Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
The Development Initiatives website used to have very extensive statistics on aid given, both from donors and to which recipients. But its latest report only discusses the top ten recipients, and this year the Palestinians are not listed among the top ten - they had been at or near the top from the early 2000s to at least 2015.
But it does mention the Palestinians in a different context.
In "Figure 2.6: The numbers of forcibly displaced people across the globe increased by almost 20% between 2021 and 2022, to more than 100 million people," it gives numbers of "forcibly displaced" people in "Palestine" for 2021 and 2022:
It says that the number of "forcibly displaced" Palestinians in the territories increased from 2.4 million to 2.9 million in only one year.
The footnotes say that it got these statistics from UNRWA: "Data is organised according to UNHCR's definitions of country/territory of asylum. According to data provided by UNRWA, registered Palestine refugees are included as refugees for Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. UNHCR data represents 2022 mid-year figures, and UNRWA data for 2022 is based on internal estimates."
First of all, it is absurd to say that the number of UNRWA registered refugees in the West Bank and Gaza increased by 21% in one year. There was no new influx of refugees to the territories and natural growth increase is nowhere near that number.
Secondly, to call people who pretend to be "refugees from Palestine" but who live in Palestine "refugees," and not even "internally displaced persons." is equally absurd.
Thirdly, UNRWA themselves publishes these statistics, so there was no reason for UNRWA to provide an "estimate" for 2022. According to them, in the fourth quarter of 2021 there were 2,400,208 "registered refugees" in the territories, in the fourth quarter of 2022 there were 2,454,903. That is an increase of 2%, not 20%.
It is possible that someone made a mistake - if a decimal point moved from an increase of 50,000 to 500,000, that would explain this discrepancy. But still, this is something that should have been checked.
One other interesting anomaly: according to this chart, a small but not insignificant number of "refugees" are seeking asylum in the Palestinian territories themselves. Where are they from? They couldn't be Palestinian - are they Africans who managed to make it to Gaza or the West Bank? The Palestinian Basic Law does not have any section about asylum seekers, and gives only a general statement about citizenship being regulated by law.
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