UNITED NATIONS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Permanant Observer of Palestine to the United Nations (UN) Riyad Mansour on Tuesday refuted the U.S. attack on Arab states' aid to Palestinians.
"You cannot come to the Security Council in an arrogant way to say that you are the only one who is helping and others are not doing anything. That is not the case," Mansour said outside the council chamber.
In her earlier speech given during an open debate on the Middle East situation, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the Palestinians' Arab neighbors "are generous with their words," but those words "do not feed, clothe, or educate a single Palestinian child."
Their contribution "does not come anywhere close to what the United States has done," Haley said, adding that the United States has provided over 6 billion U.S. dollars in bilateral assistance to the Palestinians since 1993.
The ambassador, however, did not mention that this year, Washington cut its funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which helps Palestinian refugees, from a promised 365 million dollars to 60 million dollars.
The cuts render the UNRWA still 217 million dollars short for sustaining its work this year even after it stepped up fundraising efforts, according to the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov.
"You do not stop 300 million dollars away from UNRWA under any pretext and say you care about the humanitarian situation of the people there," said Mansour, criticising Haley's speech.
He also cited Saudi Arabia's ambassador as saying, in response to Haley's remarks, that as an Arab country, Saudi Arabia has over the years contributed more than 6 billion dollars to help Palestinians.
"She (Haley) was insulting close allies of the United States, such as Arab countries in the Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia," said Mansour.
After Washington's decision on the cuts, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Eirates each gave 50 million dollars to the agency, according to UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl.
