Arabs fear UNRWA might actually help refugees because of its budget shortfall

The Palestinian Legislative Council warned of new policies for UNRWA to reduce refugee services. The PLC considers is "a declaration of war on refugees."

The president of the Council said in a press statement issued on Sunday, "It was clear that the new orientation of UNRWA is serious and worrying".

He continued, "We fear the re-creation of the resettlement project, which the agency tried to implement it at the beginning of the fifties, which was rejected by the Palestinian people with all their might and they still insist on the resistance."

He called on the masses of the Palestinian people everywhere, particularly in the Palestinian refugee camps, to stand united in the face of this plot, to address what he called a "conspiracy."

If you read between the lines, this unnamed official (it could be Hamas' Aziz Duwaik or Fatah's Azzam al Ahmad) is saying that Palestinian Arabs have no right to attempt to become citizens of their host countries, since their leaders fear the idea that they may be resettled elsewhere and therefore cannot be used as excuses to vilify Israel for coming generations.

And he admits that UNRWA's original purpose included  resettling refugees, as it says in the part of UNGC resolution 194 that those who insist on a "right to return" never quote: "Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees."  

In short: Palestinian Arab leaders continue to actively work to keep millions of people stateless. And they are afraid that UNRWA night revert to its original mandate to reduce the number of refugees, not perpetuate them.

In a sane world, UNRWA's financial woes should should make people realize that its remit cannot go on forever as long as it insists on its increasingly unsustainable and false definition of "refugees" as being perpetually granted to future generations until Arabs declare they are happy. It can solve its financial problems by:

1. Taking those who are Jordanian citizens off its rolls
2. Taking those who live in the land they are supposedly "refugees" from off their rolls
3. Using parts of its budget to ease the transition of "refugees" into becomingequal citizens of those entities
4. Holding a transparent referendum for Palestinians in other countries asking them if they would like to become citizens of their host countries
5. Working with Arab countries to allow Palestinians who want to become naturalized citizens, the same as any other Arab can.

But since no one at UNRWA actually wants to solve the problem they were meant to solve, no media outlets bother to document how badly Palestinian Arab "refugees" are being discriminated against in Arab countries and the world wants to place the blame for these stateless people's plight on Israel rather than the corrupt Arab leadership, no one will do anything until UNRWA collapses and things get much, much worse.