Why are
there still Palestinian refugees? http://www.aish.com/jw/me/Why-Are-There-Still-Palestinian-Refugees.html
The Palestinian refugees are in a very unique position compared to the rest of the world's refugees, and the UN organization UNRWA makes these Palestinians refugees forever.
And what is the role of UNRWA in
these refugee camps in the Middle East today?
UNRWA has not led to the economic development that was
supposed to occur, but conversely, has implanted a culture of permanent
dependency.
Even though UNRWA is supposed to be an objective
organization, because of the anti-Israel bias evident since its creation,
through anti-Israeli textbooks, for example, or naming facilities after
terrorists, it appears unwilling to encourage Palestinians to find any peaceful
solution of the conflict -- not to mention what a peaceful solution would mean
to its own "job security."
It would be more productive for
genuine peace in the region if the office of the High Commissioner for Refugees
took over the function of assisting the Palestinians as it has so ably done for
all other refugees.
The US
Congress:
Both houses of Congress are at
work to modify funding bills for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA), as part of an effort to investigate the very legitimacy of the
decades-old agency, Michael Wilner reported in the Jerusalem Post Friday. Both
the House and the Senate want the State Department to, once and for all, define
the term “Palestinian refugee,” and while they’re at it, reveal how many are
receiving aid from UNRWA.
Many in Congress have been
saying, since about 2012, that the majority of Palestinians are permanently
settled, and should not be under the jurisdiction of a refugee agency.
The first
Palestinian census was completed 15 years ago, and the head of the Palestinian
Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) admitted then that the census was, in
effect, “a civil intifada” rather than a scientific survey. In 2011 the Bureau
attempted to correct that blatant misrepresentation, claiming that 2.6 million
Palestinian Arabs inhabit Judea and Samaria.
In 2014, UNRWA came up with the
figure of 5 million Palestinian refugees living in Gaza, Judea and Samaria,
Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The whole story:
A
giant key (said to be the world's largest) sits atop the entrance to the Aida
Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, reminding residents to insist on their "right
of return."
When Ingo Way visited the Palestinian
refugee camp of Aida and met the people who live there. Startled and almost
scared, he reports on their grim hope to "return" one day to a
country in which many have never set foot.
The Aida refugee camp has been in Bethlehem since 1950. Today just over 3,000 people live there - descendants of those Arabs who fled during the war of 1948 from Israel. the Aida camp is maintained by the UNRWA and it doesn't look like one would imagine a "camp." Aida consists of massive houses and is thus more like a neighborhood than a camp - not even a slum. The entrance to the refugee camp is decorated with a gigantic key, written in English and Arabic, which reads: "Not for Sale". What is not for sale is not difficult to guess: the Arabian soil from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, which must not be abandoned for any peace treaty with Israel. Is this an uncharitable interpretation on my part? Let's see.
I enter the Lajee Center, a kind of community center for residents of Aida, with lounges, a tea kitchen, an Internet cafe and an exhibition space, in which they are presently showing a photo exhibition with pictures from several other refugee camps. Upstairs I meet Khouloud Al Ajarma, who according to her business card is the "Arts & Media Center Coordinator of Lajee Center." Khouloud was born 23 years ago in Aida; her grandmother came from a village in Israel that does not exist anymore. She studied in England, so she speaks with marked British accent. And she talks a lot - eloquent, fluent, confident. Khouloud does not wear a headscarf; instead she wears a pink knitted cap that covered her entire head of hair. On top of the pink sweater she is wearing a black jacket, a checkered skirt that covers her knees, but that allows a look at her black tights and fashionable ankle boots. I like Khouloud - she is educated and pretty with I've always liked British accents.
After her graduation, Khouloud returned back to Aida. She is aiming to "return" to Israel, although she has not been there before. "To remain a refugee is a political decision," she admits. Hence it is for her and for the other inhabitants of Aida out of the question to start a new life elsewhere, or to even become ordinary citizens of Bethlehem - because then they lose their refugee status conferred on them by the UNRWA. "We want no normalization," says Khouloud. "We want to remain refugees to exercise our right of return one day."
At this point something must be said about the UNRWA. The United Nations has two refugee relief organizations: the UNRWA for Palestinian refugees, and another, the UNHCR, for all other refugees in the world. And for all these UNHCR refugees their status will end after the first generation. The status of refugee is not inherited. And accordingly it is the responsibility of UNHCR to ensure that refugees get full civil rights in the countries in which they have fled. Life in refugee camps is a status that UNHCR resolves to end.
UNRWA has a completely different mandate. They regard it as their task to attend to the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, in Jordan and Syria, and they extend the refugee status over generations. And there is no end in sight. Khouloud is also, according to UN definition, a refugee - she would be even if she had stayed in England - and her children will be too. Khouloud's sister lives in Jordan and is married to a Jordanian. Through this marriage she is able to choose whether she wants to become a Jordanian citizen or remain a Palestinian refugee. She chose the latter. This inheritability of refugee status is an exception that the UN has established for Palestinians and for nobody else.
Khouloud doesn't protest this in any way. She says, "Yes, it is a special privilege. But this special privilege is our due. Why? It's about justice!" Tt is therefore not surprising that Khouloud doesn't grant any importance to the negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. "Our people do not want a two-state solution. Our leadership is not acting in our name. And the Israelis know that as well." But what do "the people" want, what does Khouloud want? "It's about the right of our country," she says. "To renounce this right would not only be a betrayal of the refugees, it would be a betrayal of Palestine. That's not what our martyrs died for."
The Aida refugee camp has been in Bethlehem since 1950. Today just over 3,000 people live there - descendants of those Arabs who fled during the war of 1948 from Israel. the Aida camp is maintained by the UNRWA and it doesn't look like one would imagine a "camp." Aida consists of massive houses and is thus more like a neighborhood than a camp - not even a slum. The entrance to the refugee camp is decorated with a gigantic key, written in English and Arabic, which reads: "Not for Sale". What is not for sale is not difficult to guess: the Arabian soil from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, which must not be abandoned for any peace treaty with Israel. Is this an uncharitable interpretation on my part? Let's see.
I enter the Lajee Center, a kind of community center for residents of Aida, with lounges, a tea kitchen, an Internet cafe and an exhibition space, in which they are presently showing a photo exhibition with pictures from several other refugee camps. Upstairs I meet Khouloud Al Ajarma, who according to her business card is the "Arts & Media Center Coordinator of Lajee Center." Khouloud was born 23 years ago in Aida; her grandmother came from a village in Israel that does not exist anymore. She studied in England, so she speaks with marked British accent. And she talks a lot - eloquent, fluent, confident. Khouloud does not wear a headscarf; instead she wears a pink knitted cap that covered her entire head of hair. On top of the pink sweater she is wearing a black jacket, a checkered skirt that covers her knees, but that allows a look at her black tights and fashionable ankle boots. I like Khouloud - she is educated and pretty with I've always liked British accents.
After her graduation, Khouloud returned back to Aida. She is aiming to "return" to Israel, although she has not been there before. "To remain a refugee is a political decision," she admits. Hence it is for her and for the other inhabitants of Aida out of the question to start a new life elsewhere, or to even become ordinary citizens of Bethlehem - because then they lose their refugee status conferred on them by the UNRWA. "We want no normalization," says Khouloud. "We want to remain refugees to exercise our right of return one day."
At this point something must be said about the UNRWA. The United Nations has two refugee relief organizations: the UNRWA for Palestinian refugees, and another, the UNHCR, for all other refugees in the world. And for all these UNHCR refugees their status will end after the first generation. The status of refugee is not inherited. And accordingly it is the responsibility of UNHCR to ensure that refugees get full civil rights in the countries in which they have fled. Life in refugee camps is a status that UNHCR resolves to end.
UNRWA has a completely different mandate. They regard it as their task to attend to the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, in Jordan and Syria, and they extend the refugee status over generations. And there is no end in sight. Khouloud is also, according to UN definition, a refugee - she would be even if she had stayed in England - and her children will be too. Khouloud's sister lives in Jordan and is married to a Jordanian. Through this marriage she is able to choose whether she wants to become a Jordanian citizen or remain a Palestinian refugee. She chose the latter. This inheritability of refugee status is an exception that the UN has established for Palestinians and for nobody else.
Khouloud doesn't protest this in any way. She says, "Yes, it is a special privilege. But this special privilege is our due. Why? It's about justice!" Tt is therefore not surprising that Khouloud doesn't grant any importance to the negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. "Our people do not want a two-state solution. Our leadership is not acting in our name. And the Israelis know that as well." But what do "the people" want, what does Khouloud want? "It's about the right of our country," she says. "To renounce this right would not only be a betrayal of the refugees, it would be a betrayal of Palestine. That's not what our martyrs died for."
I get a little queasy. Before me is not a
screaming fanatic like Shirin A., but a young woman with a Western education
that speaks with a quiet and serene voice of blood and soil as if she were
discussing an upcoming business meeting. She speaks very clearly of what they
wish for: a single state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, in which all
Palestinians, the descendants of refugees from 1948 and are now scattered all
over the world return to live, can return to live. Toclarify the scale: In the
wake of Israel's independence war of 1948 left about 700,000 Arabs left the
territory of present-day Israel. Some were forced, some went voluntarily,
hoping to come back for a victory of Arab armies. But the Arab states lost the
war they had begun. Today there are between four and five million people who
hold the status of "Palestine refugees". Khouloud even speaks of
eight million. If it were up to her, they would all be allowed to settle in
Israel.
For Khouloud it seems to matter little that this will never happen by peaceful means. Because for the Israeli side, it is unacceptable - it would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state. "Why do we need a Jewish state?" Khouloud asks rhetorically. "Surely we can all live together in a democratic state of Palestine." This would, she says, of course, have a "Palestinian majority. " And what would happen to the Jewish minority in such a state? "Such small things," says Khouloud, "are not important. For them a solution will eventually be found."
What I find so frightening about Khouloud Al Ajarma is not so much her complete lack of self-criticism. It's not so much her radicalism -in comparison, the settlers spokesman David Wilder from Hebron comes across as a conciliatory pacifist (and he, by the way, represents only a tiny minority of Israeli society). What really frightened me is this: No representative of the UN, who built the schools and community centers in Aida, nor the EU, who gives the refugee camps such as this financial support, nor the employees of all the Western aid agencies and NGOs that are active here- none of them would tell Khouloud straight out that her demands are not only inhuman - because of course they count on the expulsion and disenfranchisement of Jews in Israel, and this is still the most favorable interpretation - but also unrealistic. Not one says, "You will not get your demands. Work instead towards a peaceful compromise with the Israelis, advocate for a two-state solution and waive your threatening right to return. Finally take over responsibility for yourself and your own people, build an infrastructure and tear down the refugee camps. Stop getting nannied by the UN and the EU, get a grip on things yourselves." No one tells them this because no one thinks that way. No one is bothered by the graffiti, which is found on every house, showing an undivided Palestine and reaffirming the explicit Palestinian claim even over Greater Tel Aviv. And that's the most depressing experience I have had in the Aida refugee camp.
I go back to the checkpoint, countless Christian tourists are with me in the queue, others approach me, little boys trying to sell us wooden flutes (recorders.) Once on the other side, I take a deep breath. I have the feeling to return to something that the writer Michael Klonovsky - also during a trip to Jerusalem and also reluctantly - called "my own value system." And I enjoy that feeling.
For Khouloud it seems to matter little that this will never happen by peaceful means. Because for the Israeli side, it is unacceptable - it would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state. "Why do we need a Jewish state?" Khouloud asks rhetorically. "Surely we can all live together in a democratic state of Palestine." This would, she says, of course, have a "Palestinian majority. " And what would happen to the Jewish minority in such a state? "Such small things," says Khouloud, "are not important. For them a solution will eventually be found."
What I find so frightening about Khouloud Al Ajarma is not so much her complete lack of self-criticism. It's not so much her radicalism -in comparison, the settlers spokesman David Wilder from Hebron comes across as a conciliatory pacifist (and he, by the way, represents only a tiny minority of Israeli society). What really frightened me is this: No representative of the UN, who built the schools and community centers in Aida, nor the EU, who gives the refugee camps such as this financial support, nor the employees of all the Western aid agencies and NGOs that are active here- none of them would tell Khouloud straight out that her demands are not only inhuman - because of course they count on the expulsion and disenfranchisement of Jews in Israel, and this is still the most favorable interpretation - but also unrealistic. Not one says, "You will not get your demands. Work instead towards a peaceful compromise with the Israelis, advocate for a two-state solution and waive your threatening right to return. Finally take over responsibility for yourself and your own people, build an infrastructure and tear down the refugee camps. Stop getting nannied by the UN and the EU, get a grip on things yourselves." No one tells them this because no one thinks that way. No one is bothered by the graffiti, which is found on every house, showing an undivided Palestine and reaffirming the explicit Palestinian claim even over Greater Tel Aviv. And that's the most depressing experience I have had in the Aida refugee camp.
I go back to the checkpoint, countless Christian tourists are with me in the queue, others approach me, little boys trying to sell us wooden flutes (recorders.) Once on the other side, I take a deep breath. I have the feeling to return to something that the writer Michael Klonovsky - also during a trip to Jerusalem and also reluctantly - called "my own value system." And I enjoy that feeling.
An interesting article from a Jew who also believes that he is entitled
to the help and support of UNRWA, because his ancestors are refugees from the
same area
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-the-unrwa-im-a-palestinian-refugee-too/
An introduction to how this refugee problem occurred.
How they ended up in this backwater and how it works, the future
prospects for these refugees.
An article by Daniel Pipes
Eventually,
All Humans Will Be Palestine Refugees
by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
February 21, 2012
The Washington Times
February 21, 2012
Of all the issues that drive the Arab-Israeli conflict, none is
more central, malign, primal, enduring, emotional, and complex than the status
of those persons known as Palestine refugees.
The origins of this unique case, notes Nitza Nachmias of Tel Aviv
University, goes back to Count Folke
Bernadotte, the United Nations Security Council's mediator. Referring to
those Arabs who fled the British mandate of Palestine, he argued in 1948 that
the UN had a "responsibility for their relief" because it was a UN
decision, the establishment of Israel, that had made them refugees. However
inaccurate his view, it still remains alive and potent and helps explain why
the UN devotes unique attention to Palestine refugees pending their own state.
Folke Bernadotte
True to
Bernadotte's legacy, the UN set up a range of special institutions exclusively for
Palestine refugees. Of
these, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees,
founded in 1949, stands out as the most important. It is both the only refugee
organization to deal with a specific people (the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees takes care of all non-Palestinian refugees) and the largest UN
organization (in terms of staff).
UNRWA seemingly defines its
wards with great specificity: "Palestine refugees are people whose normal
place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both
their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli
conflict." The ranks of these refugees (who initially included some Jews)
have, of course, much diminished over the past 64 years. Accepting UNRWA's
(exaggerated) number of 750,000 original Palestine refugees, only a fraction of
that number, about 150,000 persons, remain alive.
UNRWA's staff has taken three major steps over the years to expand
the definition of Palestine refugees. First, and contrary to universal practice,
it continued the refugee status of those who became citizens
of an Arab state (Jordan in particular). Second, it made a
little-noticed decision
in 1965 that extended the definition of "Palestine
refugee" to the descendants of those refugees who are male, a shift that
permits Palestine refugees uniquely to pass their refugee status on to
subsequent generations. The U.S.
government, the agency's largest donor, only mildly protested this momentous
change. The UN General Assembly endorsed it in 1982, so that now the definition
of a Palestine refugee officially includes "descendants of Palestine
refugee males, including legally adopted children." Third, UNRWA in 1967
added refugees from the Six-Day War to its rolls; today they constitute
about a fifth of the
Palestine refugee total.
These changes had dramatic results. In contrast to all other
refugee populations, which diminish in number as people settle down or die, the
Palestine refugee population has grown over time. UNRWA acknowledges
this bizarre phenomenon: "When the Agency started working in 1950, it was
responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, 5 million
Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services." Further, according to
James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general counsel, under UNRWA's definition,
that 5 million figure represents only half of those potentially eligible for
Palestine refugee status.
In other words, rather than diminish 5-fold over six decades,
UNRWA has the population of refugees increase almost 7-fold. That number could
grow faster yet due to the growing sentiment that female refugees should also
pass on their refugee status. Even when, in about 40 years, the last actual
refugee from mandatory Palestine dies, pseudo-refugees will continue to
proliferate. Thus is the "Palestine refugee" status set to swell
indefinitely. Put differently, as Steven J. Rosen of the Middle East Forum
notes, "given UNRWA's standards, eventually all humans will be Palestine
refugees."
Were the Palestine refugee status a healthy one, this infinite
expansion would hardly matter. But the status has destructive implications for
two parties: Israel, which suffers from the depredations of a category of
persons whose lives are truncated and distorted by an impossible dream of
return to their great-grandparents' houses; and the "refugees"
themselves, whose status implies a culture of dependency, grievance, rage, and
futility.
All other refugees from the World War II era (including my own
parents) have been long settled; the Palestine refugee status has already
endured too long and needs to be narrowed down to actual refugees before it
does further damage.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is
president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at
the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. This article is based on a
recent MEF seminar in Jerusalem on UNRWA.© 2012 by Daniel Pipes. All rights
reserved.
Se also Palestinian
refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state
