Exclusive: DeSantis Campaign Now Says He Would Block Funding for UNRWA Gaza Cash Despite Voting Against Measures That Did So

The campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis now says that, as president, he would not support the U.S. funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) despite previously voting against congressional measures that would have done that, providing an explanation to Breitbart News for his previous votes against the measures and his current position on the issue.

UNRWA, funded “almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN Member States,” provides assistance for Palestinian refugees via what is described as “education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance, including in times of armed conflict.” However, the agency has come under even more scrutiny in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attack at the hands of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, as the organization has long been thought to fuel radical Islam and antisemitism.

With all of that standing as the stark reality, all eyes are moving to presidential candidates and their position on funding UNRWA. On the campaign trail, DeSantis overtly stated that he “would not fund things like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” and his campaign defended his record after Breitbart News sought clarification on DeSantis’s past vote against two bills — HR 3354 and HR 1625 — during his time in Congress, which would have slashed funding to UNRWA.

DeSantis campaign press secretary Bryan Griffin explained that both of those measures were omnibus bills,  which DeSantis typically voted against. HR 3354, specifically was a “consolidation of 8 remaining appropriation bills (a minibus) passed in September of 2017,” Griffin explained, adding that the bill’s spending “exceeded the Budget Control Act caps and would have caused a sequester of over $70 billion for defense, which in turn would have caused around a 13% across-the-board cut on defense.”

He added that 14 Republicans voted against the measure, “including other fiscal conservatives.”

Similarly, Griffin said HR 1625 was the “giant omnibus spearheaded by Donald Trump and Paul Ryan in March of 2018” and pointed to DeSantis’s statement at the time, in which the then-congressman blasted the 2,232-page omnibus spending bill and the House passing it despite it being publicly available for “less than 17 hours.”

“This bill was drafted by a handful of members and staffers behind closed doors without the input of rank-and-file members. Nobody had time to read it, much less understand it. Stuffing more than $1.3 trillion in spending and a number of unrelated policy issues into a single, mammoth bill and ramming it through without any time for scrutiny shows that Congress has hit rock bottom,” DeSantis’s statement continued.

The campaign also pointed to several examples of DeSantis dealing with the UNRWA and related items, including the Palestinian Accountability Act which sought to “withhold foreign aid from the Palestinian Authority until requirements aimed at establishing peace in the Middle East are met.”

That act, specifically, would have withheld foreign aid from the Palestinian Authority until it recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, excluded Hamas from government (“unless Hamas is publicly held to the requirements of this bill”) and “strongly and regularly” condemned terrorism and held terrorists accountable.

DeSantis also stood as a co-sponsor of HR 5647, the UNRWA Anti-Terrorism Act.

More recently, DeSantis pointed to his “long-standing record of strong support for Israel” during an appearance on Your Word.

“We’ve actually fought against the funding that the UN has sent under this UNRWA to places like Gaza, because when you send money there, it ends up going into the coffers of Hamas,” he said in part, as his campaign confirmed he stands by his past statements against funding the UNRWA.

Notably, President Joe Biden opted to restore funding to the agency, “committing over $730 million in American taxpayers’ dollars to the UNRWA – $680 million between 2021, when Biden became president, and early 2023, followed by a promise from Secretary of State Antony Blinken of another forthcoming $50 million this year,” as Breitbart News reported.

State Department spokesman Ned Price boasted of meeting this “humanitarian” need in February, bragging of providing “over $890 million for Palestinians, including over $680 in humanitarian assistance for refugees in the region through UNRWA.”

This was not the reality under former President Donald Trump’s leadership, as his administration cut off the funding due to evidence that the agency promoted antisemitism by indoctrinating children to hate Israel and the Jewish people, employing open antisemites, and ultimately supporting Hamas — the latter of which was brought up by the Jewish Policy Center in 2007, long before Trump’s presidency.

“Today, as UNRWA provides assistance in Gaza, it is directly providing financial and material support to the Hamas terrorist organization,” the Jewish Policy Center wrote at the time, concluding that “UNRWA does not seem to have a problem with Hamas’ Islamist agenda,” noting that it failed to condemn Hamas violence.

It continued:

Supporting the status quo means that UNRWA can be counted on to support the new Hamas government, so long as Hamas enables UNRWA’s continued existence. UNRWA is only too eager to provide the services that Hamas does not, cannot, or chooses not to. Hamas can continue to divert international monies that should be earmarked for food or electricity to the stockpiling of weapons and the creation of anti-Israel or anti-American propaganda as long as UNRWA provides the services that the negligent Hamas government should fulfill. In this way, UNRWA is undermining the Western strategy of weakening the Hamas government in Gaza to encourage the return of Palestinian Authority rule under President Mahmoud Abbas.

…

UNRWA teachers who publicly identify with radical groups have created a teachers’ bloc that ensures the election of Hamas members and other individuals committed to Islamist ideologies. After using their classrooms as a place to refine their radical messages, these teachers gravitate to politics. As such, UNRWA’s education system has become a springboard for Hamas leaders. For example, Said Sayyam, the Hamas minister of interior and civil affairs, was a teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003. He went on to become a member of UNRWA’s Arab Employees Union, and headed the teachers sector committee.

The questions come as some members of Congress are also speaking out against Biden’s plea for more money to Gaza, warning that it will benefit Hamas.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Horror of the Hamas Terror Attack on Civilians at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel

Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News

“UNRWA officials aren’t just complicit — they are active participants in Hamas’ terror, courtesy of the American taxpayer,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said in a statement this week.

“There is incontrovertible proof that UNRWA officials have played a key role in breeding the next generation of Hamas extremists,” she adds.

This month, Blackburn introduced legislation that would halt funding to UNRWA.

“Since taking office, President Biden has sent the UNRWA over $730 million, despite knowing there would be a high risk of Hamas benefiting from American taxpayers. UNRWA teachers and educational materials call for the murder of Jews, and the Biden administration should immediately halt all funding for the agency,” she said. “The U.S. government should not be funding terrorists.”