The Netherlands’s annual contribution will drop to €1 million within four years.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

The Dutch Parliament voted on Thursday to decrease funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over its ties to terrorism.

The decision is a diplomatic victory for Israel, which severed ties with the U.N.’s Palestinian aid organization over it connections with Hamas and other terrorist groups, and a sign of no-confidence among some of Israel’s European allies that are looking for alternative avenues to provide aid.

The parliamentary measure, which was approved by a vote of 88-49, will see the Netherlands cut annual funding to UNRWA by €4 million a year, starting next month. This past year it gave the organization €19 million.

“UNRWA as an organization has been in disrepute for repeated violations of neutrality and for some of its employees who glorified violence in telegram groups,” the budget amendment states. “In addition, there have been serious allegations against employees who participated in the October 7, [2023, massacre] or the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.”

An Israeli intelligence report released last January showed that at least a dozen UNRWA employees actively participated Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and that the agency has hundreds of “military operatives” belonging to Hamas and other terrorist groups on its payroll.

The revelations prompted 17 countries—led by the United States and Germany, UNRWA’s biggest donors— to suspend funding. With the exception of the U.S., all have since resumed funding due to concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

The Dutch funding cuts will be rerouted to other aid organizations that offer humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Dutch Senator Annabel Nanninga in 2021. Credit: Room for Discussion /YouTube via Wikimedia Commons.

‘Our aid must never fuel terrorism’

“Up until now the Dutch government has been hesitant to cut funding to UNRWA, but our amendment will rectify this,” Dutch Senator Annabel Nanninga told JNS on Friday. “The Netherlands cannot keep supporting an organization accused by our ally Israel of having links to Hamas, especially without clear evidence to dismiss these accusations. Our humanitarian aid must never end up fueling terrorism.”

“Fantastic news!” tweeted Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom and a staunch supporter of Israel. “The Netherlands is reducing its contributions to UNRWA.”

His party, the largest in the parliament, supported the amendment although it had favored stopping all funding to UNRWA immediately.

The amendment, which was co-sponsored by two conservative parties and also makes note of antisemitism in UNRWA schools, was a watered-down version of proposals that had called to cut the funding by half or more next year. Still, it will still see the Netherlands’s annual funding of UNRWA drop to €1 million within four years.

“Israel has warned the UN more than once that a significant portion of UNRWA employees are Hamas activists, and on October 7, the world saw that they are not only supporting terror, but UNRWA employees were terrorists who murdered innocent Israelis in the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told JNS on Friday.

Haskel, who spearheaded a push to convince European lawmakers to cut funding to UNRWA in her previous role as head of the Knesset’s Christian Allies Caucus, welcomed the Dutch move.

“I congratulate the Dutch Parliament which decided in favor of gradually cutting funds to UNRWA and in doing so, joined the steps I have personally been advancing to defund, replace, and eventually close UNRWA, which has become a compromised and rotten-to-the-core organization,” she said. “There are viable alternatives to UNRWA, and it’s time for the international community to advance them, where the U.N. under current Secretary-General [António] Guterres has failed.”

In September, the Swiss House of Representatives voted to immediately halt payments to the UNRWA over its ties to terrorism.

The decision, which still needs to be approved by the Swiss Senate, was the latest back and forth between the two legislative chambers over funding to the agency.

The U.S. freeze on funding is widely expected to be renewed by the new Trump administration next year.