Evening Edition: How Will A New Trump Administration Handle Funding For The UN?
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Thursday, November 7th, 2024. I'm Eben Brown. Does a new Trump presidency change the U.S. and the U.N.'s relationship with Israel? And if it does, how so? The Trump administration will come in in January, I think.

You can bet your bottom dollar the Trump administration will deny any reinstatement. The freeze will be made final. And I think UNRWA is not going to get another U.S. dollar. This is the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition.

I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at Guy Benson show dot com.

It's been nearly four years since the Biden administration worked to reestablish certain groups funding, namely the U.N. Relief Works Agency in the Palestinian territories, UNRWA, agencies now known to have worked alongside with and shared resources and even manpower with Hamas and Hezbollah in their efforts to attack and destroy the state of Israel, namely also on the October 7th attacks.

Those funding cuts originally were engineered by the Trump administration. And there's a new one of those coming to power in January. One of the memorable actions by the Trump administration was an unprecedented cutting of funds. I think the only country to have done that before was the Canadian government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Hillel Neuer is an internationally renowned human rights lawyer and is the executive director of U.N. Watch.

who had done that around 2011. But otherwise, that's a relatively small amount compared to what the United States has been paying every year, which is well over $300 million. The Biden administration has given over $1 billion to UNRWA. And you're quite right, tragically, this is an agency that systematically employs terrorists. Let me make this very clear. It's not accidental. It's not a few bad apples.

This is an agency that has rotten to the core. Keep in mind, just over a month ago, Israel eliminated Israel.

terror chief, Fatih al-Sharif. He was the head of Hamas in Lebanon, eliminated. When he was killed, Hamas said, you killed our terror chief in Lebanon. They didn't use the words terror chief, but they said, you killed our leader in Lebanon. He also, his day job was principal of an UNRWA school, major school, and get this, head of the UNRWA teachers union in Lebanon. So the head of the teachers union in charge of thousands of teachers was the head of Hamas in Lebanon. That's not a one-off.

the same happened in Gaza. Sue Al-Hindi, head of the teachers union of UNRWA in Gaza, was on the Hamas pull-up bureau. He's still on the Hamas pull-up bureau. So,

UNRWA is infested with terrorists. They know it. We have photos. We have photos of the heads of UNRWA meeting with local officials, the heads of UNRWA, the one or two or three international people like Philippe Lazzarini, who's Swiss. 99% of UNRWA people are Palestinians. But the Swiss head of UNRWA, when he goes to Lebanon, he meets with people who are Hamas.

And this is systematic. And the U.S. was paying for it in the past three years. Now, after it was revealed that several UNRWA staff participated in the massacre of October 7th, then there was enormous pressure. The Republicans led legislation. The Democrats needed to pass some bipartisan bill to get foreign aid. So they agreed to it. It was an agreement. President Biden signed into law in March.

a one-year freeze on funding that ends on march for unruh and the biden administration said they want to reinstate it so the trump administration will come in in january i think you can bet your bottom dollar the trump administration will deny any reinstatement the freeze will be made final and i think unruh is not going to get another u.s dollar and that's a very powerful statement because

More than the money, you know, UNRWA, their budget is little over a billion dollars. They could get that funding in a second from Qatar and other wealthy Arab or Islamic states, but they want the funding because they want the legitimacy. And people have to understand UNRWA is not in its essence an aid agency.

There are many massive aid agencies that can give out food and medicine and all that. The UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, the WHO, they take care of millions of people around the world. The point of UNRWA is because their agenda, not really hidden, is to dismantle Israel. And by America denying a penny to that agency, they're saying, we will not legitimize that agenda of hate and destruction.

Do we have any reason to believe that a Trump 47 administration would would act any differently towards UNRWA than than the Trump 45 administration did? Certainly, President Trump, President-elect Trump, whichever title we're giving him at the moment, you know, hasn't signaled any change. But I would imagine it would be more of the same, wouldn't it?

Well, we're in a different time. You know, UNRWA was not really in the crosshairs of Israel. This is important to understand. The defenders of UNRWA say, oh, Netanyahu was always trying to destroy UNRWA. Israel always wanted to destroy UNRWA. Not true. Maybe they should have, but it's not true. The reality is that when Israel entered the territories of Gaza and Judea and Samaria in 1967, they said, UNRWA's there. It's managing things for Palestinians. We'll kind of let them take care of it. It gives some stability, and

And Israel allowed them to operate. What Israel didn't fully understand was what the agenda of UNRWA is. They didn't fully understand how Hamas in the past 20 years since Israel left Gaza basically subverted UNRWA. So we're in a different time now. Now we're in a time where the state of Israel, as you indicated, has outlawed UNRWA. Israel has passed a law saying that its officials cannot deal with UNRWA in any way.

And so the issue is really at the forefront. Israel has now put UNRWA in its crosshairs. So the issue back then when Trump 45 there was just defunding. But now it's much more sort of what will be the U.S. policy towards UNRWA in general. It'll be more than funding. And I think.

I think that the administration will take a more forceful stand, certainly in the past year. I've testified to the Congress four times, saw the strength of the Republican understanding of what UNRWA is. So I think we'll get a more forceful opposition to UNRWA than we even saw before.

On a wider scale of things, you know, there'll be a lot of there's always been a difference in how the Trump administration dealt with the U.N. as a whole, as opposed to the way the Biden administration has. The Biden administration has been a lot more deferential to the U.N. than the Trump fellows were. I would imagine we're kind of going to head back into that model.

i would i would say so look the biden administration it should be noted when when it came to a vote in most instances with a handful of exceptions the biden administration voted against anti-israel measures but beyond that you're quite right that the atmospherics of the biden administration were basically we love the un the un is great the un is wonderful and

You know, one could point to thousands and thousands of statements and tweets saying the UN is doing a great job. They were cheerleaders for the UN, even the Human Rights Council, which is an Orwellian body, 60 percent of whom include regimes like China, the Chinese Communist Party, which oppresses one fifth of humanity. The Qatari regime, which is funding terrorists, the Taliban, Hamas, the Cuban police state, which has hundreds of political prisoners.

They're all sitting on the Human Rights Council. This administration, the Biden administration, they did try to do a number of good things. They did vote against anti-racial measures. I do give them credit for that. But the message they sent every day in numerous tweets were, we're meeting with the UN human rights folks. We love them. They're great. They were cheerleaders. That's going to stop.

Our guest is Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, and we're talking about the changes that could be coming under a new Trump presidency regarding the funding and support of Palestinian groups via the UN. On the Fox News Rundown, Evening Edition, we'll have more straight ahead.

And this change in attitude that I suspect we'll see and see very quickly once January 20th rolls around is also going to extend to perhaps one of the world's worst offenders and one of the UN's darlings, and that is the Islamic regime of Iran. This has been the instigator for a lot of regional problems, if not global problems, and they seem to always get that

that petting on the head from from the chiefs at the UN I suspect that's going to be there's going to be a different attitude towards them as well I I think we have good reason to believe that yes look the um the Biden administration had a very forceful stand uh sorry take that pack the Trump administration under Trump 45 had a very forceful stand when Biden came in he tried to do Iran deal 2.0 I'll never forget uh after Biden came in shortly afterwards

I had through UN Watch, my organization, we revealed that the Islamic regime in Iran was elected to the UN Women's Rights Commission, right? A regime that beats, blinds, rapes and tortures women for the crime of standing up for their rights was elected to the highest women's rights body of the UN. When we exposed it, a journalist at the State Department press briefing said, what does the Biden administration have to say? And they didn't want to comment. They refused to comment because

they were trying to make nice to iran they wouldn't comment on it so that was the attitude going in and of course the un as you indicated the un has last year elected the islamic regime of iran appointed them rather to be chair of the human rights council social forum they made them i think it was vice president or rapporteur of a disarmament commission in new york

So that's the regime, that's the attitude of the UN. The Trump administration is going to fiercely oppose that. And that's important. And I welcome that. And of course, we should notice that even in just the past week, another incident regarding the Iranian regime and women's rights. A young woman was stripped down forcefully by the secret police. And this was all caught on video and posted on social media online.

And that woman was, was left in, in her undergarments because she wasn't wearing her hijab correctly. And then she was arrested and taken away. And I don't think anyone has heard from this, this young woman since young, you know, young, uh, like college age student, uh, uh, female, uh,

You know, a horrific image to see. And I wonder if there'll be questions asked of the U.N. regarding this, especially since Iran, as you noticed, as you noted, was elected to this to this body regarding women's rights. Hillel Naur, you are an internationally known human rights lawyer. Thank you so much for being with us. Your organization is U.N. Watch, and we encourage everyone to follow you on Twitter. Thank you so much for being with us on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. Thanks.

Thank you for having me.

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