The Biden administration is continuing to build a disappointing track record of weak responses to foreign affairs crises and deceptive promotion of its own efforts at home. The latest example comes on the heels of the explosive revelations that at least a dozen members of the United Nations’ Palestinian relief agency, the UNRWA, took part in the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. In response, the White House claimed that they had reinstituted a freeze on funding for the UNRWA that had already been in place under Trump but was lifted by Joe Biden. That seemed like a step in the right direction at the time, but now we’ve learned that a very important detail was left out of the announcement. As Guy Benson reports at Townhall, the “freeze” in funding only applies to new, additional funding requests. Previously approved funds will continue to flow to them as usual.

They got their headlines about the designation going back into place, just under the hood, it’s a more feeble action than it would seem.  Similarly, you may have read that the Biden administration has frozen funds to UNRWA, the United Nations operation in Gaza, after explosive and credible allegations emerged that a dozen UNRWA employees were directly involved in the planning and execution of the October 7 Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians.  The Trump administration stopped funding this deeply corrupt organization back in 2018, then Biden quickly restored the money upon taking office.  Now that this move has blown up in his face, Biden has belatedly and apparently temporarily stopped the cash flow to UNRWA.  But as we saw with the Houthis climbdown, there’s a catch:

“On Friday, in response to allegations that employees of the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) had been involved in Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, the State Department announced that it had “temporarily paused additional funding” for the United Nations agency. The funding pause, however, applies only to new and additional funding, not funding already obligated before the pause went into effect on Wednesday, a State Department spokesperson told Pluribus. When asked for details on what obligations would and would not be affected by the pause, the spokesperson directed Pluribus to a fact sheet released by the State Department on January 16, 2024.”

Wow.@JerylBier discovered that the State Department saying they were pausing funding to UNRWA only applies to new commitments. They plan to continue to use US taxpayer money to fund current projects despite evidence of the group abetting terrorism. https://t.co/zXIfqouXVV

— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 28, 2024

In other words, the United Nations group that employed people who helped slaughter Israelis and take hostages will still keep receiving American cash as they’ve previously done. Meanwhile, what is the UN doing to ensure that the problem has been entirely resolved? How many UNRWA staffers were there who participated in the attacks? We’re being told twelve, but those may simply be the ones who were recognized and got caught taking up arms. How many others were and potentially still are Hamas sympathizers?

They have the capability to do a lot more damage than openly attacking the Jews. They can feed inside information to Hamas while posing as aid workers. We are further reminded that several thousand UNRWA staffers openly celebrated the October 7 attacks on social media. Not one of them objected. The entire organization appears to be rotten to the core and they are being heavily funded by the United States. It’s not a small amount, either. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Guy Benson correctly points out that this sleight of hand from Biden’s team is part of a larger pattern. You will recall that when Biden grudgingly agreed to add the Houthis back to the list of designated terror groups, he did assign them a designation, but it was a toothless classification compared to the position they occupied on the Foreign Terror Organization (FTO) watchlist under Donald Trump. That’s basically what he’s doing with the UNRWA. He’s giving someone a slap on the wrist when what they really need is a punch in the nose.

Joe Biden’s incompetent policies both at home and abroad aren’t simply embarrassing on the world stage, though that’s clearly true also. They are dangerous. They pose a threat to our own troops as we recently saw yet again and they put our allies at risk. He seems unwilling to do anything of substance that could be seen as too contrary to the wishes of Iran. You really have to ask yourself why.