Reporter To State Dept Spox: You 'Precipitated A Situation Where Everyone Pulled Funding From UNRWA'

3 months ago

During a press briefing on Wednesday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller answered reporter questions on the UNRWA investigations.

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00:00details of that publicly.

00:02Yeah, Simon.

00:03Just a couple of things to follow up on from Said's questions.

00:06On UNRWA, didn't you announce a ban of – before this congressional action, you announced

00:14that the administration would no longer be funding UNRWA, and as far as I know, never

00:17lifted that.

00:19We announced a suspension of funding to UNRWA pending the investigation that UNRWA launched.

00:25That investigation is still going.

00:26But in the interim, before the time that investigation was finished, Congress enacted

00:32a ban.

00:33So your pausing of aid basically precipitated this – like, it seemed to precipitate a

00:40situation where everybody pulled funding from UNRWA, and now you're sort of criticizing

00:45other people for cutting off UNRWA or criticizing the Israelis for cutting off UNRWA.

00:51That's not – that is not what I criticized Israel for.

00:53I criticized Israel for – or I criticized the verbal attacks and threatening rhetoric

00:57and advancing legislation and calling them a terrorist organization, which we do not

01:01agree with.

01:02Other – we've always made clear that other countries have to make their own decisions

01:04about funding, and we've seen other countries restore funding.

01:09We just simply don't have the flexibility to make that decision because of the action

01:13that Congress took.

01:14But the investigation and therefore the decision of this department on whether funding should

01:20go to UNRWA from the U.S. is still up in the air.

01:24Is there any expectation of when that will be finished?

01:26No, it is a – because it's a UN investigation.

01:30It's not something that we are conducting, so it's not something that we can put a

01:33timetable on.

01:34They've had two investigations ongoing.

01:36One of them finished.

01:37One has not.

01:38But just to go back to the decision we made, we made a decision to suspend funding to UNRWA

01:43after there were allegations made about UNRWA employees having been involved in October

01:477th that UNRWA told us they found credible.

01:51And so when you had UNRWA telling us they found credible, we thought that was an appropriate

01:54step to do, to suspend funding to fund humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people through

02:00other mechanisms while that investigation proceeded.

02:02That investigation is still ongoing.

02:04Now, in the meantime, as I said, Congress came in and enacted this statutory restriction

02:09that bars us from funding UNRWA.

02:11But all the humanitarian assistance money that we would have provided to Palestinians

02:15through UNRWA we are providing through other mechanisms, chiefly at the UN and then through

02:20other nongovernmental organizations.

02:22Right.

02:23And also, just on the question of the day-after talks that Said mentioned involving the UAE,

02:31some mention in The Washington Post reporting on that of the U.S. playing a coordinating

02:36role with this international force that would – being responsible for securing Gaza would

02:43be invited in by the PA.

02:45These are obviously details I'm not sure if you'll get into, but I wonder if you

02:49could sort of address the possibility of the U.S. playing that kind of coordinating role

02:55and separately whether U.S. security contractors could also be involved in that.

03:00I just don't want to get into any of the details at all.

03:02I think it's not appropriate at this time.

03:05One more slightly separate thing.

03:07Just on the trip planning that you mentioned, I wonder, now that you're basically – the

03:14Secretary has decided to stay for an extra day to attend the Netanyahu meeting, I wonder

03:20what the message to ASEAN and to that region, to Southeast Asia, is that you're also – that

03:27means it was announced yesterday that you would be at – that he would be – or sorry,

03:31earlier in the week, that he would be attending the funeral of the Vietnamese former leader.

03:37Now we're not going to attend that funeral.

03:40It seems like the participation at ASEAN is much shorter than was previously planned.

03:45This is all happening because the prime minister of Israel has decided to come to the U.S.

03:51How do you square that with sort of trying to tell Asian allies, partners in the region,

03:55Southeast Asia – this is obviously a really important region – that the U.S. is sort

04:00of all in on your region, but when a crisis happens in the Middle East, this is a meeting

04:06that's run by the president.

04:08Does the Secretary of State really need to be there?

04:10So I think our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific understand a few things.

04:15Number one, that this is the Secretary's 18th trip to the region.

04:18It was his first trip as Secretary, continues to be a major priority for us, and we show

04:23that not just by our words but by the amount of time he spent in the region.

04:27And as I said, it's his 18th trip.

04:29I think they understand that he will be visiting all of the countries that we announced that

04:34he's visiting.

04:35He will still travel to Laos, to Vietnam, to Japan, to Singapore, to the Philippines,

04:41to Mongolia.

04:42And I think that demonstrates our commitment, as do the investments that we've made in

04:47the region, as do the partnerships that we have announced in the region.

04:51I think people understand that there was a meeting he had planned to attend, and the

04:56timing of the meeting got shifted due to something that's – could not be foreseen.

05:00That's the president getting COVID.

05:02And I think they understand that that happens.

05:05It happens to a number of foreign leaders where there are unforeseen events at home

05:08that mandate a slight shift in the schedule, but we will still be there attending the meetings

05:14that we intended to and still traveling to Vietnam to pay our respects – not on the

05:19day of the funeral, but the day after – to meet with senior government officials, and

05:22I think our allies and partners quite – I think certainly understand the importance

05:28we place on the region and understand that we have the ability to do more than one thing

05:31at a time.

05:32QUESTION.

05:33So I think the – obviously, the Secretary's travel has been to the region a lot, but the

05:37President did miss the ASEAN Leaders' Summit last year.

05:40That will also be in November this year.

05:43Is there – do you have anything you can tell us on how the U.S. will be represented

05:48at that one?

05:49Obviously, ministerial this week, but the Leaders' Summit that day.

05:51MR.

05:52HOOKER.

05:53The summit?

05:54No, I can't.

05:55I would let the White House speak to the President's participation.

05:56Obviously, that's still, I think, a couple of months away.

05:59But as I said, the overall presence of the U.S. in the region – I think if you look

06:03at what we said at the outset of this administration, how we plan to make a major investment of

06:08time, of resources, of energy and capacity in the Indo-Pacific, we have borne that out

06:13through our actions the past three and a half years, and we intend to continue to do that

06:16for the next six months.

Reporter To State Dept Spox: You 'Precipitated A Situation Where Everyone Pulled Funding From UNRWA'

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