Biden budget proposal excludes UNRWA funds, renews $14 billion request for Israel
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US President Joe Biden has submitted a likely dead-on-arrival 2025 budget proposal, which renews his request for $14 billion in funding for Israel and $100 million in humanitarian support for Palestinian civilians, which has been blocked by Republican congressional leaders for months.
Those funding requests were first made in October as part of a national security supplemental request, which passed in the Senate, but has since been held up by Republicans in the House who oppose funding for Ukraine and are under pressure from former president Donald Trump not to cooperate with his successor in an initiative aiming to also settle the ongoing southern border crisis.
Notably, the new budget proposal does not include funding for the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which is currently being investigated after 12 of its members allegedly participated in Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught.
UNRWA funding was already dropped from Biden’s national security supplemental request, with the White House seeking to divert that spending to other agencies that support Palestinian civilians.
Asked about the lack of UNRWA funding during a State Department briefing, a senior budget official in the agency says, “We have a pause on our funding to UNRWA until the investigation is complete. That doesn’t mean we are not providing funding for humanitarian needs in Gaza and the West Bank. [This budget includes] a significant commitment [to Palestinians living there]. But until that particular investigation concludes itself, we’re going to look to other organizations such as the World Food Program, UNICEF, and other outlets.”
Funding for UNRWA does not necessarily have to be specified in the budget proposal, and the agency can receive funds from the $3.3 billion earmarked for migration and refugee assistance. The 2024 fiscal year budget request did specify funding for UNRWA, but the agency was not as politically toxic then as it is now.
Given the stalemate between Republicans and Democrats over the current budget — which has yet to be fully adopted — Congress is highly unlikely to pass anything resembling Biden’s proposal by the end of the current fiscal year on September 30.
As a consequence, today’s budget proposal reads as more of a wish list of progressive policy proposals for the campaign trail than a serious plan for funding the US government.
AFP contributed to this report
