 million Palestinian Arabs."

The actual number of Palestinian refugees is likely even lower than that cited by the authors: a classified State Department report, delivered to Congress in 2015, reveals it to be closer to 20,000. The report showed that billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled over the years into an organization that seems to have been perpetuating a fraud. It is no wonder, then, that the Obama administration kept the report's contents a secret from the American public. More surprising is the fact that, since the report was first submitted to Congress in 2015 -- and subsequently exposed by the Washington Free Beacon in January, 2018 -- it has yet to be made public. To rectify this situation, fifty-one members of the House of Representatives signed a letter on April 18 -- spurred by the Middle East Forum -- calling on Trump to declassify the report.

The letter reads, in part:

"We commend your leadership in guiding the U.S.-Israel relationship to its best years in recent history, and also for finally recognizing that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel...an important step in reaching a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We have tremendous confidence that you will continue taking such steps to resolve the conflict, and encourage you to next address the so-called 'Palestinian refugee' population "America has provided $1 billion to ...UNRWA over the last four fiscal years, and nearly $6 billion since UNRWA's inception in 1950. We are concerned that American taxpayer dollars are not being used properly. Your withholding of funds from UNRWA in January on the condition that they reform was a tremendous first step. American taxpayers deserve to know how they tax dollars are spent on Palestinian refugees and their descendants. "In order to investigate the matter, the Senate Report 112-172 to the Department of State, Foreign Operations, And Related Programs Appropriations bill in 2012 directed the Department of State to issue a report to Congress detailing 'the approximate number of people who, in the past year, have received UNRWA services: (1) whose place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 and who were displaces as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict; and (2) who are [their] descendants... "...Finally, in 2015, the Obama State Department delivered the mandated report to Congress in classified form despite no apparent national security threat or known historical precedent...We believe this classification was inappropriate and a deliberate attempt to conceal information from American taxpayers... "We respectfully request that you instruct the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to declassify this report. The issue of the so-called Palestinian 'right of return' of 5.3 million refugees to Israel as part of any 'peace deal' is an unrealistic demand, and we do not believe it accurately reflects the number of actual Palestinian refugees..."

Pictured: Ann Dismorr (right), the Director of UNRWA in Lebanon, poses with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine." (Image source: Palestinian Authority TV via Palestinian Media Watch)

Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"