Nikki Haley, former United States ambassador to the United Nations, called on the Trump administration to declassify a report detailing the current number of Palestinian refugees who are receiving aid from the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
Haley tweeted, “Very important that the Trump administration declassify the report that provides a current estimate of the number of Palestinian refugees who are receiving support. This goes to the heart of speaking hard truths in the name of moving peace forward.”
Haley’s tweet linked to last week’s New York Post op-ed authored by Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Adviser Richard Goldberg and Senior Vice President for Research Jonathan Schanzer. The op-ed noted that Congress required the State Department in 2012 to produce a report on the number of Palestinian refugees receiving aid from UNRWA that were alive in 1948; the report was completed and sent to congressional appropriations committees years later, but the report remains classified today.
Goldberg and Schanzer wrote that, “The public release of these figures could spark an international debate over UNRWA’s mandate.” AFSI asks the question, What debate? The truth should not be up for debate. No more suppression of the real numbers. We agree with the statement in the op-ed, “…Palestinian refugees are narrowly defined as people who were personally displaced from then-Palestine between 1948 and 1949 and aren’t currently citizens or permanent residents of the Palestinian Authority or any country.”
We look forward to the Trump administration de-classifying the report to expose the real numbers. Let’s put an end to this long-standing falsehood and move on.