Jared Kushner pressing to strip Palestinians in Jordan of refugee status - Polidicks

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/03/trump-palestinians-israel-refugees-unrwaand-allies-seek-end-to-refugee-status-for-millions-of-palestinians-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-unrwa-israel-palestine-peace-plan-jared-kushner-greenb/ Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, has quietly been trying to do away with the U.N. relief agency that has provided food and essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees for decades, according to internal emails obtained by Foreign Policy. His initiative is part of a broader push by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress to strip these Palestinians of their refugee status in the region and take their issue off the table in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to both American and Palestinian officials. At least two bills now making their way through Congress address the issue. Kushner, whom Trump has charged with solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been reluctant to speak publicly about any aspect of his Middle East diplomacy. A peace plan he’s been working on with other U.S. officials for some 18 months has been one of Washington’s most closely held documents. But his position on the refugee issue and his animus toward the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is evident in internal emails written by Kushner and others earlier this year. “It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote about the agency in one of those emails, dated Jan. 11 and addressed to several other senior officials, including Trump’s Middle East peace envoy, Jason Greenblatt. “This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace,” he wrote. The United States has helped fund UNRWA since it was formed in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians displaced from their homes following the establishment of the State of Israel and ensuing international war. Previous administrations have viewed the agency as a critical contributor to stability in the region. Critics of the agency point in particular to its policy of granting refugee status not just to those who fled Mandatory Palestine 70 years ago but to their descendants as well—accounting that puts the refugee population at around 5 million, nearly one-third of whom live in camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza. By trying to unwind UNRWA, the Trump administration appears ready to reset the terms of the Palestinian refugee issue in Israel’s favor—as it did on another key issue in December, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In the same January email, Kushner wrote: “Our goal can’t be to keep things stable and as they are. … Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.” Kushner raised the refugee issue with officials in Jordan during a visit to the region in June, along with Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt. According to Palestinian officials, he pressed the Jordan to strip its more than 2 million registered Palestinians of their refugee status so that UNRWA would no longer need to operate t here. Kushner and Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, both proposed ending funding for UNRWA back in January. But the State Department, the Pentagon, and the U.S. intelligence community all opposed the idea, fearing in part that it could fuel violence in the region. The following week, the State Department announced that that United States would cut the first $125 million installment of its annual payment to UNRWA by more than half, to $60 million. “UNRWA has been threatening us for six months that if they don’t get a check they will close schools. Nothing has happened,” Kushner wrote in the same email.

Who in the fuck does this actually help? Aside from allowing the Israelis to control and possibly genocide another 5 million people, what does this do? These people already fled Palestine because you fucks drove them out with your settlements. Just let them be.

Fufilling a biblical narrative, I guess.

Reminder that Jared Kushner's company received a $30 million investment from an Israeli financial institution. This is Israel buying favorable policy from the White House. It's such blatant, in-your-face corruption.

Trying to be ready just in time for September, eh, Kushner? Interesting sense of humor.

God there's going to be so much stupid shit we'll have to undo once the administration changes. Hope someone's keeping a list.

From what I'm reading, it's supposedly helping save the US money by not needing to fund UNRWA as much as it does now. Except the US is already cutting back on funding for it regardless, so why Kushner gives a shit about reducing its "costs and expenses" is probably just blatant racism toward Arabs. A "kicking them in the balls when they're already down".

Best thing is the defense for this usually goes something like ”I didn't vote that way because of the money, they just agreed with that I already thought and sent my company 30 million as a "good work, we didn't tell you to do this" sign"

ah I see their middle east peace plan, make the problem go away therefore there is peace.

"A sincere effort to disrupt" sounds like an excellent summary of the administration in general. Also is it just me or does Kushner look like a more sinister Michael Cera?

How can he sleep at night doing these things?

reminder that the UNRWA uses a completely different definition of refugee that's used nowhere else and treats palestinians that are settled in other countries as equals to those that left during the Independence war. For them, DJ Khaled is as much of a Palestinian refugee as someone that was kicked out of his house in 48

You'd think Israel wouldn't want them back on their land, but here we are. So what are Israelis going to do once they are deported back to Palestine Israel? Put them back in the territory that they are trying to remove them from? I don't get it, and I'd like to think there is a lot more wordplay here like Svinnik said, but I really just don't see the point in forcing refugees back into the place they are trying to flee from, especially when you are trying to annex said areas.

That's why they are called 'ethnic' cleansing by international community. "As the situation widely deteriorates in the Gaza Strip, Israeli parliament member and law-maker Ayelet Shaked has stigmatized all Palestinians as terrorists, wishing death on all Palestinians while supporting the Israeli military assault. On Monday Shaked quoted this on her Facebook page: "Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.""They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists," said Shaked. Standing behind the operations on Gaza, "they are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists," Shaked added." 'Mothers of all Palestinians should also be killed,' says Israel..

So obviously the correct and moral move is to completely dismantle UNRWA and throw the lives of millions of legitimate refugees in turmoil, all at the behest of a foreign government bribing you to do so, as Jared Kushner is doing?