Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said his country would resort to “all the means in its power” to prevent Israel from implementing any transfer policy to expel Palestinians en masse from the West Bank.

The Israel-Gaza conflict has stirred long-standing fears in Jordan, home to a large population of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Right-wing, ultra-nationalist hardliners now in the Israeli government have long espoused a Jordan-is-Palestine solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

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Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-says-it-beefs-up-army-presence-along-borders-with-israel-2023-11-21/

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The Trump administration will cut tens of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinian refugees.

The Department of State announced Friday it will withhold all funding for the U.N. Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also known as UNRWA. In a statement, it called UNRWA’s business model unsustainable.

According to Foreign Policy, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner pushed for the cuts in a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Last year, the U.S. contributed more than $350 million to the agency, making it the UNRWA’s largest single donor.

The UNRWA serves Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and their descendants — more than 5 million people. Foreign Policy reports Kushner hopes the cuts will discourage the “unrealistic expectation” that refugees will someday return to a future Palestinian state.

The German foreign minister has already announced his country will increase funding for UNRWA in response, warning the loss of the agency could destabilize the region.

Additional reporting from Newsy affiliate CNN.

Source: https://www.newsy.com/stories/us-to-cut-funding-to-un-palestinian-refugee-aid-agency/

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According to a new poll conducted by Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, only 43 percent of Israelis Jews and Palestinians are in favor of such a negotiated end to the conflict, a decline of 9 and 8 points since 2016, respectively.

Support for a two-state solution has been steadily eroding among Jews and Palestinians for a decade, the pollsters noted, although among Israeli Arabs support has largely remained “stable and very high” at 82 percent.

A total of 2,150 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and 1,600 Israelis were polled on their views of a hypothetical peace deal consisting of a de-militarized Palestinian state, an Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line with equal territorial exchange, family unification in Israel of 100,000 Palestinian refugees, West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall under Israeli sovereignty and the Muslim and Christian quarters and the al Haram al Sharif/Temple Mount under Palestinian sovereignty, and the end of the conflict and claims.

Only 37 percent of Palestinians and 39 percent of Israeli Jews stated that they supported such an agreement. Nineteen percent of Israeli Jews expressed support for a unitary state with equal rights for both Jews and Palestinians while 15 percent voiced their approval of annexation without rights. Eight percent supported expulsion of the Palestinians.

“A plurality or a majority of Israelis and Palestinians, respectively, believe that settlements have expanded so much that the two-state solution is no longer viable,” the pollsters wrote. “Large majorities on both sides believe the other side is untrustworthy. The perceived lack of feasibility and the lack of trust are closely connected to opposition to the plan. Findings also show a net decline over the last two years in the percentage of Israeli Jews and Palestinians who think the other side wants peace.”

Between Jews and Arabs, nearly half of Israelis believe that a two-state solution is still viable, although 45 percent believe that settlements have spread too much to implement such an agreement. While Israeli Arabs remained highly optimistic, with 64 percent thinking this solution remained viable, only 44 percent of Israeli Jews agreed with this assessment.

Overall, trust between the two sides seems to have broken down nearly completely, with only a quarter of Israeli Jews trusting Palestinians and 11 percent of Palestinians reciprocating that trust. Both sides are extremely skeptical that a Palestinian state will be established in the next five years, with 72 percent of Palestinians and 81 percent of Israeli Jews stating that they do not expect this to happen.

The poll, which had a margin of error of 2.5 percent, was supported by the United Nations, European Union and Japan.

The post Support for two-state solution drops to historic low appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Source: https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/jta/support-for-two-state-solution-drops-to-historic-low/article_8eadf113-118a-5547-a7bd-df84405c5875.html

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Jordan warned on Wednesday (8 August) that a severe financial shortfall facing a United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees could have a “catastrophic” impact on the lives of millions of refugees in the region.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said after meeting visiting UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl the budget crisis could deprive refugees of core education, healthcare and food security service that would only “deepen their humanitarian plight”.

“UNRWA faces a dangerous financial deficit that threatens catastrophic consequences on refugees if it is not covered before its financial allocations run out,” Safadi was quoted as saying in a foreign ministry statement.

UNRWA has faced a cash crisis since the United States, long its biggest donor, slashed funding to the agency, providing just $60 million of a promised $365 million this year.

U.S. President Donald Trump withheld the aid after questioning its value and saying Washington would only provide more assistance if the Palestinians agreed to renew peace talks with Israel.

The largest ever reduction in UNRWA’s funding has cast doubts about the agency’s’ long-term outlook and has already begun to impact some services. U.N. officials have said it could even affect the opening of schools at the start of the next academic year

The agency operates around 700 schools, educating 500,000 refugee children in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Jordan, which hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East outside Palestinian territories, was engaged in intensive lobbying with donors, Safadi said.

Officials privately have said they were was also worried about any U.S. drive to dismantle the agency as part of a nascent Middle East peace plan that Washington has promised to unveil soon

According to diplomats, the plan diverges from longstanding U.S. support for a Palestinian state and backing for a full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967.

‘Mutiny’ in Gaza after job cuts 

Workers have seized partial control of the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Hamas-run Gaza, its head said Wednesday, accusing their union of “mutiny” over job cuts.

The UNRWA announced last month more than 250 staff in Gaza and the occupied West Bank would lose their jobs. The redundancies have prompted daily protests by the agency’s labour union in the enclave, which UNRWA’s Gaza head said have led to security concerns.

“They have taken over the compound where my office and other offices are,” said Matthias Schmale.

The agency’s Gaza chief admitted UNRWA does not have full control over the site, in Gaza City, explaining he has not been able to work from his own office for more than two weeks.

Schmale accused the labour union of multiple incidents of “threatening and intimidating other fellow Palestinian staff. For me, that crosses a red line.”

“I am very concerned about the safety and security of my Palestinian colleagues,” he added.

The union denied all allegations of intimidation and is due to continue demonstrating, with a general strike expected in the coming days unless a deal is reached.

“This is a peaceful and safe sit-in inside the regional headquarters of UNRWA to demand (employees’) right to be able to continue their work,” Amir al-Mishal, head of the UNRWA employee union in Gaza, told AFP.

He said some of those affected by the cuts had been working for the agency for more than 30 years and they were seeking dialogue with the management.

On Wednesday the protest inside the UNRWA compound was visited by Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas member, who pledged his Islamist movement’s full support for protesters, an AFP correspondent said.

Schmale was unaware that Zahar had been inside the compound, saying any visit by a figure from Hamas -considered a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union- was forbidden as it breaches the UN’s impartiality rules.

A small number of employees have begun a hunger strike against the cuts outside Schmale’s office, seeking to force management to reverse course.

Source: https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/jordan-says-palestinian-refugees-at-risk-with-unrwa-in-crisis/

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