by Rosie Alfatlawi
As the U.S. cuts planned funding for UNRWA, its ambassador to the U.N. has come under fire for backing the move after tweeting about refugee girls’ “hopes and dreams” only months ago.
Many on Twitter have highlighted a visit by Nikki Haley to a camp run by the agency for Palestinian refugees in June, suggesting she had turned her back on those she met.
On Tuesday the U.S. State Department told UNWRA that it would withhold $65 million of an anticipated $125 million aid package.
Haley has championed the slash to U.S. support for five million displaced Palestinians in the occupied territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
“The President has basically said he doesn’t want to give any additional funding, or stop funding, until the Palestinians agree to come back to the negotiation table,” she said earlier this month.
“As of now, they’re not coming to the table, but they ask for aid,” she continued. “We’re not giving the aid. We’re going to make sure that they come to the table.”
While U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has reportedly supported partial suspensions of funding, Haley has pushed funding to be wiped out instead.
Only seven months ago, in contrast, Haley had tweeted that “this morning we visited an UNRWA refugee camp & had the chance to talk with girls & women about their lives, their hopes, & their dreams.”
This morning we visited an UNRWA refugee camp & had the chance to talk with girls & women about their lives, their hopes, & their dreams. pic.twitter.com/7CSvnu2xHG
— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) June 8, 2017
Branded a “hypocrite” by some, many have been retweeting her post from June 8 to highlight the apparent shift in her position.
The epitome of hypocrisy! How dare her cashing in politically while smiling and praising the very same children she’s destroying.
— Doctor of Love, Despises Apartheid (@TheTardisDoc) January 16, 2018
@AkshayaSays tweeted: “Just six months ago Amb. @nikkihaley was visiting Palestinian refugees and talking to them about their hopes & their dreams.
Now Trump administration is withholding $65m from UNRWA, which supports schools, medical clinics and scholarships for university study.”
And today you and your boss President Trump helped make sure their hopes and dreams would be dashed by cutting funds to UNRWA https://t.co/Rmuhb5MVaa
— (((YousefMunayyer))) (@YousefMunayyer) January 16, 2018
Adding to the apparent inconsistency, the diplomat had previously assured her U.N. colleagues that she would protect U.S. funding for Palestinian children's education, according to website Foreign Policy.
“Today, @NikkiHaley took away their hopes, their dreams, their education, their health care and their food,” added @HumanityStrong. “By cutting #UNRWA funding, she is using Palestinian children as a bargaining chip.”
Haley has been accused of demanding funds be completely cut off as “punishment” for Palestinian opposition to U.S. policy.
This comes after her behaviour at the U.N. was branded a “diplomacy of revenge” when she warned that the U.S. would “take names” of those who voted in favor of a resolution condemning U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to begin transferring the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Others on Twitter have responded to her original post, asserting she had exploited the girls for a photo opportunity and asking: “Did you tell the girls that you support cutting UNRWA funding?”
Food, education, healthcare and social services are all supported by the agency, and experts have warned that cutting U.S. funding in half will be “devastating.”
Executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth tweeted on Tuesday that the U.S. was "holding Palestinian kids' humanitarian needs hostage to political agendas."
Haley has been at the forefront of controversy over Trump’s policy on Palestine. Last month, she called the U.N. “hostile to Israel” during a special U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to relocate the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Trump himself took to Twitter early this year to threaten cuts to UNRWA funding unless the Palestinian Authority resumed peace talks, a position staunchly backed by Haley.
...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018
The P.A. had indicated it would not support a peace plan proposed by the U.S. after Trump’s Jerusalem move, saying it was no longer an honest broker for peace.
