U.S. congressmen and Israeli officials team up to take on UN agency

"Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) headed to Washington DC Monday morning for meetings with Trump administration officials and members of Congress, in part to promote the Foreign Ministry's efforts to end the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the special status it has extended to generations of Arabs living across the Middle East.

While most refugees supported by the United Nations are aided through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), aid to Palestinian Arabs claiming refugee status has been administered by UNRWA.

Unlike UNHCR, UNRWA has permitted Arab refugees to transmit their status to their descendants, creating second, third, fourth, and even fifth-generation "refugees" who born and raised in Arab states including Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, yet categorized by the UN as "Palestinian refugees". While the UNRWA counted some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs as refugees in 1949, the number has risen nearly sevenfold since, with over 5 million now claiming refugee status through UNRWA.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry and some members of Congress have called for an end to the perpetual refugee status accorded to Palestinian Arabs, pushing for UNRWA to be dissolved as an independent agency and incorporated into the larger UNHCR...

Senator Ted Cruz (Texas-R), who earlier this year proposed the US nix funding for the UN over its anti-Israel bias, is scheduled to meet with Hotovely during her Washington trip to coordinate their efforts against the UN agency..."