Disruption is needed in relationship with PLO

PRESIDENT Trump has been described as a disruptive agent in politics. That’s certainly proving true in foreign affairs in ways that should be applauded. A case in point is Trump’s decision to close the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington because of the PLO’s refusal to engage in a peace process with Israel.

In a speech, national security adviser John Bolton put the matter plainly, saying the Trump administration “will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to take steps to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”

The State Department has also announced the U.S. will no longer fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a Palestinian refugee agency. Among other things, UNRWA was criticized for using a bogus process that artificially inflated the official count of Palestinian “refugees.”

U.N Ambassador Nikki Haley was blunt in her condemnation of the PLO in a recent interview.

“All they’ve done is have their hand out asking for money, badmouth the United States, not come to the table on the peace deal — why would we have a PLO office?” she asked. “Why would we continue to fund the Palestinians?”

Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, is also working on these issues. He recently filed the Palestinian Assistance Reform Act, which would require that UNRWA change the way it provides assistance to Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon by adopting an internationally recognized definition of “refugee.”

NRWA’s definition automatically grants life-long refugee status to the descendants of male Palestinian refugees, regardless of specific circumstances or need. Under Lankford’s bill, if UNRWA doesn’t modernize and use the definition of refugee used by other international refugee assistance organizations and in American law, then its funding would be directed to other entities aiding Palestinians.

“We are currently funding an entity that has ensured that a refugee population of several hundreds of thousands 70 years ago has exploded to more than 5 million,” Lankford said. “This is not sustainable — for American taxpayers, who are asked to finance the welfare of these individuals, for the Palestinians themselves, or for the Israelis.”

During a visit last year to an UNRWA refugee camp in the West Bank, Lankford saw how Palestinians were “pressured to remain in these camps to present a false narrative to the rest of the world that Palestinians are suffering at the hands of Israel and the U.S.” He called UNRWA “a barrier to peace” that “must be reformed.”

For too many years, the approach of the international community and even prior U.S. presidential administrations has been to blame Israel for any conflict with Palestinians, even though Palestinian officials refuse to engage in any valid peace process. But now Haley points out, “If the leadership of the Palestinians came to the table, automatically you’re going to have a peace plan.”

No one needs disruption for the sake of disruption. But there’s every reason to cheer the disruption of a long-standing, ineffective and counterproductive status quo. When it comes to its actions targeting the PLO, the Trump administration deserves credit and support.