Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump’s administration believes the United Nations agency tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees “has perpetuated and exacerbated the refugee crisis,” a senior Trump administration official said Monday.
Much of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan remains a closely-guarded secret, but emails newly leaked to Foreign Policy magazine and a statement from a senior administration official are shedding light on the administration’s dim view of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, known as UNRWA.
“UNRWA’s mandate has perpetuated and exacerbated the refugee crisis and must be changed so the Palestinian people can reach their full potential,” a senior administration told CNN in a statement on Monday.
The statement followed a Foreign Policy report that revealed leaked emails in which Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser overseeing the peace effort, pressed fellow officials to engage in “an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA.”
“This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace,” Kushner wrote in emails dated January 11 and obtained by Foreign Policy. A senior administration official did not dispute the authenticity of the emails to…