Almost half of US states push for complete defunding of UN aid agency due to Hamas connections

Over 20 states are demanding congressional leaders defund a United Nations aid agency over its ties to Hamas and rising antisemitism on college campuses in the United States.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson led 22 other states in a letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday asking them to “stop funding antisemitic education efforts” from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA.

The agency has come under increased scrutiny for its connections to Hamas, Gaza’s governing body, since the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel last year. In January, the news of UNRWA’s connection to Hamas caused the U.S. and other countries to suspend funding to the agency. Congress also recently approved a ban on funding from the U.S. to UNRWA until March 2025 in the fiscal 2024 appropriations package.

Despite these actions, states’ attorneys general are asking for congressional leaders to do more in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests at institutions such as Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles, Northwestern University, George Washington University, and several others. House Republicans announced a crackdown on antisemitism last week that involves several committees holding hearings, calling university leaders to testify, or demanding investigation into immigration statues of protesters.

“While the United States suspended UNRWA’s funding in January, it is time to make that permanent — unless UNRWA engages in serious and clear reform,” the attorneys general wrote. “A recent UN-ordered investigation found that the situation is as bad as the States had predicted. That investigation found that UNRWA textbooks included antisemitic content and that UNRWA staff were violating the UN principle of neutrality with their social media posts.”

“We would never tolerate American tax dollars being used to teach antisemitic hate here at home—and we should hold foreign organizations we support to the same standard,” the attorneys general continued.

Attorneys general from Iowa, South Carolina, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming signed on to the letter.

Bird said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that this is an issue “for every state to care about” and that she’s received “strong support” for the calls to defund UNRWA once people were told about the agency’s terrorism ties.

“I think a lot of people care about this issue with UNRWA,” Bird said. “Not everybody knows about that organization, so I think as soon as people were told the facts of what’s happening with UNRWA, there was a lot of support from the other states.”

McConnell’s office pointed the Washington Examiner to previous comments that the longtime Kentucky senator made when news of UNRWA’s Hamas ties broke in January.

“As I’ve said before, there is no room for the tired cast of corruption and terrorism in the future of the Palestinian people,” McConnell said. “As such, Senate Republicans will not accept any legislation that allows taxpayer dollars to fund UNRWA. And America’s ally, Israel, deserves the time, space, and support it needs to remove Hamas from the equation — root, stem, and branch.”

Bird said the goal is to see Congress “completely stop funding UNRWA.”

“They’ve helped terrorists, they’ve fueled the antisemitic hate that’s going on there. The schools that UNRWA sponsors are radicalized, and the kids are basically indoctrinated with antisemitism,” Bird claimed.

On the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Bird said she understands that people have First Amendment rights to protest, but in Iowa, it has “not gotten out of hand” thanks to certain laws that were passed in 2020 in the wake of the George Floyd murder when demonstrations turned destructive.

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“I think that’s a good example for the rest of the country to look at, as so many campuses are in turmoil, and so many Jewish students are afraid to go to class and afraid to be in school,” Bird said. “That should never happen in America.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to UNWRA, Johnson, Jeffries, and Schumer for comment.