U.S. Senator Katie Britt took Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to task over a post the New York progressive made to social media on Monday.
Funding from the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) was recently pulled after it was discovered the organization reportedly employed a dozen Hamas members who participated in the October 7 atrocities against Israel.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said funding should continue in spite of the troubling new details.
Cutting off support to @UNRWA – the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans – is unacceptable.
Among an organization of 13,000 UN aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible.
The US should restore aid immediately.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 29, 2024
Britt was quick to find the irony in AOC’s logic about who can, and can’t, be trusted with U.S. taxpayer money.
The far-left would defund the police but fund terrorists.
10% of UNRWA staff in Gaza have links to terror groups, while 49% of UNRWA staff have close relatives who are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. UNRWA can’t be trusted with a cent of U.S. taxpayer money. https://t.co/eFBqicF7j1
— Katie Britt (@KatieBrittforAL) January 29, 2024
The U.S. State Department halted funding after reports emerged of linkage between American aid dollars and the brutal Hamas attacks that reignited in October of last year.
“The Department of State has temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA while we review these allegations and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has said that of the 12 employees implicated in the deadly violence “nine were immediately identified and terminated,” one is “confirmed dead,” and “the identity of the two others is being clarified.”
According to PBS, the U.S. is the biggest donor to the UNRWA, providing $340 million in 2022 alone. Several other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and Italy have also suspended aid after the allegations were made public.
Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.
