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By dramatically reducing the admission cap for the upcoming fiscal year, the administration seems to be abandoning the country’s long-standing commitment to helping those fleeing war and persecution.

By Priscilla Alavarez | The Atlantic | Sep 18, 2018

This repeated reduction in the number of refugees allowed into the US is incredibly troubling. Not only is it a continuation of a series of unprecedented attacks on our American values and on the humanitarian nature of the refugee resettlement program, but it falls far short of helping the large number [of] vulnerable people around the world.
— World Relief CEO Tim Breene

More than 25 million refugees around the world have had to flee their origin country due to war, famine, or persecution. Many will spend years in refugee camps, while others — those who can never return home — are placed elsewhere. For millions of refugees, their ultimate destination has been the United States, which has historically been committed to the resettlement of the world’s most vulnerable people. But not anymore.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the country will admit, at most, 30,000 refugees in fiscal year 2019, down from 45,000 this year. It will be the lowest refugee cap since the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. “The improved refugee policy of this administration serves the national interest of the United States, and helps those in need all around the world,” Pompeo said in a statement.

The figure is a significant setback for the United States: By sharply reducing admissions, the country is not only diverging from long-standing policy on refugees, but also relinquishing its leadership role in resettlement. Just within the past few years, the country well outpaced others in admitting thousands of refugees. The Obama administration set the refugee cap for fiscal year 2015 at 70,000; by 2016, the number was 85,000. And those numbers didn’t just represent lofty estimations: The Obama administration came close to achieving both caps, admitting 69,000 people in 2015 and nearly 85,000 in 2016.

Continue reading “The US sends an unwelcoming signal to refugees”

The United States is cutting the last of its funding to Palestine, in support of cross-border programs between Israelis and Palestinians.

By Edward Wong | The New York Times | Sep 14, 2018

The decision to cut off funding for the West Bank and Gaza [is] a sign that this White House has failed at diplomacy. This is not a partisan view. It’s the view of those who recognize that you don’t advance the cause of peace by cutting off programs that are designed to promote tolerance, understanding and address shared problems.
— Tim Rieser, foreign policy aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, (Dem. VT)

As part of its policy to end all aid for Palestinian civilians, the United States is blocking millions of dollars to programs that build relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, according to current and former American officials briefed on the change.

The move to prevent Palestinians — including, in many cases, children — from benefiting from the funds squeezes shut the last remaining channel of American aid to Palestinian civilians.

The money had already been budgeted by Congress for allocation in fiscal year 2017, which ends this month. In the past, these designated funds went mostly to programs that organized people-to-people exchanges between Palestinians and Israelis, often for youth. Some went to programs for Israeli Jews and Arabs.

Continue reading “US cuts funding for children’s soccer games between Israel and Palestine”

Diplomacy as coercion goes against everything American foreign policy stands for.

By Dana Allin and Steven Simon | The New York Times | Sep 17, 2018

Sanctions and deterrence should always be part of the American diplomatic arsenal. But punishment for its own sake is not how the United States traditionally conducts diplomacy. Nor is there much evidence that punishment works — just ask Israel, which has been using it for years to try to wring Palestinian concessions.

Are President Trump’s advisers checking his worst impulses? From trade to NATO, we’ve been assured that the “adults” in the White House are working quietly to prevent the president from following through on his often erratic foreign policy proclamations.

In fact, many of those advisers are leaving their own mark on American international relations by amplifying the president’s instincts or, in some cases, using the opportunity to advance their own radical agendas. While we focus on the president’s latest utterances, they have been fundamentally altering the direction of United States foreign policy, from one based on cooperation and leadership to one rooted in punishment and domination.

Nowhere is this more clear than in America’s Middle East policy. Last week John Bolton, President Trump’s national security adviser, announced the closing of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington; the administration also revoked the visas for the organization’s envoy and his family.

Continue reading “The US can’t punish the Palestinians into negotiating”

The continuation of the 50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is a tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

By The Editorial Board | Los Angeles Times | Sep 11, 2018

Slowly, the administration is turning the screws, sending the unmistakable message to Palestinians that the US no longer sees itself as an evenhanded broker in the effort to find a workable solution to the conflict.

There was a time when the United States and much of the rest of the world saw the Palestinians as a non-people, or as a subset of the people of Jordan, or as a backward collection of whiners and terrorists who could easily be “absorbed” into the countries of their fellow Arabs. But over the decades, that began to change. Eventually a consensus emerged that a negotiated two-state solution was the most equitable and the most practical way to address the legitimate territorial claims of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, however, the Trump administration is moving that cause steadily backward in a bogus search for what the president has boasted will be the “ultimate” peace deal, but which seems increasingly likely to result in a one-sided proposal that will be both unfair and unacceptable to Palestinians when and if it is unveiled.

Just consider Trump’s actions in recent months. First, he declared that, in a reversal of long-standing policy, the United States would formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — a needlessly provocative concession to right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that complicates future negotiations.

Continue reading “Trump’s latest step backward on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”