UNRWA - even more despicable than I thought

Silke in the comments points to a UNRWA document showing the increase in Palestinian "refugees" since 1950. Here it is (transposed to make it easier to read):

Year	Jordan	Lebanon	Syria	West Ban	Gaza	Total
1950	506,200	127,600	82,194	-	198,227	914,221
1955	502,135	100,820	88,330	-	214,701	905,986
1960	613,743	136,561	115,043	-	255,542	1,120,889
1965	688,089	159,810	135,971	-	296,953	1,280,823
1970	506,038	175,958	158,717	272,692	311,814	1,425,219
1975	625,857	196,855	184,042	292,922	333,031	1,632,707
1980	716,372	226,554	209,362	324,035	367,995	1,844,318
1985	799,724	263,599	244,626	357,704	427,892	2,093,545
1990	929,097	302,049	280,731	414,298	496,339	2,422,514
1995	1,288,197	346,164	337,308	517,412	683,560	3,172,641
2000	1,570,192	376,472	383,199	583,009	824,622	3,737,494
2005	1,795,326	401,071	426,919	690,988	969,588	4,283,892
2008	1,930,703	416,608	456,983	754,263	1,059,584	4,618,141

If you prefer charts:

A couple of things struck me when looking at this.

First of all, there is a missing column in the table. There is one other country that had people defined as Palestinian refugees in 1950 not listed here - and that country is Israel.

According to UNRWA, Israel had 48,000 Palestinian refugees:  31,000 Arabs and 17,000 Jews. Israel managed to integrate the refugees, Arabs and Jews alike, into its society and they disappeared from the refugee rolls within a couple of years.

If Arab countries had worked at treating their Palestinians as well as Israel did (reducing the population by 25,000 refugees a year,) they would have eliminated the refugee problem within 20 years rather than let it fester for thrice that time.

Not only that, but the percentage of refugees compared to total population was about 8% in Lebanon, 2% in Syria, and 4% in Israel. So there is no excuse that the other countries were overwhelmed and couldn't handle the refugees - Israel not only absorbed these refugees but took hundreds of thousands of additional refugees from Arab countries at the exact same time - all without help from any UN agencies. (In Jordan, the percentage of refugees was about 40% of the population, but keep in mind that Jordan also gained a lot of land in the 1948 war that many of the refugees were already living on.)

Isn't it interesting, though, that UNRWA doesn't acknowledge the Palestine refugees in Israel in their statistics? It's almost as if they are embarrassed that the single success story for Palestinian Arab refugees came in the country that they have a seething hatred for.

Another very important fact that we glean from these statistics: Nearly all of the "refugees" that live in Jordan are Jordanian citizens! Not only is UNRWA's definition of a "refugee" skewed by including the descendants of refugees, but they also include a huge population that is not stateless at all!

UNRWA actually admits this, with tendentious logic. This past February, Michael Kingsley-Nyinah, Director of the Executive Office of UNRWA, gave a speech in Malta about how UNRWA looks at Jordanians of Palestinian origin, and his words are amazing:

Refugees residing in Jordan and Syria enjoy a wide range of rights and freedoms that have helped to mitigate the hardships of displacement. Many are granted economic rights and access to the employment market, and the stability of these countries means they are spared the trauma of armed conflict. Among the relatively less disadvantaged are the refugees in Jordan who enjoy the privileges of special categories of Jordanian nationality.


The advantages of residing in Jordan and Syria are welcome and beneficial. Yet they do not obscure the vulnerability inherent in the refugee label. Neither do they detract from the distinctness of the refugee identity.

The refugees and host communities share an implicit understanding that the sojourn of Palestine refugees is temporary – and that this transient state is unchanged by the lengthy duration of their exile. As a corollary, “refugee consciousness” is strong among Palestinians, including the younger generation. The passing years have left intact a sense of injustice, a demand for acknowledgement and a desire for their travail to be justly resolved. Across the Middle East, Palestine refugees define themselves (and are defined by others) by reference to the historical experience of exile.

For any other group of refugees, the UN (meaning the UNHCR) bends over backwards to remove the "refugee label," but UNRWA applies it even in situations when it shouldn't exist. Arab nations refused to treat the early refugees like human beings, and UNRWA eventually not only went along with this evil plan, but institutionalized it.

A person who was born and raised as a citizen of another country cannot be called a "refugee" by any sane definition. Yet the UNRWA does exactly that. With a stroke of a pen, they could have reduced the number of "refugees" by 40% - and they instead kept the label.

One result is that even Jordanians are discriminating against Palestinian Jordanians, sixty years after their ancestors became citizens. UNRWA has made their "otherness" official and has justified it by using the words of those who hate them most by claiming that their status is temporary. By defining Palestinian Jordanians as somehow only temporary Jordanians, UNRWA is justifying their discrimination.

There is another implication of using the word "temporary" to define the "sojourn" of the PalArabs. If their status is only temporary, then surely Israel's status is temporary as well, and will end with their "return."

As I've mentioned before, on two occasions when Lebanon allowed a limited number of so-called "refugees" to become citizens of that country, the Palestinian Arabs jumped at the opportunity. Many more would happily trade in their "refugee" status for the opportunity to be normal, functioning citizens of their host countries, or of other Arab countries. They are not being given that choice, and a good part of that is because UNRWA is doing everything they can to perpetuate and expand the purported number of "refugees" for decades after they no longer should have that label.

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New poll shows why "peace process" has been doomed from the start

The latest poll from thePalestinian Center for Public Opinion includes two questions about a crux issue:

14)  Do you think that the Palestinians must renounce their right of home return, which Israel will never accept, in exchange for having an independent Palestinian state and the conclusion of a peace deal with Israel?

Response	Percentage
1. Yes, the Palestinians must do that	14.0
2. No, they shouldn’t do that even if the price would be the non- conclusion of a peace deal with Israel	81.7
3. I have no opinion	4.3

15)  If the Palestinian leadership would waive the right of home return in exchange for a financial compensation, would you accept or refuse that?

Response	Percentage
1. I would accept that	13.1
2. I would refuse that	81.8
3. Don’t know	5.1

There you have it. If Palestinian Arabs are not allowed to "return" to a country that the vast majority have never even lived in, they will overwhelmingly reject a peace deal - even if they know that Israel would never accept them.

The corollary is that even if Israel and the PA are browbeaten into accepting a US-brokered "peace treaty" that includes 100% of the West Bank and the eastern part of Jerusalem, the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs would not accept that agreement - and many of them would likely join or start new terror organizations dedicated to giving them the "right of return."

I posted yesterday the opinions of the late Shiite leader Mohammed Fadlallah concerning his hatred of Israel's very existence, and wrote that I believed that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs - and Arabs altogether - agree with him. The reason is simple - his beliefs are consistent with the lies that the Arabs have been fed for three generations.

The PA, on the other hand, is officially inconsistent. It still incites against Israel daily in its broadcasts and in its schoolbooks; it still celebrates terror, it still draws maps of "Palestine" from the river to the sea, it still chides Hamas for not being committed enough to jihad against the Zionists. Yet the PA officially recognizes Israel. This inconsistency is not lost on the Arabs, who feel deep down as Fadlallah does, that Israel is an alien presence on Arab (or holy Muslim) land and must be destroyed, sooner or later.

(Of course, the PA is not inconsistent with the desire to destroy Israel either - it is faithfully following Arafat's phased plan from 1974. That is a little too subtle for many Arabs, though, whose hatred of the PA stems from its even pretending to want peace with the hated Zionists.)

So even if the PA somehow signs a peace agreement, if the maximal demands of destroying Israel demographically are not included, it would not be accepted by the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs.

Which goes to show yet again that every agreement that Israel signs with Palestinian Arabs is simply one more step to its destruction, as the gains that the Arabs make will then become the floor for the next series of demands  - or, more likely, the PA would then disappear and be replaced by a more overtly radical group that is more consistent with the incitement that three generations of PalArabs have been raised on, one that will happily rip up the worthless paper promises that the current quasi-government would make.

It is one thing to take risks for peace. It is an entirely different thing to negotiate your own destruction. This poll proves that peace is simply not an objective for Palestinian Arabs.

We know what that objective is.

(h/t Marty Peretz)

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Freedom of the Press, Hamas-style

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms [sic] just released a few recent examples of how Hamas completely restricts what journalists can do in Gaza.

Here are some of them:

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) expresses its concern about the deteriorating situation of media freedoms in Gaza Strip. This week MADA has monitored several violations against journalists, they are: the detention of the dean of Media faculty in Aqsa university Dr. Ahmad Hamad and the Greek director Bindles Baba Byblos after filming a wedding in Beit Hanoun, the prevention of France Press Agency photographer Mohammed Al-Baba from covering a march for “ Hizb Al-Tahrir” in Alnasser area in Gaza, and the prevention of Alshu’la newspaper chief editor Saher Alaqra’ and the correspondent of Sawt Falesteen Radio (Palestinian public radio) Tamim Abu Muammar from traveling to Egypt, in addition to the continued prevention of the three daily newspapers (Al-Hayat Aljadedeh, Al-Ayyam and Al-Quds) to enter Gaza Strip since 7 July 2010.

According to Hamad he said that he had gone on Sunday evening, 11 July 2010 to Beit Hanoun, accompanied by lecturer Mohammad Abu Odeh, and the director Byblos to film a wedding there to conclude it in a documentary film about the life of citizens in Gaza. Hamad added: "After we finished filming we left the wedding around 11 pm, but we were surprised that the police were waiting for us. They asked us about the tape which the director filmed, and when I asked them why? They answered: because you have filmed without permission, and conducted an interview with the father of the groom. And after an argument they took us to a police station in Beit Hanoun, and after they searched the car and watched the tape, the Superintendent Detective said the tape is normal and does not have anything to harm the government. But another person interfered and said that the groom’s fathers hold the government the responsibility for poverty, unemployment and hunger in the Gaza.” After many calls they release us after hour and a half of detention.”

Al-Baba said that he was filming a march of “Hizb Al-Tahrir” in Alnasser area/ Maqqousi Towers on Tuesday, 13 July 2010 at 5:00 PM, during the filming, a group belonging to the criminal investigation police unit attacked him and confiscated his personal stuff (camera - laptop – mobile ), and they took him to the police station in Alshate’area. After detaining him for an hour they asked him to sign a pledge that he won’t publish any picture about the march’s event, because there is a superior order banning media converge of the march.

As I reported yesterday, the Hizb ut Tahrir rally was broken up with live fire and Hamas policemen beating participants, seriously injuring a child.

If Hamas is restricting even documentary filmmakers from making videos, and banning journalists from rallies in Gaza, it becomes irresponsible for the mainstream media to report anything from Gaza without adding a caveat that their ability report facts objectively is impossible due to Hamas policies. Every Reuters photo should include the explanation that "this picture was allowed to be shown by Hamas authorities." The media freely mentions Israeli censorship policies when it impacts their work - yet you will not see them say anything about Hamas' complete control over their movements, actions and reporting.

By not reporting on Hamas' restrictions on their freedoms, the Western media in Gaza is complicit with Hamas' policies. The world's perception of Gaza is completely dependent on reporters who willingly withhold most of the information they know about Hamas' excesses.

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How wrong was the media on Faisal Shahzad?

A day after the failed Times Square bombing attempt, NBC Nightly News repeatedly called him a "lone wolf."

A month after, CBS Evening News called him a "hybrid terrorist":

In one sense, Shahzad was a lone wolf, with evidence suggesting that he alone bought, assembled, and delivered his botched IED. But, sources say it's also clear Shahzad had some help, drawing inspiration, financial support and bomb training from the Pakistani Taliban.

Now, Al Arabiya released a martyrdom video that he had made months beforehand with the Taliban, describing his motive. (Guess what? Israel wasn't mentioned! I guess he missed the memo to always mention Israel.)

It sure looks like the media tried as hard as possible to minimize this failed terror attack. And this minimization was largely successful, as the new evidence about Shahzad has come out slowly and is mostly downplayed in the press.

Yet the facts are clear - a mere two months ago, a Muslim extremist who was trained by a worldwide terrorist organization tried to kill hundreds of men, women and children in New York City. The fact that his bomb failed is not nearly as relevant as the fact that he could have easily succeeded, especially if he had really aspired to martyrdom instead of chickening out and trying to use a timer. Dismissing him as "incompetent" is besides the point - that there are millions of people who share his vision, and many of those would not have made the same mistakes.

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Mecca Cola - The Virtually Real Thing

The colors, font and background of Mecca Cola's logo seems awfully familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on where I've seen it before:

I must admit I enjoy the irony of the slogan, though. I can just imagine a commercial with a young Saudi woman on a sunny day playing Frisbee - and then trying to drink Mecca Cola through her burqa, while the announcer says "The Taste of Freedom."

(This is the Palestinian Arab version of the product; the main Dubai-based version uses a different logo.)

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Flotilla timeline video from IDF with English subtitles

This was just released with English subtitles:





Lots of footage from Israeli helicopters and boats that we hadn't seen before the release of the Eiland report.

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Egyptian doctor creates Society for the Prevention of Kisses

Firas Press reports that an Egyptian doctor, Dr. Adel Ashour, Professor of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, is setting up a Society for the Prevention of Kisses between Couples in Egypt.

He notes that "All scientific research published in major world medical journals unanimously show that serious medical damage is caused by exchanging kisses through the spread of infection from viral diseases."

He gives a list of medical problems that can be cause by kissing, including "skin diseases like acne, meningitis and viral diseases such as colds that should not be underestimated as they may infect cells lining the brain and result in very high temperatures that are difficult to control and may lead to death in some cases, also inflammation of the parotid gland as well as measles and viral hepatitis."

He also noted that the Islamic religion prohibits kissing in a non-marital framework.

This could explain a lot:

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The politics behind the Amalthea (Zvi)

Zvi comments:

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Ghaddafi and Son  
Ghaddafi has his own flamboyant and attention-seeking stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He is a one-stater who, having been badly burned in the past, appears to want to be seen as pragmatic and peaceful in the western press. Never mind that his proposals are demented and would result in mass death, destruction and chaos in Israel and the region if anyone were mad enough to implement them... . Of course, despite wanting to appear to be pragmatic, Ghaddafi and his regime are staunch enemies of Israel.  
 
In recent years, Ghaddafi's regime has made efforts to paint his son, Saif al-Islam, as a moderate pragmatist who should be welcomed as a voice of wisdom and common sense (never mind that the Libyan state is among the world's most repressive dictatorships, and that Saif al-Islam sits at the center of this dictatorship). Saif al-Islam's press statements in the wake of the ship drama project a sane, pragmatic image, to an extent that actually surprised me.  
 
'Do you want the grapes or to kill the vineyard's guard?' To tell you the truth, we want the grapes and we got them – so there's no reason to cause any problems.  
The problem was not a naval conflict with Israel, but rebuilding Gaza and helping our Palestinians brothers.  
 
Of course, the man also spreads nonsense about Gazan conditions and about Israel. We're not talking about a man who really cares very much about the truth. But I'm slightly impressed that he's willing to dismiss the idea of mindlessly attacking Israel for its own sake. In a region where ludicrous flights of romanticized genocidal fantasy are the norm, this is an unusually rational stance.  
 
Unexpected Wins  
The Ghaddafi regime has won a huge tactical PR victory - a much bigger win than I expected them to secure, and clearly much bigger than Ghaddafi ever hoped to secure. At the same time, Egypt has come out significantly ahead and Israel achieved its objective. The UNRWA received a windfall. Hamas, which has been demanding that the Libyan ship dock in Gaza, looks mildly stupid.  
 
What Libya Won  
* The Libyan regime received a lot of press attention (especially for the Heir Apparent).  
* It spun itself as being more moderate and stable than Turkey. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a very difficult feat, but Erdogan has watered down Turkey's reputation significantly, and Libya was very quick to take advantage.  
* It showed itself to be more effectual than Iran, Hezbollah and its fellow Arab states, who for all their talk, have not yet launched any ships.  
* It gets to play the hero in Gaza, and should therefore look good in the Arab media and certainly in the west.  
* It looks good at the UN, because it's funding Gaza repairs via the UNRWA.  
* It allowed Egypt to act as intermediary between Israel and Libya (I'll come to this in a minute).  
* It made Israel look aggressive, particularly while the navy was shadowing the ship and nobody knew what would happen, without looking aggressive itself.  
* It got Israel to sign off on a Libyan initiative in Gaza.  
 
Ghaddafi accomplished all of this at the low price of a ship, a bit of cargo and the promise of about $50M to the UNRWA (assuming that the money actually flows, and assuming that this is not money that Libya had already promised in the past but witheld). I'm sure that Ghaddafi's staff are celebrating.  
 
What Egypt Won    
I think that this outcome pleased the Egyptians very, very much. Egypt was able to exercize its skills as mediator and, in a matter of a few days, achieved an agreement that satisfied both parties and settled a looming diplomatic/military crisis. At the same time, Egypt's influence with respect to Gaza was mildly strengthened.    
   
On the world stage, the Egyptian government positions itself as a regional diplomatic heavyweight, a regime whose opinion cannot be discounted. It positions itself as a mediator that can facilitate otherwise  "impossible" agreements between Arabs and Israelis, a mediator that is essential to the peace process. This repuation has taken some blows in recent years. Iran and Hamas have consciously taken aim at Egyptian diplomatic prestige and at Egyptian influence over Gaza, and Egyptian influence and prestige have been battered by the obstructionism and hostility of an obnoxious little statelet (Gaza).

The Libya-Egypt/Egypt-Israel agreement allowed the Egyptian government to demonstrate both its skill as a mediator and its ability to bring Israel to the table. Egypt can claim an unexpected diplomatic win, one that has no downside for the Arabs. Furthermore, in doing the two-part Gaza deal with Egypt, Libya tacitly acknowledged that Gaza lies within Egypt's sphere of influence.

The fact that the flow of aid is going to filter through UNRWA instead of being handed directly and openly to Hamas embarasses Hamas somewhat, and Cairo must be smiling about that; Hamas has been sticking its finger in Mubarak's eye, and there is no love lost between the Egyptians and Hamas.

So this looks like a huge win for Egypt. In only a few days, Egypt settled a crisis, negotiated an agreement between two states that don't talk to each other, beefed up its diplomaic resume, received acknowledgement of its influence over Gaza and embarassed Hamas. Mubarak and Suleiman have every reason to be happy with this outcome.

Egypt evidently had mediation assistance from Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff, but Ghaddafi Jr. only mentions the Egyptians. 

 What Israel Won
Israel's interest was always to keep the ship from running the blockade. Israel wanted to set a precedent, according to which any real aid vessels will unload at Ashdod or, failing that, somewhere else, and the aid must flow into Gaza via controlled channels rather than confronting the Israeli navy.

Israel certainly isn't worried about a $50M influx of aid via the UNRWA. The amount of money sloshing around in Gaza already dwarfs $50M. 

 Conclusion
Ghaddafi is a murderous tyrant and a very strange man. His regime is one of the worst in the world. But I'll tip my hat, this once, to whomever handled this situation on their side; I can appreciate Olympic-caliber gymnastics.

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Libya discovers UNRWA

From YNet:

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, chairman of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation which tried to send an aid vessel to Gaza, says he reached an Egyptian-mediated agreement with Israel on Wednesday, allowing him to infuse $50 million for the restoration of the Strip and transfer construction materials to Gaza.

"We will soon start funneling $50 million in coordination with UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) to begin rebuilding Gaza and transfer humanitarian aid and construction materials, without any objection on the part of the Israeli government."

According to Gaddafi Jr., "This is an agreement we never expected or dreamed of. UNRWA informed us that it has failed to receive one dollar for the restoration of Gaza so far, and was therefore unsuccessful in bringing in even one iron skewer or sack of cement.

UNRWA's 2009 budget shows that it did not receive a single cent from Libya. Apparently, Libya never gave any money to UNRWA over the sixty years it has existed.

All of a sudden, Libya became aware of UNRWA's existence - and is happy to funnel money there?

Arab nations are fairly consistent in spurning UNRWA. Their (public) attitude has always been that the West is responsible for the existence of Palestinian Arab refugees by allowing Israel to be created, so therefore the West should pay for their basic needs forever - even as they are hosted in Arab countries who have adamantly refused to give them equal rights.

Only last year, when UNRWA asked for emergency funds to help Gaza, did a couple of oil-rich Arab countries pledge one-time contributions - $25M from Saudi Arabia and $35M from Kuwait. Arab governments' annual cash contributions to UNRWA are pitiably small, about $7M out of the $470M total last year. Arab nations have consistently spurned UNRWA appeals for cash and have equally consistently failed to pay on their pledges to UNRWA.

In fact, Luxembourg has given more cash to UNRWA's annual budget than any Arab country.

If Libya decides to give $50 million to UNRWA, it will suddenly become UNRWA's biggest Arab supporter, and it might be the biggest single contribution ever from an Arab country in UNRWA's history. Compare that to the $267M the US gave in 2009, or the $48M that was given to UNRWA by - Sweden.

It seems a bit cynical for Libya to crow over how it will now give all this money to Gazans when, up until now, it has shown utter indifference towards the major international organization that supports them.

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