The Palestinian plot to end-run Trump at the UN

"The Palestinians want your money, and they're trying to make an end run around Congress to get it.

On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly will vote on a resolution to change the way a Palestinian-centered agency is financed. For years, only a fraction of the funds for the UN Relief and Work Agency, which is dedicated exclusively to benefit Palestinians, came from UN budgets; 90 percent of the agency's ever-growing needs were financed voluntarily by donor countries.

The resolution, sponsored by a large group of countries sympathetic to the Palestinians, will recommend 'a gradual increase in the support provided to [UNRWA] from the regular budget of the UN' by next year. Plus, mandatory fees in the past could only fund the salaries of non-Palestinian workers; the new resolution removes that restriction as well...

Why are Palestinians pushing this resolution now?

One reason is their bad press is multiplying: UNRWA teachers preach anti-Israel propaganda; Hamas uses agency infirmaries and other installations to hide arms; attack tunnels are dug under Gaza schools. And they're aware that Congress, understandably, is increasingly skeptical about this Hamas-influenced agency...

America, by far, is the largest contributor. In 2015, the last year listed on UNRWA's Web site, Washington voluntarily contributed $380,593,116. Next in line, the European Commission, paid less than half of that, $136,751,943.

Palestinians stand to lose in any congressional re-evaluation of agency funding. No wonder they want countries you never heard of, rather than your representative in Congress, to decide how many of your tax dollars will go to UNRWA...

Congress should fight fire with fire. If the UN wants to make an end run around them, legislators must threaten to freeze all UNRWA funds, and do so before December, when the new UN budget is finalized.

More broadly, Congress should threaten to go full John Bolton: The former US ambassador to Turtle Bay has long argued all America's UN contributions should be voluntary, rather than having them assessed by UN budget committees.

That'll scare them."