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CLOSE-UP

Palestinian Pipeline

Continued from preceding page

ship drives. Membership in
PAS, Ameri said, has topped
the 4,000 mark. Annual costs
are $15, or $25 for a family.
The majority of members
are Palestinians, and most
give small amounts. "We don't
have any Max Fishers," Ameri
said.
Another financial source are
the sponsors — many Chris-
tian — who support projects in
the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinian groups, and
sometimes individuals, ask
the PAS to supply everything
from medical aid to money to
build mosques. If the request
is to be honored, the PAS
looks for a sponsor who sends
funding directly to the Palesti-
nian organization.
The United Methodist
Church has been a generous
donor to PAS projects, Ameri
said.

Mary Sue Robinson is area
executive secretary for the
North Africa, Middle East and
European desk of the
Africa/Europe, Middle East of-
fice of the World Division of
the United Methodist Church.
Grants the church awards the
PAS are handled through the
Ministry With Women and
Children of the General Board
of Global Ministries of the
church's World Division.
According to Robinson, the
church made its first donation
— $1,500 — in 1984 for a pro-
ject to train Palestinian or-
phans as carpenters. The next
year it alloted $1,800 and in
1986, the Methodist Church
gave the PAS $2,400 for pro-
grams like a kindergarten for
Palestinian children at a
refugee camp.
While the church did not
give grants in 1987 or 1988

because the PAS did not pro-
pose a suitable program,
Robinson said she expects a
PAS proposal to help women
and children this year.
Whether or not the PAS re-
quest will be honored depends
in large part, she said, on
whether the church has the
money. It's a concern with
which the PAS's Ameri is
familiar.
Ameri said none of the chur-
ches she has approached ex-
pressed concern about suppor-
ting a project for Palestinians.
Their main question, she said,
is always "Is it in our
budget?"
Other groups that support
PAS programs include the
American Friends Service
Committee,(Quakers) and the
New Jewish Agenda. Agenda,
the PAS and other Jewish and
Palestinian groups are part-

A PLO Financial Feast

It's a little like a potluck
dinner for the Palestine
Liberation Organization
these days. Everyone is be-
ing accused of bringing
something different to help
the PLO fuel the uprising in
the West Bank and Gaza.
Those allegedly involved
include Jews, an aide to
Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak, former rock star
Cat Stevens, the Quakers
and UNRWA — the United
Nations Relief and Works
Agency.
And according to a recent
story in the Israeli daily
Ha'aretz, the PLO needs
$600 million each year to
continue the intifada. The
paper cited as its source a
published PLO document.
If Palestinian groups in
the United States are con-
tributing to the uprising,
the sums are probably
modest. This is not the case
in the charges against
UNRWA, raised in recent
editions of Ma'ariv and
Ha'aretz, among others.
UNRWA was established
in December 1948 and
granted a $50 million budg-
et to aid Palestinian refu-
gees. The aid was to be even-
tually replaced by public
works, with any remaining
monies needed to be pro-
vided by Arab governments.
Yet the Arab governments
have had little interest in
funding Palestinian refu-
gees, reportedly because
they feared the move would
signal their support of a
resettlement plan. Richard
Krieger, former associate
U.S. coordinator for refugee

affairs at the State Depart-
ment, and Elise Butowsky, a
member of the board of ad-
visers/Middle East division
for the International Educa-
tional Missions, Inc., wrote
in a recent issue
of Near East Report that un-
til several months ago, only
2.5 percent of UNRWA's
budget was coming from the
Arab countries.
Four percent of UNRWA's
budget is funded by the
United Nations, with the
rest coming from voluntary
contributions. Among the
donors are the Near East
Council of Churches, the
Pontifical Mission for
Palestine, the Mennonite
Central Committee, mem-
bers of the Italian Parlia-
ment, the United Kingdom's
Save the Children Fund and
countries ranging from
Argentina to Zimbabwe. In
1987, Israel gave $294,902
to UNRWA; Syria contri-
buted $125,504.
How much the Arabs were
willing to give the Palesti-
nians changed last January
after the Council of Minis-
ters of the League of Arab
States met with the commis-
sioner general of UNRWA.
After the meeting — the
first ever of its kind — UNR-
WA pledged support for a
$67.5 million emergency
fund for the West Bank and
Gaza.
The money came rolling
in. Among the $1 million-
plus contributors: Iraq, Abu
Dhabi, Qatar, the Islamic
Development Bank, Libya
and Kuwait.

"UNRWA's willingness to
create a $67.5 million
emergency fund when its
total 1988 budget for the
West Bank and Gaza Strip
is just $89.3 million raises
the question of whether the
agency is fulfilling its role
as a relief and assistance
agency or is being used as a
political vehicle to support
unrest — particularly when
no comparative emergency
fund has been established
for the Palestinian refugees
in Lebanon," Krieger and
Butowsky wrote.

This isn't the first time
UNRWA has been tied to
political activities. In 1973,
the agency "complained
that the PLO had taken over
some of its buildings in
Lebanon," Mitchell Bard
wrote in a recent issue of
Policy Review. "And when
that country descended into
chaos, the UNRWA was forc-
ed to secure the cooperation
of the PLO to carry out its
mission. Although UNRWA
officials feigned ignorance,
the Israelis learned prior to
their 1982 invasion that the
PLO was using agency facil-
ities for bases. During the
war, Israeli soldiers found
anti-Israel propaganda,
military uniforms, and
stockpiles of weapons in a
UNRWA school near Sidon."

Yet the United States
continues to be UNRWA's
most generous contributor.
The United States sup-
plies about 35 percent of
UNRWA's general fund,
donating $70 million in
1987 alone.

