[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 428 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. CON. RES. 428

 Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take 
 immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the 
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) 
     in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, 
              employment, or other support to terrorists.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 24, 2008

   Mr. Rothman (for himself, Mr. Burton of Indiana, Ms. Berkley, Mr. 
     Engel, Mr. Israel, and Mrs. Tauscher) submitted the following 
 concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
                                Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of Congress that the United Nations should take 
 immediate steps to improve the transparency and accountability of the 
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) 
     in the Near East to ensure that it is not providing funding, 
              employment, or other support to terrorists.

Whereas the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in 
        the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949 as a temporary agency to 
        provide relief services to Palestinian refugees and is the only United 
        Nations agency dedicated to one specific group of refugees;
Whereas UNRWA's definition of refugees includes not only the Palestinian 
        refugees themselves, but also their descendants, resulting in a more 
        than 400 percent increase in the number of beneficiaries from 900,000 in 
        1950 to 4,500,000 today;
Whereas since 1950, the United States has contributed more than $3,400,000,000 
        to UNRWA and is the largest single donor to this United Nations 
        organization;
Whereas as of September 2008, the United States has already contributed 
        $148,000,000 to UNRWA for fiscal year 2008;
Whereas UNRWA employs approximately 24,000 staff to care for a population of 
        4,500,000 registered refugees in camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, the 
        Syrian Arab Republic, and the Palestinian Territories;
Whereas, in contrast, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 
        the agency tasked with resolving refugee problems worldwide, employs 
        approximately 6,300 staff to care for a population of 11,400,000 
        refugees worldwide;
Whereas despite the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) military disengagement from 
        Gaza in 2005 and the 1993 creation of a Palestinian Authority that has 
        jurisdiction over the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and the West 
        Bank, UNRWA remains the primary professional, medical, educational, and 
        social service provider for Palestinians living in ``refugee'' camps in 
        the Palestinian territories;
Whereas according to UNRWA Report of the Board of Auditors for the biennium 
        ended December 31, 2005, UNRWA does not track recording, deleting, 
        renaming, or manipulation of financial information by staff members or 
        volunteers, and therefore has no means of detecting the alteration of 
        financial data or other types of redirection of UNRWA funding, leaving 
        UNRWA unable to technically comply with section 301(c) of the Foreign 
        Assistance Act of 1961, which ensures that no United States tax dollars 
        support terrorism;
Whereas UNRWA has employed staffers affiliated with terrorism, including Said 
        Sayyam, the Hamas Minister of Interior and Civil Affairs, who was a 
        teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003; Awad al-Qiq, the 
        headmaster of an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip who also led Islamic 
        Jihad's engineering unit that built bombs and Qassam rockets; Nahed 
        Rashid Ahmed Atallah, a prior senior UNRWA employee from 1990 to 1993 
        who was responsible for the dissemination of assistance to refugees 
        while he was also an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation 
        of Palestine; and Nidal Abd al-Fattah Abdallah Nazzal, a Hamas activist 
        employed as an ambulance driver by UNRWA, who confessed in 2002 to 
        transporting weapons and explosives to terrorists in an UNRWA ambulance;
Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have reported to have produced several 
        graduates that have gone on to careers affiliated with terrorism, 
        including Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and Abd al-Azis Rantisi, 
        the former Hamas chief;
Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have used classroom materials that glorify 
        or honor terrorists or terrorism in the past, and continue to use 
        textbooks that include biased and negative references to Jews and the 
        State of Israel, or omit any reference of Israel's location on a map 
        entirely;
Whereas in 2004, Peter Hansen, then-Commissioner General of UNRWA told Canadian 
        Broadcasting Corporation TV Network, ``I am sure that there are Hamas 
        members on UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime.'';
Whereas in 2006, at a Congressional briefing UNRWA Commissioner General Karen 
        Koning AbuZayd admitted to not checking the names of those who receive 
        financial aid from UNRWA against any terrorist watch lists, noting that 
        it would be too difficult because ``Arab last names sound so familiar'';
Whereas, on March 16, 2007, the New York Times exposed a new al-Qaeda cell, 
        Fatah al-Islam, that was organizing, training, and plotting attacks 
        against the United States from an UNRWA-administered and run camp in 
        Lebanon; and
Whereas United States taxpayer dollars should never be used for purposes of 
        supporting terrorist cells or activities that support terror or promote 
        a culture of hatred at any of its locations: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), 
That Congress--
            (1) strongly urges the Secretary of State to take all 
        necessary measures to certify that United Nations Relief and 
        Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) operates in full 
        compliance with section 301(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act 
        and therefore, no American taxpayer dollars are being directed 
        to terrorists or to further terrorist propaganda;
            (2) calls on UNRWA to improve their transparency by 
        publishing online copies of all educational materials used in 
        UNRWA-administered schools; and
            (3) urges UNRWA to improve their accountability by 
        implementing terrorist name recognition software and other 
        screening procedures that would help to ensure that UNRWA 
        staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries are neither terrorists 
        themselves, nor affiliated with known terrorist organizations.
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