Stop U.S. Taxpayers Funding of Terrorist Camps

By Peggy Shapiro

Should the U.S. taxpayer pay for an organization whose school headmaster is a rocket maker for the Islamic Jihad? (Reuters May 6, 2008). Someone whose school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza is a launching pad for rockets aimed at Israel. Should the U.S. be footing the bill for terrorists on the Hamas payroll, for Palestinians using ambulances to transport terrorists, and an al-Queda cell, which is organizing, training, and plotting attacks against the U.S. from a camp in Lebanon?

Sounds implausible, but it's not. Since 1950, the U.S. taxpayer provided more than three billion dollars for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), whose camps offer safe haven to the terrorist activities mentioned above. The UNRWA camps are operating as bases for Fatah al-Islam, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad and threatening the governments of Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. UNRWA has created the world's longest lasting class of refugees and is responsible for creating sixty years of Palestinian welfare terrorism.

UNRWA's previous Commissioner General Peter Hansen said, "I am sure that there are HAMAS members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don't see that as a crime." American taxpayers and their congressional representatives may disagree. On May 7, 2008, U.S. Representatives Mark Kirk and Ellen O. Tauscher wrote to Secretary Rice calling for a suspension of U.S. contributions to UNRWA until it can be certified that al-Qaeda cells no longer operate within UNRWA camps.