The Obama administration is opposing a Senate amendment that would require the State Department to report how many Palestinian refugees are receiving aid money from a U.S. tax dollar-funded UN agency.
The bill also requires the government to quantify how many Palestinians receiving aid were actually displaced after the Israeli Independence War of 1948, and how many are descendents of such refugees.
The amendment passed even though it faced strong opposition from the State Department, the Jordanian government, and the UN refugee agency. It is likely to reduce the number of recognized Palestinian refugees from almost 5 million to about 30,000, the Washington Free Beacon reported. “The amendment simply demands basic transparency with regard to who receives U.S. taxpayer assistance,” said Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who proposed the bill.
JointMedia News Service