WASHINGTON – Today U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.) led a letter of 34 Democratic Senators to President Trump to express strong opposition to his decision to cut more than $500 million in aid to the Palestinian people – funding that was passed into law to provide clean water, food, education, and critical medical services to families in the West Bank and Gaza. 

“We are deeply concerned that your strategy of attempting to force the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table by withholding humanitarian assistance from women and children is misguided and destined to backfire. Your proposed cuts would undermine those who seek a peaceful resolution and strengthen the hands of Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip, as the humanitarian crisis there worsens,” the Senators wrote. 

They continued, “For these reasons, we strongly believe it is in the national security interest of the United States, our ally Israel, the Palestinian people, and our other partners and allies in the region to expeditiously obligate the FY17 Economic Support Fund assistance originally planned for the West Bank and Gaza and to sustain U.S. contributions to UNRWA. We urge you to reverse your decision and look forward to your prompt response.” 

Working with United States Agency for International Development’s implementing partners, Senator Van Hollen’s office has prepared a snapshot of programs and partnerships impacted by these cuts in funding that can be found here. 

In addition to Senators Van Hollen, Feinstein, and Coons, the letter was signed by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patricia Murray (D-Wash.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tom Udall (D-Colo.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and Gary Peters (D-Mich.).

The full text of the letter is available below and here.

Dear President Trump:

We write in strong opposition to your decision to cut some $200 million in Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17) Economic Support Fund assistance originally planned for the West Bank and Gaza and to end U.S. contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), including more than $300 million in assistance this fiscal year. Eliminating funds for programs that provide clean water, food, education, and medical services for Palestinians will exacerbate poverty, fuel extremism, further reduce the chance of a future peace agreement and threaten Israel’s security. Both the FY17 and FY18 funds were approved by the Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support—a recognition among Republicans and Democrats alike that these programs are in the U.S. national interest. We urge you to reverse course and obligate these funds as Congress originally intended. 

By law, U.S. foreign assistance cannot be directed to the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Instead, Congress has appropriated funds to provide assistance directly to the Palestinian people, including millions of children in the Palestinian territories. The cuts you have proposed would make a desperate situation even worse.

Specifically, according to the organizations implementing USAID-funded programs in the West Bank and Gaza, these cuts will prevent:

• nearly 140,000 individuals from receiving emergency food aid;
• 3,000 children and their caregivers from receiving healthcare for anemia and malnutrition;
• up to 71,000 individuals from receiving access to clean water;
• 800 children from receiving rehabilitation services for cerebral palsy; and,
• 16,000 women from receiving clinical breast cancer treatment.

In addition, your decision to end U.S. contributions to UNRWA puts at risk:

• civilian, secular education for 525,000 kids, 50 percent of which are girls, in more than 700 schools;
• food assistance to one million residents in Gaza, half of its population; and,
• public health in the refugee population, where UNRWA has long achieved a 100 percent vaccination rate.

We are deeply concerned that your strategy of attempting to force the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table by withholding humanitarian assistance from women and children is misguided and destined to backfire. Your proposed cuts would undermine those who seek a peaceful resolution and strengthen the hands of Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip, as the humanitarian crisis there worsens. 

For these reasons, we strongly believe it is in the national security interest of the United States, our ally Israel, the Palestinian people, and our other partners and allies in the region to expeditiously obligate the FY17 Economic Support Fund assistance originally planned for the West Bank and Gaza and to sustain U.S. contributions to UNRWA. We urge you to reverse your decision and look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

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