U.S. abstention on anti-Israel UNRWA vote marks ‘dangerous backslide’ in policy at U.N.

"The United States voted last week to abstain on a resolution concerning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the U.N.’s agency that handles Palestinian refugees—part of several resolutions put forth in the U.N. General Assembly concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that largely targeted Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.

The text, called 'Assistance to Palestinian Refugees,' demands 'compensation' for descendants of Palestinian refugees who lost property when they fled their homes, as well as an unlimited 'right of return' for Palestinian refugees to a sovereign Israel...

[T]he decision by the Biden administration to switch to abstention on the UNRWA vote marked a shift from the Trump administration, which had uniformly voted against such anti-Israel votes at the United Nations.

'This is basically a regression going back to the Obama administration’s policies,' Asaf Romirowsky, executive director for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and UNRWA expert, told JNS.

'UNRWA hasn’t changed any of their policies or behaviors; in fact, since the Gaza conflict in May, their terrorist activity and incitement to violence has increased.'

Romirowsky said he believes this is part of the Biden administration’s goal to undo many of the previous policies of the Trump administration without any thought to the ramifications of such moves...

Romirowsky dismissed claims that the Biden administration can reform UNRWA.

He said agency officials 'haven’t done anything on their end to prove trustworthiness or prove they are ready for the money. In fact, they have actually become worse, and the Gaza war in May only proves that.'”