The United States should demand on independent investigation of the reported use of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s facilities by PLO terrorists in Lebanon, the Anti-Deformation League of B’nai B’rith said today. Burton Levinson, chairman of the ADL’s national executive committee, said that if the inquiry turns up evidence of links between UNRWA and the PLO, the U.S. should withhold financial support for the relief agency.
The ADL’s call for an investigation came in the wake of a report issued by UNRWA that one of its trade schools near Beirut was used by the PLO to provide systematic military training for more than 700 students over the past two years.
A resolution calling for the inquiry was passed unanimously at the closing session of ADL’s national executive committee, the agency’s policy-making body, which met October 28 through October 31 at the Westin Galleria Hotel in Houston, Texas. By law, the ADL resolution noted, “the United States is prohibited from making contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency unless it ‘takes all possible measures to assure’ that no funds reach persons receiving military training by the PLO or any other terrorist organizations.”
In 1982, $67 million was provided by the United States for UNRWA operations, according to the ADL. The resolution called for legal action to recover any funds “improperly diverted from public use by … officers who violated their public trust and those groups or individuals who assisted as abetted such diversion.”
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