Dem Rep. Meeks: I’ve Talked About Getting Money to UNRWA by Proxy, ‘Very Upset’ Congress Defunded It

On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) said he is “very upset” about the government funding bill stripping funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) over accusations that multiple UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 attack because they’re the only group that can get aid in and that he’s talked with people “on how we can get resources to them and they may be able to get resources to UNRWA or whoever else” can get aid in.

Co-host Alicia Menendez asked, “Very quickly, though, another complication here is the restrictions on funding to UNRWA. You have a lot of progressives very upset about it. Your thoughts?”

Meeks responded, “I’m very upset about it. We had to strike this deal in order to keep the government open. But we know that UNRWA is the only one that has the ability to get the aid to the people there. So, [that’s] something that was a problem for me, also. But I had to make some decisions, because you give and take when you do these budgets. So, we still — and I’ve been talking to a number of individuals…from other humanitarian organizations on how we can get resources to them and they may be able to get resources to UNRWA or whoever else can get food and aid into the region, absolutely key and essential.”