Julieta Valls Noyes

Uh, but that doesn't mean we are outright denying UNRWA, you know, its, its relevance or its importance." Again, the effect, very quickly, was that domino effect you talk about, where US allies suspended their funding, which created a major funding crunch for UNRWA as it faces the biggest need for its services in its history, and again, to embolden hardline Israel supporters in Congress.

So there were Biden administration officials, figures like Julieta Noyes, a woman who was the head of the State Department's Humanitarian Aid Bureau at the time, who intensely lobbied Congress not to pass new restrictions on US ties to UNRWA.

There were people in the Biden administration who wanted to do that.

However, again, they had given the ammunition to make that possible, and you see Congress then, by early April, pass a ban on US funding for UNRWA, which remains in place to this day, right? And is a major factor in, in the questions about the agency's future, the US connection to Palestinians, given the agency's importance to them.

It's an instance, too, of the limited willingness to use leverage of these officials, right? So again, someone like Julieta Noyes, and many other officials, were trying really hard on this.

They lost.

Later on, they could have used their senior positions, saying, "There are other factors we can use to, to pressure the Israelis or challenge them," right? They remained in their jobs.