本集介紹

2021.04.08 國際新聞導讀-約旦政變結束、美國恢復對巴勒斯坦援助UNRWA與USAID等援助都恢復、美國與伊拉克戰略夥伴關係聯合聲明

美國恢復對ＵＮＲＷＡ１．５億美元援助
US to send $150 million to UNRWA, formally restoring aid to the Palestinians
Biden quietly ramping up funding to Palestinians; has long said he would reverse freeze put in place by Trump
By AARON BOXERMAN and JACOB MAGID
Today, 11:08 pm 0

Palestinian school children chant slogans and raise the victory gesture over a UN flag during a protest at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school, financed by US aid, in the Arroub refugee camp near Hebron in the West Bank on September 5, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / HAZEM BADER)
The United States government announced on Wednesday afternoon that it was formally resuming $150 million in economic aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the UN body tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees, amidst a broader push to restore its aid to the Palestinians.
“The United States is pleased to announce that, working with Congress, we plan to restart US economic, development and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Under the administration of previous US president Donald Trump, Washington largely ended funding for the Palestinian Authority and for UNRWA, which runs a network of educational and medical programs for Palestinian refugees around the Middle East.

In addition to resuming UNRWA funding, the planned aid package includes $75 million in economic and development assistance in the West Bank and Gaza, $10 million for peacebuilding programs through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and $40 million in security assistance.
In a statement, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the resumption of aid, as well as Biden’s “commitment to the two-state solution as a basis for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said he hoped the renewal of aid was just one step toward thawing the Palestinians’ relations with the United States.
“We look forward not only to the resumption of American financial aid despite its importance, but also to the return of political relations with the United States in a way that realizes our people’s legitimate rights,” Shtayyeh said in a statement.
Some of the American aid had begun to flow quietly over the past week, with the State Department notifying Congress of its decision to do so without much public fanfare. The aid immediately provoked criticism from Republicans and some Democrats who support stricter conditions on aid to the Palestinians.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about the release of the ‘2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,’ at the State Department in Washington, March 30, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)
UNRWA, whose 28,000 employees are mostly descendants of refugees, provides services such as education and healthcare to roughly 5.7 million Palestinians in camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon the West Bank and Gaza.
“Funding to UNRWA also provides critical COVID-19 assistance, including healthcare, medicine and medical supplies, as well as cash and food assistance to families severely impacted by COVID-19,” Blinken said.
Trump seceded from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2017 and halted its millions of dollars in aid to UNRWA the next year, arguing that both suffered from anti-Israel bias and effectively helped perpetuate the conflict.
“The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation,” a spokesperson for Trump’s State Department said of UNRWA at the time.
The Biden administration has made no secret of its belief that Trump’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which alienated the Palestinians, was flawed and made prospects for peace less likely. The new administration has argued that when the US leaves such international forums, it loses its ability to influence them.
Israel, however, has long pushed for UNRWA’s closure, arguing that it helps perpetuate the conflict with the Palestinians since it confers refugee status upon descendants of those originally displaced around the time of Israel’s War of Independence.
Pro-Israel advocates have also long criticized UNRWA for its textbooks, which they say promote incitement. Israeli monitoring groups have charged that UNRWA curricula promote violence and deny Israel’s right to exist.
“[UNRWA’s] incitement activities and the fictitious way in which it defines who is a Palestinian ‘refugee’ only perpetuates the conflict and encourages hatred among the Palestinian public,” Israel’s ambassador to the US and the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said Wednesday in response to the administration’s decision.
Palestinian employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) take part in a sit-in, in front of the agency’s headquarters in Gaza City on October 2, 2018, to protest against job cuts announced by the agency. (AFP PHOTO / SAID KHATIB)
Erdan said that he had privately opposed the move to renew aid.
“In conversations with the US State Department, I expressed my regret and opposition to the decision to resume assistance to the agency without at least implementing the necessary reforms to stop its incitement and the anti-Semitic content taught in its schools,” Erdan said on Wednesday.
Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo and UN ambassador Nikki Haley had also championed the removal of funding for the relief agency, arguing it was responsible for perpetuating Palestinian poverty and questioning whether all of the millions of people it serves are actually refugees.
Just a week before leaving office, Pompeo accused UNRWA of being “riddled with waste, fraud [and] concerns of support to terrorism” and said there are fewer than 200,000 legitimate Palestinian refugees still alive.
Before it withdrew its support for UNRWA, the US was the largest contributor to the UN agency to the tune of $365 million, or nearly 30 percent of its annual budget.
The agency had entered 2021 with liabilities of $75 million from the last financial year, and its annual deficit was expected to reach $200 million in the current year.
Wednesday’s announcement represented an additional opening of the US faucet of aid to the Palestinians after it was gradually closed by the Trump administration. It was the fourth such move in just two weeks, making good on Biden’s pledge to restart financial assistance to the Palestinians.
Palestinian refugees hold placards at a school belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the town of Sebline east of the southern Lebanese port of Saida, on March 12, 2018, during a protest against US aid cuts to the organization. (AFP PHOTO / Mahmoud ZAYYAT)
Before Wednesday, the Biden White House had notified Congress that it would give the Palestinians $40 million for law enforcement and security costs, on top of $75 million in assistance for infrastructure and $15 million in coronavirus assistance.
A handful of Republicans are already preparing to challenge the aid, maintaining that it violates the Taylor Force and the Anti-Terrorism Clarification acts. Both laws — which passed with wide bipartisan support — block most aid that directly benefits the Palestinian Authority so long as it continues to pay stipends to security prisoners, including those convicted of terrorism.
But the legislation carved out exceptions for exactly the type of aid that the Biden administration has been resuming in recent weeks. And the recently announced financial assistance was already allocated during the previous administration — based on legislation signed into law by Trump himself.
“Congress earmarked $150 million for economic support and security assistance, split evenly, in the appropriations bill for fiscal year 2020. This means the Biden administration has no choice but to spend this money or be in breach of congressional law,” Abraham Center managing director Joel Braunold, who closely follows US aid to the Palestinians, told The Times of Israel.
The State Department will have to disburse its economic support funding — which is subject to the Taylor Force Act’s restrictions — with enormous care. But the United States could still fund civil society programs, rule of law initiatives and Gaza-based projects, as long as none of them benefit the PA.
“By spending the economic support funds in ways that do not directly benefit the PA, as defined by the Trump administration in 2018, the Biden administration is both fulfilling the will of Congress and following the law,” Braunold said.
Before the Trump administration began tightening the screws on the Palestinian Authority in 2018 for refusing to engage with its peace efforts, the US was the single largest donor country to the PA.
The US paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the PA’s creditors, such as the Israeli state utility companies from which the Palestinians purchase water and electricity. It also paid for training for the PA’s security forces and numerous infrastructure projects.

約旦政變風波結束
約旦安曼—約旦國王阿卜杜拉星期三打破沉默，對他的國家說，據稱涉及其同父異母兄弟哈姆扎王子的陰謀引發數十年來最嚴重的政治危機。
政府指控哈姆扎（Hamzah）曾參與串謀“破壞王國的安全”，並逮捕了至少16人。哈姆扎曾是2004年被封為王位繼承人的王儲。

但阿卜杜拉（Abdullah）週三表示，在叔叔的調解下簽下保證對國王忠誠的哈姆扎（Hamzah）在他的“保護”下在他的宮殿中是安全的。

阿卜杜拉（Abdullah）在官方電視新聞停播的第二天，在以國家電視台的名字宣讀的講話中說：“我向您保證，這是在扼殺一切。”
他說：“最後幾天面臨的挑戰對國家的穩定不是最危險的，但對我來說卻是最痛苦的，因為參與該次分裂的各方來自國內和外部。”
約旦王子哈姆扎·本·侯賽因在2015年的照片中
尚不清楚國王是指皇室家族還是王國以外的演員。
外交大臣艾曼·薩法迪（Ayman Safadi）週日指責密謀者與外國政黨有聯繫，但拒絕透露身份。
'家務事
Hamzah遵照父親的意願於1999年被任命為王儲，但Abdullah於2004年剝奪了他的頭銜，並在Hamzah的位置任命了他的長子。
在聲稱他星期六被軟禁之後，Hamzah廣泛利用了傳統和社交媒體來抨擊他的處境。
英國廣播公司在周六發布的一段視頻中，他指責約旦統治者的腐敗和無能。
但是，阿卜杜拉（Abdullah）在周一發表聲明表示對國王的忠誠之後，於週三表示，哈姆扎（Hamzah）為君主制提供了支持。
阿卜杜拉在致辭中說：“哈姆扎現在與家人一起在他的宮殿中受到我的保護。”
“他承諾在（哈希姆（Hashemite））家人面前走父母和祖父母的路，忠實於他們的信息，並將約旦的利益，憲法和法律置於所有其他考慮之上。”
約旦國王阿卜杜拉二世和侯賽因王儲在以色列從以色列歸還領土後，在佐法爾飛地祈禱（禮貌）
這場危機在一個通常被視為中東穩定的堡壘的國家中造成了赤裸裸的分歧。
約旦與以色列和西岸，敘利亞，伊拉克和沙特阿拉伯接壤。它接待美國軍隊，是數百萬流亡的巴勒斯坦人和超過50萬敘利亞難民的家園。
君主制統治約旦-一個長期以來被視為動盪地區親西方穩定的國家-宣布它將在“哈希姆家族的框架內”解決此事。
寬慰
國王發表講話之前，安曼檢察官哈桑·阿卜杜拉拉特（Hassan al-Abdallat）週二發布了命令，該命令禁止發布有關涉嫌陰謀的任何信息，以便對安全部門的調查保密。
約旦的媒體被告知要等正式聲明後，再發布有關被捕者的任何信息。
沙特外交大臣費薩爾·本·法漢（Faysal Bin Farhan）的來訪主導了周三早報的頭版新聞，薩勒曼國王發了言，冠狀病毒爆發的事態發展席捲全國。
Mustafa al-Riyalat, editor-in-chief of pro-government newspaper Addustour, said Jordanians “all feel reassured, because it’s as if nothing happened.”
The streets of the Jordanian capital Amman are empty after the start of a nationwide curfew, amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, March 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, File)
In the streets, Jordanians voiced relief.
“When the crisis erupted on Saturday, there was no one in the streets. People were afraid,” said Shady, 41, who owns a clothing store in the capital Amman.
“But thank God, it was resolved within the royal palace.”
But Ahmed Awad, of the Phenix Center for Economics and Informatics Studies, warned that the crisis was not yet over.
“There was a solution within the royal family, but not a solution to the political crisis,” he said.
“真正的政治危機將持續下去，直到進行更多的民主改革為止。”

美國與伊拉克戰略夥伴關係