IS IT TIME TO END THE UNITED NATIONS?

THE U.N. IS A CORRUPT, USELESS, ANTI-SEMITIC INSTITUTION LOCATED ON PRIME REAL ESTATE IN MANHATTAN AND FUNDED BY OUR TAX DOLLARS. ISN'T IT TIME WE SAID, "ENOUGH"?

Today, the Jerusalem Post reports that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which administers UN services in the Palestinian territories, has accepted millions of dollars in funding from groups that openly support international terrorism.

UNRWA's shady donors
UNRWA is the largest United Nations operation in the Middle East. Established in 1950 and with headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza, it deals exclusively with a fraction of the world’s 135 million refugees. The remainder fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Office. The organization’s Web site describes it as a “relief and human development agency, providing education, healthcare, social services and emergency aid” to Palestinians. It claims further that “the Agency is scrupulous about protecting its installations against misuse by any person or group.”

UNRWA relies on contributions from around the world and acknowledges that 93% of its funds come from donations made by governments and the EU, while 5% originates from other UN bodies. The remaining 2% is somewhat buried on the Web site, possibly because UNRWA is receiving millions of dollars from organizations which fund Middle Eastern and global terrorism.

Since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in 2000, UNRWA has received $510,000 from the Islamic American Relief Agency, a charity created by the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA). In October 2004, the US Treasury found that IARA had transferred millions of dollars to terrorist networks run by Osama bin Laden, and has since frozen IARA’s assets. IARA’s chief, Mubarak Hamed, is personally accused of raising $5 million for al-Qaida during a fund-raising trip to Sudan and other locations in the Middle East in 2000. UNRWA has so far shown no concern that one of its donors is an al-Qaida sponsor.

Weighing in with a donation of $5,076,000, the Islamic Development Bank is a significant contributor. This bank created and manages the Al Aqsa Fund, found to be a terrorist financial channel linking wealthy Gulf-based terror financiers to Hamas. The US Treasury has added the Al Aqsa Fund to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entities, and the fund has been banned in the United Kingdom and Germany.

Could it be possible that following the closure of the Al Aqsa Fund, the Islamic Development Bank has found UNRWA a safer route to reach Hamas with financial aid?

UNRWA’s public records of financial sponsors also list a $1,640,000 contribution by a donor registered as the “Saudi Committee.” This contributor’s full name is the Saudi Arabia Committee for Support of the Intifadat Al Quds, and it has been linked with the funding of a number of Hamas suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians.

UNRWA also received $3,538,276 from the Syrian Arab Popular Committee, also known as Popular Committee for Supporting the Intifada.

THE U.S. CONGRESS MAY HAVE HAD ENOUGH:

CONGRESS EYES U.N. FUND CUT
Congress is likely to move to reduce U.S. funding of the United Nations if leaders at Turtle Bay don't come clean and institute major reforms in the wake of the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, The Post has learned. Recent interviews with Congress members and staff investigators revealed growing shock and outrage at the scope of history's biggest financial scandal, in which Saddam Hussein is alleged to have ripped off $21.3 billion from a humanitarian program intended to provide food and medicine to the Iraqi people.

The officials said there is increasing sentiment to take drastic action, including cutting U.S funding if the United Nations doesn't make radical changes in its secretive policies and questionable management procedures.

The $1.12 billion annual U.S. contribution to the United Nations represents 22 percent of the world body's budget.

"This is life-and-death stuff. To see U.N. officials involved in a program that was used to pay off families of Palestinian suicide bombers, to discover that money from this program is now being used to fund the people killing our troops in Iraq is very troubling," Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told The Post. "I definitely feel that people are fed up." Flake has sponsored legislation that would reduce U.S. funding to the United Nations by 10 percent, and claims the bill already has 75 co-sponsors. A companion bill has been introduced in the Senate.

So far, the chairmen of the congressional committees investigating the oil-for-food scandal have not endorsed the measure. They say they are waiting to see the results of the U.N.-appointed investigation headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker. But one congressional investigator said that a move to reduce or cut off U.S. funding could quickly gain momentum - and the Bush administration would be unwilling or unable to stop it - if culpable U.N. officials aren't prosecuted or fired and major reforms are not enacted. "What we really want to see is greater transparency in U.N. programs. That's the big issue here," the investigator said.

"These oil-for-food deals were negotiated in secret. If it was known that Saddam Hussein was given sole authority to pick and chose companies he would do business with . . . [and] that he was giving oil vouchers to U.N. officials and to Russian and French politicians to buy votes on the Security Council, there would have been a move to stop it."