 Hello, and welcome to NewsClick. Over the past week, the humanitarian situation in West Asia has seen a massive decline as a direct result of the US administration's cutting of funds for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. To talk more about this, we have with us Prabir Burqaisa, editor-in-chief of NewsClick. Hello, Prabir. So, Prabir, as you know, the UNRWA takes care of the needs of nearly 5 million refugees in West Asia, and it's an organization with a long history to be established in 1949. And from January onwards, we have seen the Donald Trump administration gradually cutting down funds. First, they stopped 65 million of the 125 million they were supposed to provide. And in August, they decided they would not provide any funds at all. And this has led to a huge deficit for the UNRWA, which they have still not been able to make up. So how do you see the implications and the reasons for this gradual cutting of funds and what is likely to happen? Let's look at first the big picture of the region itself where most of these refugees are. And let's look then at what is the reason for this. Let's look at Syria first, where we have little more than half a million people. Then we have Jordan, which is in excess of 2 million. Then you have Lebanon, West Bank, and Gaza. Gaza has about 1.3 million. Compared to all other places, it is highest concentration of Palestinian refugees for a very obvious reason, as we have all argued. The Gaza is really an open-air prison where a lot of the Palestinian people have been heard behind barbed wires with no exit and at the moment in very dire conditions. So this is the overall picture. And this is a consequence, as we know, of the Palestinians being thrown out of their homeland in 1948 when the holocaust, Nagba, which is really a huge event for the Palestinian people, a large number of them being uprooted from their ancestral homes. Now, this at that time was recognized as a refugee issue and UNRW has created really to provide sustenance, support. With the expectation, the population would really go back because a right of return is accepted as a fundamental human right. So this was supposed to be something which is transient, which is supposed to be addressed in the immediate aftermath of what happened. But Israel, backed by the United States and the Western powers, refused to accept this humanitarian principle. And one of the consequences that is still with us of the Nagba has been that we have a huge number of refugees in the region. It started by about 750,000 people who were thrown out in 1948 and in subsequent months. And today, with their descendants, there are roughly a number of about 5 million worldwide. We are not talking about people who have really migrated completely out of the region who therefore are not regarded as refugees in this sense of the term, but still have a right of return. Now, looking at the refugee issue, one of the pressure points which the Trump administration has been using with the Israelis is that if we cut off all the funds, if we cut off basically the lifeline for these people, then they will be much more weakened and they will come back crawling to the negotiating table except whatever we give them. So the Trump administration, along with the current regime, I will say the Zionist regime of Israel, basic attempt is that we don't want a negotiated settlement. We should have a settlement where they accept that they are subjects, they have lost, and they are therefore at our mercy. So this is the logic of the victor ruling over the victim, which is what they want to impose as a settlement in Palestine. And this is really the genesis of the current situation. So one of the issues that comes up is that if there is a certain amount of money still which goes into the refugee camp, let's face it, in Gaza, for instance, basic services, only some of the basic services still are not able to provide electricity, water and so on. The water, the sewage and electricity is in dire straits in Gaza that we don't even have today. Basic chemicals to provide clean drinking water. Therefore we have a huge risk to the Palestinian population in Gaza. But having said that, nevertheless the United Nations does provide schools, some medical facilities, even in Gaza. And if all of that is stopped, it means the Gaza population is going to descend really into very difficult situation. They are already in dire straits, as we said. So this is the pressure then on Gaza, which is one of the holdouts in the settlement that Israel wants to adopt. The second issue that comes up, and this is the Jerusalem issue in the capital, said it's off the negotiating table, decided that therefore the Palestinian authority had to submit officially to the Israeli government and Netanyahu's demands. And then since the Palestinian authority could only do it at its peril, therefore it refused to accept this position. Therefore the further pressure now is we cut off essentially your funds. A substantial part of the Palestinian authority's support structure, it's not their budget, because budget is supposed to come from Israel's imposition of taxes. Palestinian authority does not impose taxes, it's really the border taxes imposed by Israel for goods coming in, which then is passed on to the Palestinian authority. So therefore also a certain degree of support structure, health and education particularly is done by UNRWA. So that is also being taken away or impaired. So these are the things that are happening. When it comes to Jordan of course, as you know, there have been a client state of the United States. So US is now saying that we will make up the deficit for you separately. You don't get into this issue at all. And then of course we have Syria, again as far as the United States is concerned, a regime they would like to change and therefore of course Syria has no sympathy as far as the US is concerned. So if we take this entire picture into account, this is really a way to blackmail the Palestinian people, Palestinian organization to submit to Israel. And this has been the grand plan because UNRWA funds as you said a very significant part of it comes from the US contribution and this US contribution is not charity. This US contribution was fixed very early on and this is something they are supposed to give as a part of being a part of being in the UN. So this is the scenario that we now see that it's an element of how to coerce the Palestinians and this is another instrument a very, very shall we say inhuman one because it puts at risk really the particularly the young people in Palestine and it's Palestinian refugee camps in the area at a huge risk. And it's interesting that you mentioned Jerusalem because I think two days ago the Jerusalem administration has decided to take over all the UNRWA facilities and the US is pressurizing Jordan to do the same also. And it's also interesting to note maybe that one of the key factors has also been revising the number of refugees because the US has proposed laws, it's planning to pressurize Arab states to stop funding if they do not recognize, reduce the number of refugees. So that also seems to be a key element of debate, the 5 million number itself. You see the original position of Israel as well as it's shall we say the western partners what are today the NATO countries was that there is nothing called Palestine that essentially what we should look at is Arabs and if they're Arabs well what's the problem of absorbing some of the Palestinian population as Arabs and fellow Arabs should make way for them. So this absolves all the western powers who had imposed Israel on the Palestinian population of saying there is really no Palestine problem it's only a problem of Arab population there are about 200 million, 250 million a few more doesn't make a difference so what they're basically trying to do again is to treat Palestinians as a part of the Arab problem and not recognize the existence of Palestinian identity and this is the crux of the matter that if the Arab countries now say okay these 200 to this 2 million population Palestinian population is really Jordanians then of course the 2 million refugee problem disappears. If the Syrians whether they accept or not they will say we don't recognize anybody staying in the refugee camps over there as refugees so do away with another half a million. So this is the approach they are taking Lebanon, Syria are essentially for them dispensable countries they are quote unquote a part of what today is controlled by the resistance to Israel Syria as well as Lebanon because Lebanon is essentially today deeply influenced by Hezbollah. So this also is another way of saying these populations are their country's problem not the problem of Palestine. So we reduce the number of Palestinian population to about 800,000 in the West Bank and say well this is the only problem that we need to address Gaza I don't really know what they want to do with it. There is a proposal of trying to link Gaza to Egypt and will Egypt accept 1.3 million Gaza population is a part of Egypt's responsibility and therefore also declare them to be Egyptians is the other issue we have to see. I think this whole problem is to wish away the Palestinian problem as only an Arab problem which nobody else has responsibility by the Arab states and then reduce the problem to the occupied West Bank which hopefully for the western powers will somehow will continue as an apartheid state and that's the Trump administration move to link the problem of West Bank from all other problems and hope that the Arab states will take care of this problem and then they are left with only the residual problem of of course 800,000 in the West Bank figure but also whittle that down to 500,000 by probably displacing another 300,000 population elsewhere we don't know. And like you mentioned it's also direct assault on the future of the Palestinians as well because if you look at for instance the response to the Great March of Return or this which is going to affect the education budget the most so it's also in some sense a long term battle as far as Israel and the US are concerned as well. Yes I think basic long term battle is to rob the Palestinian people of their identity and then regard the rest of the Palestinian population who will exist then in Israel as somehow stateless citizens without any identity. And if you look at the United States also in recent times this marks part of a trend for instance they also cut aid for Palestinians to USAID and recently they had threatened action against the judges of the international court and of course there's also been the instance of UNESCO in the past where they withdrawn funds and now this. So we also see a more withdrawal from the global stage and insistence on pushing its agenda in a more crude way if you can call it so. I think the United States is always regarded itself above international law therefore as far as UN was concerned it is something that should submit to UN US pressure then being an independent organ in which they also had to accept democratic certain democratic principles in international law. They have never accepted any adverse judgment from the international court of justice we have had earlier judgments for instance when harbors have been mined Nicaragua's case for example there have been various other instances so US has always argued that it is above international law in fact to the contrary they also argue that US court has argued this that its laws operate extra territorially where you had the president of Panama dragged off to US courts and convicted there. So I think this is the US as a rogue state not accepting international law and trying to say whatever its politics dictates and that could be the politics of a Trump, a Hillary Clinton anybody who is elected at the point of time as United States president that becomes international law de facto that seems to be the case because we are not able to impose any democratic shall we say behavior on the United States which is against the wishes of the United States government. And if you look at the interesting thing about or if you can call it interesting about the refugee situation is also how the US like you said and the European powers prefer to basically look at it at a local problem the same things happening in Yemen for instance right now or in other countries for instance in Iraq the same situation although those are not handled by the UNRWA but by the UNHCR but nonetheless the sheer amount of displacement and the refugee crisis the US everywhere is sought to be seen as a local problem. Well that's the bigger issue which perhaps we should discuss another day that when you talk about the refugee problem and we don't look at the Palestinian refugee problem which is what we have looked at today the larger refugee problem has been because of wars and the most of the destructive wars which have seen huge number of refugees are essentially wars dictated by the United States directly in which the US has come and bombed militarily occupied countries Afghanistan, Iraq Syria Lebanon, sorry Libya so you have a number of countries which they have come bombed, occupied, destroyed and the left at that has caused the huge refugee problem and their attempt at this refugee problem is of course to see how they can be cornered off from Europe and the European countries if so back to are a part of this now how to keep the refugees out of Europe not how to solve the basic problem of war and refugees which is a part of their own policies. Thank you Pabili that's all we have time for today keep watching Youth League