Weaponizing humanitarian aid: Trump cuts us funds to Palestinians

Trump’s decision to weaponize humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail won’t work.

In yet another move to appease the usurper regime of Israel and weaponize humanitarian aid, the United States cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians, amid a deteriorating relationship with the Palestinian leadership.

The decision came after the Palestinian leadership angered the White House by boycotting its so-called peace efforts and after President Donald Trump recognized Al-Quds as Israel’s capital and moved the embassy there, disclosing more openly decades of US policy. The move was condemned by the international community, including the United Nations.

However, Trump’s decision to weaponize humanitarian and developmental aid as political blackmail won’t work. It won’t force the Palestinians to what they call the ‘negotiating table’. The illegal cuts might exacerbate hardship in Gaza, an enclave that has been under Israeli and Egypt blockades for more than ten years now. But that’s all really. The blockade violates standard international law on the status of refugees, has no international support, and as always, will go nowhere.

On the other hand, Trump’s decision to end funding to the UNRWA that administers to Palestinian refugees will damage everyone in the region, including the Zionist regime of Israel and the United States. Contrary to what Trump might assume, US funding to UNRWA is not a favor to the Palestinian people or to the Palestinian government. It is, in fact, a favor to Israel. As any occupying regime, Israel is obliged, under International Humanitarian Law, to ensure the welfare and well-being of the occupied population, including maintaining public order and public health and providing food and medical care. These are among the forms of assistance that UNRWA delivers to the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and as refugees in neighboring countries, which has derailed attention from Israeli defiance of its international undertakings in this very same sphere.

When UNRWA fulfills its UN mandate, it is fulfilling its own responsibilities and not those of Israel. Hence, the usurper regime of Israel retains ultimate responsibility for meeting these required obligations. But, if the UN agency is ever unable to continue to provide these services, then more attention will be paid to Israel's defiance and lack of respect for international law, meaning that there will then be more international pressure on Tel Aviv to comply with its duty as the occupying regime.

Therefore, when the US grants $300 million in annual contributions to help UNRWA heal, educate and shelter Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it is, in fact, adding a stipend of $300 million to its far more generous $5 billion annual contribution to Israel.

It is ironic that with the same $300 million in grants, Israel can buy F-15s or Apache helicopters — US-made weapons — which it uses to make another kind of delivery, bombs and missiles, to Gaza and Palestine and occasionally to neighboring countries.

Despite the asymmetry of his government’s ‘generosity’, therefore, Trump demands gratitude from UNRWA’s beneficiaries — the besieged people of Gaza and the millions of refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria but not from Israel.

As for that illusive peace table that Trump keeps referring to, he should be reminded that Washington has found a faster and easier path to “peace” that dispenses with tables as well as with fairness to, and equality between, the parties. Instead, the Trump administration has chosen unilateral decrees on the final-status issues — not only deciding for the parties but also doing so consistently in favor of one party – in this case the brutal, child killer Israel.

In brief, Trump shouldn’t bother inviting the Palestinians to a table when everything has seemingly been determined: Al-Quds is the rogue capital of Israel; the Palestinian refugees are no longer refugees and therefore no longer have a right of return; the illegal settlements in the West Bank will define the borders of Israel; and Israel is a uniquely Zionists settled territory, although more than a third of its citizens are Muslim and Christian.

By cutting aid to Palestine, Trump made it absolutely clear one more time that the pro-Israel US policy is in no way designed to help those who want peace and security in the Holy Land. This colonialist policy also is in no way intended to help American standing in the region or in the world at large. It only helps Israel to shrug off its responsibility as an occupier and usurper. This makes the Trump White House complicit in Israeli crimes and atrocities in occupied Palestine.
How can a foreign policy forged through lies, deceit, and blackmail ever succeed? Someday soon the American people will wake from the big coma they suffer from collectively, only to wonder at what could have gone wrong. Whether you watch the “fake” or “real” news these days, insanity stares back at you from your smartphone screen. Here’s a window looking in on the madness. The madness that may destroy America’s friendships abroad, it is at hand.

Forget for the moment that Trump has put his real estate investor son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – that fact is only an insult to the Americans’ intelligence and to the Palestinian people. One won’t get into Kushner’s ties to Goldman Sachs or George Soros. What’s more important to understand is the absolute “end” of a so-called solution to the Western made crisis of Palestine. You read that correctly.

Back to Trump’s son-in-law and Israel’s chip in the peace process. Charles Kushner, Jared’s dad, was once of Bibi Netanyahu’s best pals when it came to West Bank Settlement. Trump is in Netanyahu’s pocket, this is the overall message one may relate here, but there is another message.

While all of Washington is playing out a diversion with “RussiaGate,”the real foreign meddling centers in Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh. Worse still, a US president acted in a TV commercial to help an Israeli prime minister get elected. Here is what Donald Trump said on camera for Bibi Netanyahu:

He said to the camera, “My name is Donald Trump, and I’m a big fan of Israel”. “And, frankly, a strong Prime Minister is a strong Israel. And you truly have a great Prime Minister in Benjamin Netanyahu. There’s nobody like him. He’s a winner. He’s highly respected. He’s highly thought of by all. And people really do have great, great respect for what’s happened in Israel. So vote for Benjamin. Terrific guy. Terrific leader. Great for Israel.”

For those of you focused on Vladimir Putin and Russia as the enemies of America, let’s consider the mean-spirited little bully hiding in the corner of the world playground. Israel, with Washington and certain Persian Gulf states standing behind, will soon eradicate any dream Palestinians had to a fair settlement of this gruesome affair. God knows what will become of them. The world has turned a blind eye. The United Nations has no teeth in the matter, and therefore no validity or jurisdiction in any of affairs. Israel winning it all may at first appear as an American victory, but the real hegemony will be revealed.

By Phil Butler, a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe; and with courtesy of Fars News Agency