Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson led a 26-state coalition in a letter to U.S. Congressional leadership today, calling for them to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (“UNRWA”) for ties to terrorism.
On January 26, UNRWA announced it fired more than a dozen employees for participating in the Hamas terrorist massacre against Israel on October 7. But UNRWA’s ties to terrorism are nothing new. UNRWA employed one school principal who moonlit as an Islamic Jihad bomber and another who was a Hamas commandant. One UNRWA school teacher is accused of detaining an October 7 hostage for nearly two months. And in a shocking report, it was revealed that every UNRWA school the Israeli Defense Forces searched contained hidden weapons.
In 2018, President Trump recognized UNRWA’s alarming ties with terrorism and stopped all federal funding to UNRWA. Despite glaring legal and security concerns, President Biden reinstated funding for UNRWA on his first day in office, paying them almost $1 billion dollars during his term.
“For even a single taxpayer dollar to fund a corrupt organization that hires and harbors terrorists is despicable,” said Attorney General Bird. “President Trump got it right when he stopped payments to UNRWA in 2018. It’s the federal government’s job to prosecute terrorists, not fund them. We’re calling on Congress to take immediate action and defund UNRWA once and for all.”
The States urge Congress to cut all funding to UNRWA. After the barbaric October 7 terror attacks, there is no excuse to pay UNRWA a single cent, much less billions of dollars.
Iowa co-led the letter with South Carolina. They were joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Read the full letter here.
