December, 12 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Senate Votes to End Illegal U.S. War in Yemen as Peace Talks Progress
WASHINGTON
The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) today celebrated both the historic Senate vote to end U.S. military participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen and the breakthrough in the Yemen peace negotiations.
"Today's victory will go down in the annals of history, demonstrating that Americans who long for peace and humanitarian response can help stop the starvation of millions of people," said Diane Randall, FCNL's Executive Secretary. "With this vote, the Senate also set a historic precedent for using the War Powers Resolution exactly the way the Vietnam War-era Congress intended: to end wars never authorized by Congress."
For the first time, the Senate voted to withdraw military forces using the War Powers Resolution. The Sanders-Lee-Murphy legislation (S.J.Res. 54) passed 56-41. FCNL continues to call on the House to keep the momentum going on Capitol Hill and at the UN-brokered peace talks by voting to end American involvement in this unconscionable war once and for all.
"Congressional pressure on the Saudi-led coalition clearly played a large role in the Yemeni peace talks progress," said Kate Gould, FCNL's Legislative Director for Middle East Policy. "Today, the Senate sent the strongest signal yet that America must stop enabling the starvation of children. With House Republican leadership preventing representatives from having a say, incoming House Democratic leadership should pledge to hold a vote in early January on ending support for this war."
While the Senate legislation now moves to the House, Republican leadership there has repeatedly prevented Yemen war powers bills (H.Con.Res. 81, H.Con.Res.138, and H.Con.Res.142) from getting floor votes. Yesterday, for example, by a narrow three-vote margin, the House passed a rule providing for debate on the farm bill (H.Res. 1176) that obstructs votes on the Yemen war for the rest of 2018.
FCNL is the leading faith-based organization lobbying American policymakers to end support for the Saudi-led war and de-facto blockade of Yemen.
As a Quaker organization, FCNL seeks to end war and all threats of war. To learn more, please visit www.fcnl.org.
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Countries that have continued to suspend their funding of the United Nations' top relief agency in the occupied Palestinian territories were left with "no room" to justify their decision, said critics on Monday as an independent investigation into Israel's allegations against the organization revealed Israeli officials have ignored requests to provide evidence to support their claims.
Catherine Colonna, the former foreign minister of France, released her findings in a probe regarding Israel's claims that a significant number of employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were members of terrorist groups.
Nearly three months after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres commissioned the report, Colonna said Israel "has yet to provide supporting evidence" of its allegation that "a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations."
Colonna's findings were bolstered by an investigation led by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, which separately sought evidence from Israel.
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Countries including Sweden, Japan, France, and Australia have reinstated their funding of the agency in recent weeks, citing concerns about the intensifying humanitarian crisis in Gaza—where more than two dozen children have died of starvation so far—and Israel's lack of evidence.
Lawmakers in the U.S., which provides nearly $344 million to UNRWA annually, included a prohibition on funding for the agency in its foreign aid bill that passed in the House of Representatives on Saturday, while the United Kingdom has said it would make a decision about resuming funding after the Colonna report was released.
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Colonna's report, which was accepted by Guterres Monday, noted that UNRWA is more rigorous than other U.N. agencies in its internal oversight of its staff and their neutrality.
"The review revealed that UNRWA has established a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles, with emphasis on the principle of neutrality and that it possesses a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar U.N. or NGO entities," reads the report.
Guterres called on donor countries to "fully cooperate in the implementation of the recommendations" of the report.
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Colonna's report, said Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft executive vice president Trita Parsi, is "not only damning for Israel."
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"Rather than sending more weapons to Israel, Congress should declare an immediate arms embargo on Israel."
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