Fine print: @UNRWA admits that "Palestine refugees" are not REAL refugees under international law

UNRWA has a Frequently Asked Questions page. 

For most of the answers, it tries to pretend that there is no difference between UNRWA's "Palestine refugees" and how the UNHCR defines refugees:

Is The Transfer Of Refugee Status To Descendants Unique To UNRWA?

No. Under international law and the principle of family unity, the children of refugees and their descendants are also considered refugees until a durable solution is found. As stated by the United Nations, this principle applies to all refugees and both UNRWA and UNHCR have recognized descendants as refugees on this basis.

 

This isn't true - UNRWA automatically regards all descendants as refugees, while UNHCR defines them as derivative refugees. Unlike UNRWA, UNHRC refugees have to prove their eligibility for every generation. 

But it turns out that there is one FAQ that even UNRWA cannot spin:

Why Does UNRWA Provide Services To Palestinians With Another Nationality?

UNRWA’s mandate is to provide protection and assistance to Palestine refugees pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. It is for the UN General Assembly to determine who the Agency serves. Eligibility for the receipt of UNRWA services has never been made contingent on the lack of nationality. Eligibility for UNRWA services is a matter separate to conferral of refugee status or nationality under international law – issues that go beyond the scope of the Agency’s mandate.

UNRWA is forced to admit that being a "Palestine refugee" only means one is eligible for UNRWA services but it does not mean they are refugees under international law.  

In fact, the phrase "Palestine refugees" is a huge scam. Because UNRWA is a UN body, people think that the word "refugee" has a consistent meaning, but in fact - as UNRWA admits - "Palestine refugees" do not have refugee status under international law.

Careful observers knew this already. After all, real refugees can apply for asylum in other countries and "Palestine refugees" cannot, unless they are also refugees from Syria or other oppressive regimes. 

The reason that UNRWA insists on using the knowingly false terminology of "refugee" is to confuse people, to try to gain more contributions, to garner sympathy for a population who are in much better conditions than virtually all real refugees worldwide.

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“Obviously, [UNRWA] has an interest in NOT solving the refugee problem”–LIFE, June 1967

Today I plan to interview Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz on my live webcast (12 noon EDT/7 PM IDT, it will be viewable here.)

We will discuss the fictional “right of return” for Palestinian Arab “refugees,” the subject of their book that was just released in English, The War of Return.

Ahead of that webcast, here are a couple of articles about that issue I recently found.

From JTA, November 2, 1962:

In supplementary reports to the General Assembly, Commissioner General John H, Davis, chief for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also told the Assembly that:

1. There are “at least 100, 000 dead persons” still listed on the UNRWA relief rolls, but that “rectification” of the rolls has been impossible because the Arab “governmental authorities” considered “the time was not opportune. “

2. All efforts at economic reintegration of the refugees that might lead to resettlement off the refugees in Arab states have had to be abandoned in the face of Arab governmental opposition and the opposition of the “Arab people. “

Davis in fact swallowed the Arab narrative whole and later lobbied against the existence of a Jewish state altogether, as Wilf and Schwartz detail in their book.

This second article is from LIFE magazine, written right after the Six Day War. Note the Nasser quote.

 

People were aware of the problems with UNRWA for decades. But no one has had the political will to do anything about it (until the US pulled funds.)

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Now @UNRWA even brags that American citizens are "Palestine refugees" with USA propaganda campaign

Last year, UNRWA-USA - the American fundraising arm of UNRWA - started a "UNRWA Alumni" program to get people who grew up in the Middle East, going to UNRWA schools, to proudly say that they are "Palestine refugees."

The video is terrible and hard to understand, but each of the people speaking identify themselves as "Palestine refugees" - and are American citizens.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7u3NZqHjpT0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It just points to the absurdity of UNRWA considering anyone descended from people who lived in Palestine in 1948 to be forever "refugees" and forever eligible for UN benefits. 

UNRWA-USA even admits that its agenda is political:

Dr. Yassine Daoud is a Palestine refugee now living in Maryland, but more than that, he is a successful medical doctor, caring father, and supportive husband to award-winning Palestinian author and public speaker Laila El-Haddad. As our country discusses who refugees are and what refugees looks like, this family has taken it upon themselves to help reshape that narrative, through participating in charitable events, giving back to their American and Palestinian communities, and sharing their own story. 

There is a further irony in UNRWA using its fake "refugees" as a means to change American attitudes towards real refugees, as can be seen from this other story of a successful UNRWA graduate:

Today, Nada Kiblawi is a successful entrepreneur and businesswoman living in northern Virginia, alongside her husband and three adult children. The now retired founder and co-owner of NHK Consulting, Nada provided engineering services to some of the world’s largest and most reputable companies. 

Born and raised in this camp and in poverty, Nada sadly recalls that she was deprived of a normal, happy childhood. “I’m at a loss of words when I think back upon my childhood years,” she says. “All children born refugees are deprived a childhood. My land, home, and youth, were stolen from me and those of the fourth generation of refugees born into and raised in camps. "

Why is no one pressuring Lebanon to treat their hundreds of thousands of Palestinians like human beings? Why are they still in disgusting camps after for generations? Because UNRWA exists! As Kibwali shows, generations of kids grow up to blame Jews for "stealing" land they have never seen and that many families had not even been there for as long as they have been in Lebanon. But if it wasn't for UNRWA, Lebanon would have been forced to take responsibility for the refugees, the way every other country has to. Because of UNRWA, the issue can be pushed off another few generations, with more kids being taught incitement against Israel and Lebanon, which literally has apartheid laws against Palestinians, is not mentioned by UNRWA or UNRWA-USA.

UNRWA instills this sort of antisemitism and it keeps people of Palestinian ancestry in these terrible conditions by virtue of its very existence.

The propaganda continues with the story of Mohammed Eid:

I grew up in a 200-square-foot house, with five siblings and our parents in Rafah Camp in Gaza. The street was my living room, my study area, and where I played. As a child, I had never seen a baseball field, a swimming pool, or the cinema.

Baseball field in Gaza?? Well, Gaza has some very nice soccer fields. And swimming pools. 

And it used to have cinemas, but Hamas outlawed them.

Now, the question is, why Mohammed Eid, who was an toddler when the Palestinian Authority was created, grew up in a "refugee camp" at all? Israel tried to move Gazans into real houses - but the UN passed resolutions against it and those who tried to take advantage were threatened. Yet under PA and Hamas control, these camps still exist. People who live in their own country under their own rulers are not refugees. Why is Eid's family treated like one?

Because UNRWA exists. Because it has brainwashed generations to say that their homes are in Israel and they cannot live as equal citizens in a Palestinian state next to Israel. 

UNRWA-USA is engaged in a massive propaganda campaign to extend the "refugee" problem forever. And it takes only a little effort to look at the words of their star propagandists to see how this works. 

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Another Hamas Statehood Fail: UNRWA Workers Evacuated to Israel (Judean Rose)

UNRWA recently announced it would fire some 100 Gazan Arab employees due to budget cuts. This resulted in massive protests held Monday, unbeknownst to Jewish Israelis, who were celebrating Simchat Torah, a short distance away. The protests must have been bad, for they struck abject terror in the hearts of all the lovely dedicated European souls who administrate UNRWA from within Gaza. We know this because the Israeli government was forced to step in and evacuate ten of them.

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These international UNRWA managers knowingly employ teachers who praise Hitler & preach anti-Semitism & terrorism. I sent @matzschmale our info & he denied everything. Now they are literally running to Israel—from their own Gaza employees—to save their own lives. EU funds this. pic.twitter.com/u27zsbAJ34

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 2, 2018

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) issued an official statement, confirming the evacuation of UNRWA officials:

"A number of foreign UNRWA employees have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip to Israel. This is due to the tensions as a result of the financial crisis UNRWA is facing and subsequent concern for the safety of its foreign staff.

“The Hamas terrorist organization did not protect the agency's staff from the violence directed against them,” read the statement from Israeli officials.

Imagine that: 10 senior international UN employees begging to be rescued by the country that body has condemned more times than North Korea, Syria, and Iran combined! And specifically, from the UN agency that provides antisemitic schoolbooks to the children of Gaza, inciting them to violence against Israeli Jews.

And for more info on Matthias Schmale, chief of UNRWA's international staff in Gaza who are now fleeing to Israel—to save their lives after being threatened by their own Gaza employees—see thread: https://t.co/tUGrsgp3d3 @matzschmale

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 2, 2018

What are we to make of all this?

@Palestine_UN @COLRICHARDKEMP @epavard @haaretzcom Well, Well, look at this... @UNRWA running to Israel for help, imagine that...

— BrooklynBorn (@evanparke) October 2, 2018

The main takeaway seems to be that no matter what you give them, no matter how much land, money, and freedom they have, the Arabs can’t properly run a state of their own. You can analyze the reasons until the cows come home, but the fact remains: given all the tools of statehood, they have failed to create an independent state. Independent, that is, from Israel.

Israel always has to step in and rescue them from themselves. Or alternatively, to rescue the international workers sent to help them. It’s just pathetic.

The 2005 Expulsion of the Jews from Gaza (A/K/A Disengagement) was a chance for the Arabs to show they could build a state, given land, some infrastructure, a budget, and a government. It was a chance for them to show they didn’t need to depend on Israel for aid, jobs, or medical care.  Alas, the Arabs ran true to type, destroying the greenhouses left them by the Jews, using the monies they receive to support pay to slay schemes and swollen government salaries, and as in Judea and Samaria, electing to be governed by terrorists.

Meantime, they protest in the tens of thousands, demanding to be let into Israel, the state they say should not exist, the state they continue to try to destroy, the state they should have no need of, with all that was provided them by Israel and by the world.

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The fake refugees of @UNRWA in 1951 are the ancestors of UNRWA "refugees" today

In 1951, UNRWA was not yet a tool of Palestinian Arabs and was still willing to say negative things about the people it had to deal with.

Current reports from UNRWA would never, ever admit what they freely admitted in the 1951 Interim Report:

13. An accurate statement of the number of genuine refugees resulting from the war in Palestine is unlikely to be provided now or in the future. In fact, it is almost impossible to define closely the word "refugee," as applied to the work of the Agency, without leaving certain groups of deserving people outside those accepted, or conversely, including groups who probably should not be in receipt of relief.
14. The Agency has steadfastly resisted persistent and persuasive efforts to have it become responsible for the care and feeding of citizens of the various countries who are merely needy or destitute as a result of the war in Palestine. It has taken the stand that its funds were not provided for that purpose and should be applied only to relief and works for genuine refugees. If the needy, assumed to number more than 150,000, were added to the Agency's burden, little money would be left to apply to works projects. Many of the needy are now actually in poorer circumstances than the average refugee because the latter receives food, medical care and some clothing, little of which is available to the non-refugee. Appeals have been made by the Agency to voluntary organizations to feed and clothe the needy who are not entitled to be classified as refugees.

UNRWA failed at this mission and ended up absorbing hundreds of thousands of non-refugees as refugees. Today it confidently says there are over 5 million "refugees" without any of the caveats about their status as mentioned in 1951.

DEFINITION OF A REFUGEE
15. For working purposes, the Agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood. A large measure of flexibility in the interpretation of the above definition is accorded to chief district officers to meet the many border-line cases which inevitably arise. In some circumstances, a family may have lost part or all of its land from which its living was secured, but it may still have a house to live in. Others may have lived on one side of the boundary but worked in what is now Israel most of the year. Others, such as Bedouins, normally moved from one area of the country to another, and some escaped with part or all of their goods but cannot return to the area where they formerly resided the greater part of the time. These examples give an idea of the varying conditions that must be met in administering the relief programme.

NUMBERS OF REFUGEES
16. The Agency has accepted as realistic the figures set forth in appendix B of the first interim report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission, but recognizes that the numbers have increased in conformity with the extremely high birthrate of the refugees. There is reason to believe that births are always registered for ration purposes, but deaths are often, if not usually, concealed so that the family may continue to collect rations for the deceased. It also is evident that many of the 99,000 mentioned in the above report as "in gainful employment" are now on rations. It is unlikely that numbers will be reduced below 800,000, and it is possible that that number may be exceeded.
17. The Gaza area, having a highly concentrated refugee population housed mainly in camps and under military control by the Egyptian army, is probably the nearest to correct in its figures concerning the numbers of refugees. At 1 August 199,000 were registered. Syria, with the smallest number of refugees on rations, is next in accuracy, with 82,000 registered. The figures for Lebanon (128,000) are confused due to the fact that many Lebanese nationals along the Palestinian frontier habitually worked most of the year on the farms or in the citrus groves of Palestine. With the advent of war they came back across the border and claimed status as refugees. Only an exhaustive and expensive census, now under way although ardently opposed by those concerned, will divide worthy from false claimants.

The census never happened.

18. The former Trans-Jordan and the portion of Palestine remaining in Arab hands and now annexed to the Hashimite Kingdom of the Jordan received the greatest influx of refugees of any of the countries adjacent to Israel -- probably more than half of all the refugees. For various reasons, the largest number of fictitious names on the ration lists pertain to refugees in this area. All earlier attempts at a close census of those entitled to relief have been frustrated, but a comprehensive survey, now under way, is achieving worthwhile results in casting up names of dead people for which rations are still drawn, fraudulent claims regarding numbers of dependents (it is alleged that it is a common practice for refugees to hire children from other families at census time), and in eliminating duplications where families have two or more ration cards. The census, though stubbornly resisted, will eliminate many thousands from the lists of refugees now in receipt of rations. The number on lists in Jordan at 31 August was 485,000 with 430,000 rations distributed.

The census never happened.

26. Strangely enough the general morale of the refugees is higher than might be expected after spending more than two years in exile under most trying conditions. Real trouble-makers are confined to a very small proportion of the total number of refugees, and food strikes and work stoppages are generally considered to be the result of organized pressure groups. There is considerable evidence indicating that subversive effort is fairly widely diffused amongst the refugees. The Arab is, however, a confirmed individualist and does not offer the most fruitful type of field in which to extol the benefits of any form of government which might propose to alter his traditional mode of life. Otherwise, it is almost inevitable that the misery and suffering of the refugees would already have made them almost completely the tools of pressure groups wishing to exploit their misery for political or other reasons.

It is unclear if this is naivete on UNRWA's part at the time. Clearly the "leaders" of the Palestinians were not interested in reintegrating them among Arab nations, and neither were Arab leaders. UNRWA caved to this.

(h/t Joe in Australia)

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UNRWA lies about why it exists

I received a fundraising email from UNRWA-USA where they give a reason why UNRWA must exist:

UNRWA was created nearly 70 years ago by the United Nations at the will of the international community to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees until a just and durable solution to their plight was achieved.

If we look at UN General Assembly resolution  302 that created UNRWA - on the UNRWA webpage - here is the entire part of the resolution describing the creation and purpose of the agency:

7. [The General Assembly] Establishes the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East:
(a) To carry out in collaboration with local governments the direct relief and works programmes as recommended by the Economic Survey Mission;
(b) To consult with the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available.

Nowhere does it say that UNRWA must exist until a permanent solution is found to peace in the Middle East. On the contrary - UNRWA was always meant to be a temporary agency, to work with all the countries in the Middle East (later reduced to Gaza/Egypt, Jordan/West Bank, Syria and Lebanon) to provide works projects and temporary aid with the goal of integrating the Palestinian Arabs into the existing countries of the region. The expected lifetime for UNRWA was meant to be only a year or two, because the resolution didn't expect to continue funding UNRWA forever - the refugees from the 1948 war were expected to be integrated into the countries they fled to as all refugees had throughout history and UNRWA's job was to assist them.

The original mandate of UNRWA has been trampled upon by the Arab world and self-declared Palestinian "leaders" who insist that Palestinians must remain stateless and "refugees" until "return."

The UNRWA of the early 1950s was conscientious and actually tried to do its job. It tried to find permanent solutions to the refugee issue. It tried to create works programs so the Palestinian Arabs could be integrated into the economic life of the Arab world. It tried to reduce the rolls of those it provided assistance to, eliminating tens of thousands who pretended to be refugees in order to get free food and shelter. All of these efforts were fought against and ultimately thwarted by a cynical Arab world and the so-called Palestinian leaders themselves, against the wishes of the majority of actual Palestinian refugees who just wanted to have a home in an Arab country to raise their families with honor.

The UNRWA of today is a joke that justifies its existence on the back of millions who are now permanently considered "refugees" by its bizarre administrative definition that it now claims (falsely) is international law.

The idea that UNRWA was always meant to exist until there is a diplomatic and "just" solution is just another lie its spokespeople tell a gullible world. The only reason that Palestinians are uniquely considered refugees forever - not Syrians, not Iraqis, but only Palestinians - is because of the Arab desire to destroy the Jewish state.

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Finally, Israel will try to expel @UNRWA from Jerusalem

From JPost:

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat threatened to expel UNRWA from Jerusalem, in the first public statement by an Israeli official that called on the government to use its power to shut down the agency that services Palestinian refugees.

“UNRWA is a foreign and unnecessary organization that has failed miserably,” Barkat said in a speech he delivered Monday morning in Jerusalem at a conference sponsored by Channel 2. “I intend to expel it from Jerusalem.”

Barkat explained that he had already instructed his municipal staff to come up with a plan to replace the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which he plans to present to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He spoke just three days after the US State Department announced that it intends to permanently halt its annual contributions to UNRWA, which last year amounted to $360 million out of the organization’s one billion dollar budget.

The mayor said the 30,000 Palestinians in Shuafat are dissatisfied with the organization’s services, including welfare, cleaning and education.

Only one percent of the pupils there go to UNRWA schools, where incitement is high, he said.

“We will close their schools and provide pupils with hope,” said Barkat, adding the pupils could study for and take the matriculation exams in existing schools throughout the city.

“Wherever the municipality operates, the Arab public is more satisfied and less violent. UNRWA’s treatment of residents as refugees is a barrier to their advancement and has no place,” Barkat said. “The time has come transform them from refugees to residents and to rehabilitate them. It is possible. The removal of UNRWA will reduce incitement and terrorism, improve service to the residents, increase Israelization in east Jerusalem and contribute to [Israeli] unity and sovereignty in Jerusalem.”

UNRWA said in response that it “has received no notification about this alleged plan and UNRWA’s schools and other core services in the city remain operational.”

When I interviewed Mayor Barkat five years ago I asked him this question specifically, why the Shuafat UNRWA camp is allowed to exist in Jerusalem when his goal was to unify the city. Unfortunately, he did not answer the question on the record, but as I recall the answer was simply that international politics made such a move impossible even though he would like to have done it.

It seems clear that the US antipathy towards UNRWA has changed the political situation enough to allow him to now consider doing what should have been done long ago.

UNRWA describes Shauafat this way:

Today, approximately 12,500 Palestine refugees are registered as living in Shu'fat camp. However, UNRWA estimates that the actual number of residents in the camp is around 24,000.

Shu'fat camp was illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967 hostilities when Israel unilaterally established new municipal boundaries for Jerusalem. Camp residents still hold Jerusalem IDs and, unlike West Bank ID holders, are allowed to reside in Jerusalem. Because the Israeli Ministry of the Interior has a policy of revoking Jerusalem IDs from Palestinians who do not have their ‘centre of life’ in Jerusalem, the camp has become a popular place of residence for Palestinians (non-refugees) with Jerusalem IDs who might not otherwise afford the high living costs of Jerusalem.

This has contributed to the extreme overcrowding in the camp. In 2003, Israel began the construction of the West Bank Barrier in East Jerusalem, routing it so that Shu'fat camp and surrounding areas ended up on the ‘West Bank side’ of the Barrier. This cut off Shu'fat residents from East Jerusalem. Today, residents have to pass through a crowded checkpoint to access Jerusalem.

The camp has been a major problem for years. Israel cannot pick up the trash because the collectors get attacked, and UNRWA doesn't bother:

Nur ad-Din, 43 and a father of six, was arrested during the First Intifada and served 12 years in an Israeli prison. He has no need to express his frustration and anger in words; one glance at the trash heap near the gate of his home says it all.

“There was a metal bin, but it was too small. Many years have gone by, the population here has grown, and the bin is still the same bin. Garbage collects here by the ton,” he says in the pure Hebrew of a native Jerusalemite. “UNRWA does not pick it up because they say they can’t, that they do not have enough workers and resources to deal with our needs. UNRWA’s manager in the camp, who sits in his office all day, cut off from the people who live here, says that as far as the scope of its work is concerned, nothing has changed since 1967.

“The Palestinian groups do not contribute anything either. Fatah does not exist in the camp; that is a fiction. There is a ‘popular committee’ of the PLO that is supposed to handle the day-to-day issues of the camp, but they do not do their jobs. I went to the institutions that transfer money to the popular committee and asked them to stop their funding because they do not do a thing.”

It appears that UNRWA's only contribution is a few schools, schools where the children are taught hate. It provides no other services for the camp. If Jerusalem is to be united, then UNRWA needs to be expelled, the camp needs to be dismantled and proper homes built.

But anything Israel does to improve the lives of the people in Shuafat will be denounced anyway.

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Chris Gunness indirectly admits that @UNRWA exists not to help "refugees" but to help eliminate Israel

I wrote about a Washington Post article about UNRWA, but one section needs to be analyzed a bit further.

As far as I know, no one has directly ever asked UNRWA why two millions full Jordanian citizens should still be considered "refugees" and why they should deserve some 40% of all UNRWA funds. But the question has been floating out there, and UNRWA spokeperson Chris Gunness indirectly addressed it in this quote:

“They have to decide,” said UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness. “We couldn’t say to you, ‘You’re a citizen now’ ” — as Jordan has declared some 2 million Palestinians in that country — “ ‘you have to give up the right of return.’ ”

Gunness is admitting that Jordanian Palestinians are not really refugees, but that UNRWA exists in Jordan in order to maintain the fiction that there is a "right of return" for Palestinians even if they are full citizens of any country worldwide.

Now, how much money does it cost to tell Palestinians that they have the right to "return" and destroy Israel (which is what "return" means to begin with)?

Not a whole lot.

But how much does it cost to keep the issue of "return" on the international agenda?

About $1.2 billion a year, which is UNRWA's budget.

Gunness is tacitly admitting here that the "refugee" issue is not the reason UNRWA exists. If it was, then the 80% of Palestinians who live in the borders of the British Mandate or are citizens of Jordan would not deserve a penny of international funds. (Neither would most of those in Syria and Lebanon, although they would deserve aid for being stateless, and UNHCR does provide support for stateless non-refugees.)

But we see from Gunness' statement that UNRWA is not a refugee agency. It is an agency that uses the refugee excuse to keep Palestinians' hope alive that they will one day destroy Israel.

It is easier for UNRWA to raise funds by calling its beneficiaries "refugees." Gunness has done us a service by admitting that the so-called refugee issue is a fig leaf for UNRWA's real aim, to educate generations of descendants of Palestinians that they will "return."

These millions of people are political pawns being kept in limbo because UNRWA exists. Every single Palestinian in Jordan, even when they are citizens, are reminded every day that they are not really fully Jordanian, by using a parallel education and infrastructure system separate from Jordan's. Every single Palestinian in an UNRWA camp in the West Bank and Gaza are reminded by this  UN Agency that they are not permanent residents in the State of Palestine that the UNGA recognizes, but that they are really meant to live in Israel - and that until that day they are not receiving "justice."

Gunness cannot answer why UNRWA exists in Jordan without mentioning the fictional  "right of return." But UNRWA cannot raise any money by emphasizing that aspect of its purpose, so all we hear about are "refugees." As this quote shows, UNRWA knows quite well that the people they take responsibility for are not refugees, but cannon fodder to destroy the Jewish state.

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Another document at @UNRWA site that admits it is way different from UNHCR

At the UNRWA website, there is a document about the mandate of UNRWA. It says this about the difference between the mandates of UNRWA and UNHCR:

The role of UNRWA in relation to durable solutions for Palestine refugees is quite different from that of UNHCR relative to refugees within its mandate. UNHCR has two functions, not only providing international protection but also seeking “permanent solutions for the problem of refugees by assisting governments and, subject to the approval of the governments concerned, private organizations to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of such refugees, or their assimilation within new national communities”. In other words, as part of its mandate, UNHCR “strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally, or to resettle in a third country”.

And UNRWA does not. 

Although...it once did, as this footnote mentions:

As to UNRWA’s mandate to engage in activities to promote reintegration, see UNGA res. 393 (V) of 2 Dec. 1950 where the General Assembly “Instruct[ed] the Agency to establish a reintegration fund which shall be utilized for projects requested by any government in the Near East and approved by the Agency for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief” (para. 5) after “Consider[ing] that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area” (para. 4). This part of the mandate probably ended by 1960 when reference to “reintegration” was dropped from General Assembly resolutions relating to UNRWA, reflecting some acknowledgment that this objective had been defeated: see W. Dale, “UNRWA – A Subsidiary Organ of the UN”, op. cit., 584–5.

UNRWA gave up on its original mandate to help solve the problem, and the UN went along with this change. Now UNRWA exists to continue existing.

Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, also pretended that UNRWA is similar to UNHRC is an open letter he wrote to his employees this weekend:

There is sadly nothing unique in the protracted nature of the Palestine refugee crisis. Refugees in places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Congo and beyond have also experienced decades of displacement and lack of resolution. Their children and grand-children are similarly recognized as refugees and assisted by UNHCR. Enshrined in the principle of humanity and the international law norm of family unity is the commitment to continue serving communities affected by war until a political solution has been found. It is the failure to end conflicts that prolongs refugee situations and denies refugees the choice to define a dignified future of their own.

A look at the Afghanistan page on the UNHCR site shows that while there are 2.4 million "people of concern" only a small percentage are classified as refugees - only 75,000 who live in camps in Pakistan. Most of the rest are internally displaced persons in Afghanistan itself. As soon as those people establish a new home in another section of the country, they are no longer IDPs and no longer in need of aid.

With all the services that UNHCR provides to these people of concern - roughly half the number of "registered Palestine refugees" under UNRWA  -the budget is a mere $125 million, 10% of UNRWA's $1.2 billion annual budget. And most of UNHCR's budget there - $75M -  is meant to reintegrate the people into new homes so they can be self-sufficient, with only $38M meant to directly give medical or educational aid to them.

The difference is clear. UNRWA needs its money to perpetuate the problem and UNHCR needs it money to eliminate it.

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Washington Post falsely claims that UNRWA and UNHCR share the same definition of refugees

In the Washington Post, journalists Karen DeYoung and Ruth Eglash make a flatly wrong statement without a scintilla of evidence:

Many UNRWA critics appear to believe incorrectly that ­UNHCR does not recognize descendants of registered refugees as genuine refugees themselves. The two organizations have the same definition — giving assistance to those driven from their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution, war or violence and to their descendants for as long as that status continues.

The goal, according to both agencies, is to repatriate refugees, integrate them into countries where they have fled or resettle them in third countries. But the decision not to go home is up to the refugees themselves.

While in some very specific situations UNHCR will give protection to children of refugees, they do not define them as refugees, but as "derivative refugees." The definition of "refugee" at the UNHCR website is clear and it does not include descendants: it says "A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group."

It does not say "and to their descendants for as long as that status continues." That is purely UNRWA. The Washington Post must publish a correction.

There is only one definition of refugee under international law. UNRWA's definition isn't a legal definition but an administrative one. 

The next paragraph is incorrect as well. UNRWA's goal in the 1950s was indeed to integrate the Palestinians into countries where they have fled or to facilitate them being resettled into third countries, but it has not had that goal since 1960. UNRWA has taught every one of its students since the 1950s that "return" is the only acceptable solution, which is exactly why the agency needs to be dismantled - it has strayed from its original mandate and ensured that its "refugees" remain in that state forever, or as long as Israel refuses to allow millions of hostile Arabs to become citizens.

Even Chris Gunness contradicts the WaPo's definition in that very article, by saying that Jordanian Palestinians are citizens - and therefore would not be considered refugees under UNHCR - but they still deserve UNRWA services because of this mythical "right to return."

“They have to decide,” said UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness. “We couldn’t say to you, ‘You’re a citizen now’ ” — as Jordan has declared some 2 million Palestinians in that country — “ ‘you have to give up the right of return.’ ”

That is exactly what UNHCR does say to the people who get its benefits! There is no "right to return" in international law, period, but certainly someone who gains citizenship does not have the right to claim UNHCR services the way Palestinians in Jordan can.

Too bad the WaPo writers didn't point this out.

In addition to those in Jordan, about 800,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees in the West Bank, 1.3 million in Gaza, 534,000 in Syria and 464,000 in Lebanon. “You cannot wish away 5.4 million people,” Gunness said. “There has to be a settlement based on international law and on U.N. resolutions.”

UNHCR also would not consider the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to be "refugees" because they live in the same land they claim is their homeland. So if UNRWA really had the same definition of "refugee" that UNHCR has - forgetting the descendant issue, which is misrepresented - then according to these figures, 4.1 million out of 5.1 million people that UNRWA considers refugees - aren't.

Jordan should take care of Jordanian citizens, the Palestinian Authority should provide services to all of their people and not just some of them, and UNRWA has no reason to exist in those areas. Eglash and de Young should have mentioned that - but they didn't, and chose to lie instead.

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.@UNRWA site hosts document that admits that Palestinians aren't refugees under international law

I found a mostly sympathetic paper about UNRWA called "UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees: a history within history" on the UNRWA website. It was written in 2010 by Riccardo Bocco for the Refugee Survey Quarterly.

Here is an interesting section:

In looking at who is a Palestinian refugee, there is no definitive response. The definition and the number of Palestinian refugees can differ according to the approach (administrative, juridical, political) used to define Palestinian refugees and also according to the social context of interaction between Palestinians (registered refugees or not) and others and the actors defining them. UNRWA, particularly at the beginning of its mandate, lacked a fixed definition; this changed mainly due to a need to delimit the number of relief recipients. When the Agency began its activities, it inherited a legacy of inflated registration: the United Nations Economic Survey Mission recorded approximately 720,000 people, while the number of recipients on the ration rolls of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees (UNRPR) surpassed 950,000. It is the 1952 definition that has become the accepted one and has remained virtually unchanged: “a Palestine refugee shall mean any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946 to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict."

It is important to emphasize that the UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee is an administrative one and does not translate directly into recognition by international law. Furthermore, a tacit understanding seems to prevail: UNRWA’s continued existence (and the associated Palestine refugee status) is directly linked to the realization of a permanent resolution to the Palestine refugee issue.

UNRWA created the definition of "Palestine refugee," not the UN and not international law. It is an administrative definition, not a legal one. Today, practically zero of the current "Palestine refugees" are refugees; even most of the ones who fled in 1948 would not qualify under the legal definition since they were not fleeing persecution, as their brethren who remained behind prove.

But the next sentence shows that UNRWA has a great disincentive to redefine "refugee" to be closer to the legal definition: if it did so, it would not exist. Its very existence, Bocco notes, is dependent on there being no solution to the refugee issue - so why would UNRWA want to change the definition that would render it unnecessary?

There is a huge conflict of interest here, and no one wants to talk about it. The agency that takes care of people cannot make up its own rules of who it decides to take care of; that should be done by an independent and objective group. This is why we have the absurdity of an organization with no cessation rules on how a "refugee" can lose their status, how there can be "refugees" living in the area that they supposedly fled from, and how there can be "refugees" who are full citizens of another country (primarily Jordan but also the US, Canada, South America and every country in Europe.)

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Gaza ministry of health says that @UNRWA medical clinics only support 5% of population - when 67% are "refugees"

On Monday, the Gaza ministry of health warned that the hospitals and medical clinics in Gaza were in danger of closing because of lack of fuel.

The spokesman for the ministry, Ashraf Kedra, didn't blame Israel for the shortage of fuel. He said that donors haven't come through to pay for fuel for these medical facilities. If they would have the money, they could pay for the fuel to be transferred - from Israel.

The article in Palestine Today then gave some interesting statistics:

Gaza has 13 government hospitals and 54 primary health care centers, covering 95% of the medical services provided to more than 2 million Gazans, while the remaining services are covered by UNRWA clinics.

This means that UNRWA has built an entirely parallel medical care system - along with all the buildings, bureaucracy and overhead that this entails - to only cover 5% of the population.

According to UNRWA figures, about two thirds of all Gazans are "refugees" who can get services from the agency.

If that is true, then why do most of them use government medical facilities, and not UNRWA's?

If UNRWA's medical budget was redirected to the government then more people could be treated for less money.

Which applies to the clinics and schools in Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan as well. Since by definition none of the citizens of "Palestine" or Jordan are refugees, there is no reason to pour so much money into service provided by a "refugee agency" when it is the proper job of the government to provide those services, like anywhere else in the world.

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.@UNRWA quietly admits that it doesn't keep track of how many "refugees" die

I found this footnote buried in the 2012 UNRWA and Youth background document at the UNRWA site:

 The analysis in this section is based on UNRWA’s registration data, which tends to over-estimate the de facto refugee population in each field. Registration with UNRWA is a voluntary process. Individuals who move overseas, either permanently or on a temporary basis, may remain registered. Further, deaths tend to be under-reported, as do the numbers of those under five.

The 2010 UNRWA Annual report of the Department of Health is slightly more explicit about why UNRWA has no idea how many of the people it tracks may have died:

The demographic pyramids are difficult to analyse due known distortions related to a delay in the registration of new-borns leading to a smaller 0-4 age group estimation and the lack of a  compulsory death notification system in the Agency leading to a possible over-estimation of the over 60 age group.

At the top of this page are the pyramids they are talking about. Note how much the over-60 population has increased as a percentage of population between 1992 and 2010, even though the birth rate has been so high.

The only thing that can explain this is that Palestinian recipients of UNRWA aid, like their parents and grandparents, don't report the deaths of relatives because this way they get more free stuff.

UNRWA, which claims to be an efficient agency that is not at all wasting international funds, has somehow over 70 years refused to implement any actions to actually keep track of the number of actual people under its care. In fact, in every annual health report the agency notes that "deaths may be under-reported."

UNRWA knows this - and doesn't do anything about it. Because the more people it can claim as "refugees," the more money it can demand from the international community.

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US to encourage Israel to phase out UNRWA in the West Bank?

From TOI:

The Trump Administration will announce in the next few days that it rejects the long-standing Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for million of refugees and their descendants to Israel, an Israeli television report said Saturday night. The US will announce a policy that, “from its point of view, essentially cancels the ‘right of return,'” the report said.
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The US — which on Friday announced that it had decided to cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians — and has also cut back its funding for UNRWA — will also ask Israel to “reconsider” the mandate that Israel gives to UNRWA to operate in the West Bank. The goal of such a change, the TV report said, would be to prevent Arab nations from legitimately channeling aid to UNRWA in the West Bank.

I was not aware of any mandate Israel gives to UNRWA in the West Bank, besides allowing officials to travel through Tel Aviv and similar services given to any NGO.

I also didn't think that it was possible for Arab nations to give money to UNRWA in the West Bank directly.

While I believe that UNRWA has no reason to exist in the West Bank, this story needs to be explained a bit better.

This story highlights a basic truth, though.

Any move to defund UNRWA in the West Bank would include lots more money for the Palestinian Authority to expand the services it already does for the "other" kind of Palestinian, and to do it more efficiently - more schools, more hospitals, more medical clinics. The PA would gain hundreds of millions of dollars to help its own citizens.

Yet is would prefer that this money go to UNRWA.

Have you ever heard of a government that had the opportunity to enrich its coffers and prefer the money go to an NGO instead?

This is all the proof you needs that the Palestinian leadership isn't interested in building a state, but in using the false "refugee issue" to eventually destroy Israel - no difference than how they acted when UNRWA was created in 1950.

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Palestinian candidate for Congress, grandson of Munich terrorist mastermind, would be considered an @UNRWA "refugee"

Democratic congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar is suddenly receiving media attention because his Republican opponent has been indicted on corruption charges.

From AP:

Campa-Najjar said he is proud of his heritage but is American first. He has made clear that he has no personal connection to his grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar who was a mastermind of the terrorist murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Al-Najjar was assassinated a year later by Israeli commandos.
“I’m happy to take responsibility for my own choices and my own decisions,” he said. “I think other men are responsible for their own crimes, whether it’s somebody who I share a lineage with and nothing else, or a sitting congressman who’s being indicted and could be facing serious charges in the future. ”

Campa-Najjar was not so forthcoming in his description of his grandfather in two very similar articles he wrote for the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Washington Post about his family history:

My father, Yasser Najjar, saw both his parents gunned down right in front of him when he was only 11 years old. 

Not a word about why that might have happened.

Campa-Najjar's grandfather was one of the founders of Fatah in the 1950s along with Yasir Arafat. He formed a number of terror cells. His nom de guerre was Abu Youssef -  was the number 3 PLO leader and the leader of Black September terror group. He was assassinated in Beirut in 1973 for his role in the Olympics massacre.

Campa-Najjar's article in the Washington Post also seems problematic in another way, saying that he was in Gaza when Israel "carpet-bombed" his neighborhood.

I didn’t cry the night they cut off the electricity to all of Gaza City, and I, my mom, stepmom, dad and younger brothers hid in the dark corner of a cold kitchen floor as they carpet bombed our neighborhood. I didn’t cry when we had to leave baba behind and finally return to the United States in August 2001.

This was during the second intifada, and while Israel did target terrorists from the air, nothing it did in Gaza at the time could remotely be called "carpet bombing," certainly not in 2001 when his family returned from Gaza to America. (Israel didn't use bombers in Gaza until 2003, and all its air operations were from helicopter gunships.)

Campa-Najjar also says "After not being considered Arab enough in Gaza, Latino enough for the barrio, or American enough in my own country, after so many shut doors, the door to all others finally opened."

It may be possible that he wasn't considered "Arab enough for Gaza," but his terrorist grandfather has a hospital named after him in Rafah. It seems his family was quite prominent and honored. His father was a top PLO official as well, although Campa-Najjar characterizes him only as a peacemaker during the Oslo process.

Since his paternal grandfather was considered a refugee in 1948 and lived in an UNRWA camp in Rafah, that means that according to UNRWA's rules, Ammar Campa-Najjar is himself a "Palestine refugee," as his American children and grandchildren will be. (Even if he adopts children, they would be considered "refugees.")

I agree with Ammar Campa-Najjar that he shouldn't be judged by the actions of his grandfather. But he shouldn't lie about his family history either, and he should properly castigate UNRWA for considering him a "refugee" as well since he has been a proud American citizen from birth.

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"Neutral" UNRWA voices support for Gaza "great return march"

UNRWA's Chris Gunness once said that "UNRWA’s neutrality is the family's silver".

Here's another example of UNRWA giving away its family's silver, without a peep of protest.

UNRWA's Gaza director, Matthias Schmale wrote a letter to the organizers of tomorrow's "Great Return March" where thousands of Gazans are expected to try to walk into Israel, a violation of Israel's borders.

He told the organizers that the protest can be a very strong initiative once its seriously adopted. Schmale added that UNRWA supports the right of peaceful gathering and nonviolent protests of the Palestinians.

He didn't say that Gaza authorities should ensure that the protesters stay on their side of the border. He knows their aim is to enter Israel. But he is fully supportive of them.

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What do you think this UNRWA teacher is teaching her students?

From the Facebook page of Khadijat Salabad, an UNRWA teacher from Jericho:

While UNRWA did crack down on their teachers' putting political speech on social media (so it is not as easy as it used to be to embarrass the organization by finding examples of calls to violence,) does anyone think for a second that they changed what they are teaching their students every day?

They are just hiding it a little better.

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How @UNRWA violates the most basic rule of NGOs: "Do No Harm"

An UNRWA school in Jordan

In the 1990s, international aid groups started looking at the bigger picture as they do their services. They realized that providing aid in a vacuum can cause other problems in the areas that they are trying to help.

One of the major potential issues is summarized here:

Aid is not neutral in the midst of conflict. Aid and how it is administered can cause harm or can strengthen peace capacities in the midst of conflicted communities. All aid programmes involve the transfer of resources (food, shelter, water, health care, training, etc.) into a resource-scarce environment. Where people are in conflict, these resources represent power and wealth and they become an element of the conflict. Some people attempt to control and use aid resources to support their side of the conflict and to weaken the other side. If they are successful or if aid staff fail to recognise the impact of their programming decisions, aid can cause harm. 

As a result, aid agencies have been incorporating the "Do No Harm" and "Conflict Sensitivity" framework in all of their activities, to be more sensitive to how their actions impact not only the intended recipients of aid, but also the surrounding people.

UNRWA ignores the concept.

From the time UNRWA was established, it started creating a parallel infrastructure separate from the governments it was working under. An entirely separate health, education and aid system was created - and, by and large, the beneficiaries, who UNRWA calls "Palestine refugees", have been better off than their neighbors, causing tension and conflict.

UNRWA admits that in its early days tens of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands, of Arabs pretended to be "refugees" so they could get the aid benefits. There was jealousy from the start by neighboring Arabs who saw Palestinian refugees get free food, schooling and medical care that was superior to their own.

Today, there are other issues that come up from how NGOs can negatively affect the lives of the people in the areas they work. NGOs are such a huge part of the workforce in the West Bank and Gaza that they distort the functioning of a normal economy.

This can impact peace.

I found a 2004 report on the issue that mentioned:

Experience shows that, in conflicts, donor assistance can be the only, or a major, source of income. Employment in the oPt has suffered greatly under closure so that UNRWA and the PA, as conduits of donor funds, constitute the major employers and many families depend on them for survival. Unless specific measures are taken to assure people that there will be employment and income when peace is achieved, current donor support can become (inadvertently) a disincentive for taking the risks associated with peace.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, buried in an obscure 2014 UNRWA document we see that UNRWA itself admits that it essentially ignores the "do no harm" concept in its operations:

Concepts like "conflict sensitivity" and "do-no-harm"  which link local conflict analysis with the impact of the Agency operations on the adjacent community are not well established among the Field Security Office personnel. 

Again, this is an astonishing admission, because every modern aid worker has the concepts of "conflict sensitivity" and "do no harm" drummed into them from the very beginning. UNRWA has all but ignored these concepts.

One example among many of how UNRWA violates this basic concept is how UNRWA has hurt the Jordanian education system.

UNRWA, funded mostly by the West, pays higher teacher salaries than non-UNRWA schools in Jordan do. As a result, UNRWA attracts better teachers than the non-UNRWA schools, which has the (unintended but clear) effect that Jordanian school quality goes down.

This is a classic case of a violation of "Do No Harm."

In fact, an employee of an international organisation working in Jordan has told me that a senior person at the Jordanian ministry of education admits this and says that UNRWA should give its education budget directly to his ministry to reduce jealousy and inequality between UNRWA and state schools.

The aid worker told me:

You can't just go to a country and set up a system of parallel service delivery for only some people and give them better service. It is bound to create conflict between them. And yet, this is exactly what UNRWA is doing....and I don't understand how they get away with it.
The "do no harm approach" is a serious principle of development aid and something the UN should be committed to. They are perpetuating conflict and making it worse.

Just imagine you're a parent and your child has to go to a subpar school because you can't afford private school and then you see your neighbors being allowed to send their kid to a school that is better equipped and has better teachers for free. Of course you would be angry.

Regardless of what donors think about Israel they should not fund an organization that creates conflict between Palestinians and Jordanians on a daily basis. It's contributing to the instability of  Jordan.

This is only one small example of how UNRWA has contributed to instability in the region. It is so big, and employs so many people, that it cannot help but to cause harm to the countries in which it does its work.

Just imagine how things are in Lebanon, where UNRWA and UNHCR give completely different standards of aid to Syrian refugees, depending on whether they are considered "Palestinian" or not. Parents of Syrian refugees must be fuming to see their "Palestinian" friends get schooling and health care that is in most cases better than they can get, when they fled the very same conflict.

In many ways, UNRWA's very mandate, where "Palestine refugees" are considered different with different rules and different levels of service from real refugees,  is a violation of "Do No Harm."

The idea of de-funding UNRWA has caused a furious reaction across the political spectrum. Yet UNRWA itself violates the most fundamental principles of humanitarian aid.

Isn't it time people started looking at this?

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Trump can end the Palestinian refugee problem (Vic Rosenthal)

 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Recently Donald Trump and Nikki Haley made news by threatening to cut off (or at least sharply reduce) funds given to the Palestinians. Trump wasn’t clear about which funds, but Haley referred to US support for UNRWA, the welfare agency which maintains the ever-growing class of “Palestinian refugees.”

It’s important to understand what a Palestinian refugee is, because it is very different from any other kind of refugee.

A refugee is normally someone who fled or was driven from his own country by war, political unrest or natural disaster. Often they do not have a permanent home and are temporarily living in a refugee camp. They have no independent means of sustenance, and are dependent on charity.

The UN has an agency, the UNHCR, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, whose job it is to help such people survive until they can either return home or make a new life in a new place. For example, today there are millions of refugees from places like Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar, South Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and more. UNHCR feeds refugees and provides temporary housing and medical assistance in the short term, and tries to provide longer range solutions such as resettlement so that people can stop being refugees. In 2016, UNHCR says it has resettled over 189,000 people. This is a drop in the bucket when there are 17.2 million refugees in the world, by UNHCR figures, but it is something.

UNHCR has a budget of $7.7 billion and about 11,000 employees worldwide; it is funded by voluntary contributions, 87 percent of which come from the EU (yes, I was surprised to read this too).

Europe today is in the process of being overrun by people claiming to be refugees. It’s important to distinguish refugees, who have been forced to leave their homes, from migrants, who have chosen to emigrate in order to improve their lives. But that’s not what I am writing about today.

From the point of view of UNHCR, a refugee is a person in a particular condition. Its goal is to reduce the number of people in that condition, by finding permanent jobs and places to live, by helping stateless refugees get asylum in places where they will not be victimized further. Refugee status for UNHCR is a situation, not a defining characteristic of a person. It is something undesirable that one wants to end as soon as possible.

A “Palestinian refugee,” on the other hand, is something else entirely. Palestinian refugee status was granted to anyone who could prove that he had resided in Mandate Palestine for at least two years in 1948 (since June 1, 1946) and was then displaced (voluntarily or not) from his home. And it inheres in the person, not his situation; so even if, for example, a Palestinian refugee gets rich and builds a mansion in Samaria or Jordan, he still keeps his refugee status. Not only that, but it is hereditary – a father passes his refugee status down to his children and his grandchildren. Apparently there is only one way to lose Palestinian refugee status, and that is for a refugee to “return” to “his home” in what is today Israel.

UNHCR does not deal with Palestinian refugees. A special UN agency, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) was created in 1949 just for the refugees of 1948. Estimates vary, but there were probably about 600,000 Arabs displaced by the war. Some Arabs who were not actually displaced received refugee status, and a figure of 750,000 Palestinian refugees is quoted by UNRWA. Thanks to the unique hereditary nature of Palestinian refugeehood, there are today about 5 million “Palestinian refugees.” UNRWA spends about US $1.5 billion each year housing, feeding and educating the refugee population, meeting their medical needs, and so on. Palestinian families also receive welfare payments depending on the size of the family. The lion’s share of this comes from the US and the EU, with small amounts from the rest of the world (including the Arab world).

 “Palestinian refugees” live in camps in the Gaza Strip (1,300,000), Judea/Samaria (800,000), Lebanon (450,000), Syria (526,000), and Jordan (2,175,000). These “camps” are more like large neighborhoods or small cities than the temporary refugee camp that comes to mind. They are administered by the host governments (including the Palestinian Authority) and provisioned by UNRWA. In Lebanon, restrictions on education and employment reminiscent of apartheid have been placed on residents; in Syria, refugee camps have been attacked by regime forces and residents massacred.

Think about it. There are now four generations of refugees. A migrant who arrived in Mandate Palestine in 1946 to work for the British authorities and then left in 1948 was guaranteed support in perpetuity for himself and all his descendents. But UNRWA’s mandate does not include resettlement, and none of the host countries – not even the Palestinian Authority! – will grant citizenship to “Palestinian refugees.” Once a Palestinian refugee, always a refugee.

UNRWA has about 30,000 employees, some 99% of whom are Palestinians. Its educational system is designed to teach the Palestinian narrative of victimization and revenge. In the Gaza strip, it teaches the Hamas ideology of hatred for Jews as well.

This is not a formula for solving a refugee problem, the way the problem of the millions of refugees of WWII was solved. It is a way to create a continually growing dependent class of stateless, disaffected and furious people. The welfare system encourages large families, while at the same time the refugee camp system makes it impossible for most of the young males to find work. No wonder the camps have proved to be a fertile breeding ground for terrorism!

How did this happen? How is it that the international community tried to solve every refugee problem except this one, which it chose to exacerbate? The simple answer is that the Arab nations wanted it as a weapon against Israel, and the West gave them what they wanted so as not to imperil its supply of oil.

But the times have changed, Arab oil is not what it used to be, the conservative Sunni Arab nations are more worried about Iran than Israel, and simple mathematics have made the maintenance of the refugee population too expensive. At the same time, Mr. Trump has voiced the feeling of many, which is that the Palestinians, with their unique sense of entitlement, know only how to take, and are not willing to make the slightest gesture toward compromise.

If the goal is a peace agreement between Israel and the PLO (in my opinion a terrible idea) then Trump is quite right that continuing to pay them while they refuse to negotiate is stupid. But leaving  this aside, maybe there is a bigger opportunity. Is it not time to move to end the “Palestinian refugee problem” for once and for all? Here is how to do it:

First, stop creating new refugees. Children of refugees will no longer inherit their status. At the same time, the host countries will be expected to grant full residency  to those who request it (interestingly, this is already the case for the one refugee camp, Shu’afat, that is located in an area under Israeli civil control – its residents have been treated as Arab residents of Jerusalem). The hosts will be required to remove apartheid-like restrictions on the refugees. Welfare and other aid will be phased out, and the funds intended to pay for education and medical care will be transferred to the host countries – under careful control – to begin bringing those services directly to the residents.

Ultimately UNRWA itself will disappear. Those who have inherited refugee status will lose it. The few real refugees – those who actually left in 1948 (a babe in arms then will be 70 this year) – will come under the UNHCR framework.

In order for there to ever be peace between Israel and her neighbors, the Arabs must face reality: that Israel is a legitimate country belonging to a legitimate people, and that the Palestinians are not going to “return” to it, not ever. The charade of the “Palestinian refugee” must end.

Today Trump has an opportunity to tear away another veil of pretense, just as he did for Jerusalem, the capital of Israel,

He should go for it.

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