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WHAT IS A “REFUGEE”?
If you’re a Palestinian Arab, you need only have lived in Israel for two years prior to fleeing the 1948 War of Independence, or you need only be a descendant of someone who fled. If you’re anyone else in the world, you must have had a durable attachment to the land from which you had been expelled, but you cannot be a descendant of anyone who relocated.
These two contradictory definitions are followed, respectively by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The former only applies to Israel; the latter applies to everyone else, International Law that affected 150,000,000 people during the past half-century.
This dichotomy—applying a looser standard to Arabs—is the source of ongoing anguish in the Middle East, and how it must be rectified will be discussed during a convocation to be held in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, July 13th.
Since its (temporary) establishment in December 1949, UNRWA has knowingly hosted camps that foment a culture of terrorism, incitement, and dependency …instead of peace, acceptance and self-reliance. UNRWA reinforces a sense of victim-hood plus its flipside, hatred of those blamed for perpetuating anguish. Indeed, resentment is even directed at those who want to help them prosper.
Instead of helping Arabs revere carefully-preserved keys to houses of ancestors that no longer exist—idolizing the past—UNRWA must break this cycle, helping them thrive in the present so that they can build a future. This is the only way to undermine Islamists who exploit abject poverty and rabid emotions, thereby forestalling any potential to achieve a durable Middle East Peace.
In short, UNRWA must help them “get with the program,” to reflect contemporary reality. UNRWA must not acquiesce to failed public policy pursued by the Palestinian Authority—both its Hamas and Abbas wings—which reinforces growth of a sense of permanence of these camps. And, through UNRWA, America must now stop UNRWA from institutionalizing engrained anti-Semitism.
UNRWA’s Overall Activities
UNRWA’s ineffectiveness is glaring for, nearly sixty years later, the refugees’ descendants still live in camps and have neither been integrated into their countries of residence nor relocated elsewhere. Other refugees from the same period–Germans from the Sudetes and Pomerania, and Jews from Iraq and Egypt–would probably have the “fortune” of living under comparable squalor if they, too, had chosen to benefit from UNRWA’s tender attention.
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) has summarized the current state of unrest caused by UNRWA. UNRWA hires Hamas workers, finances Hamas activities, and provides textbooks instructing Israel’s illegitimacy. Thus, through this Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), American taxpayers’ money is funneled to terrorists. Meanwhile, UNRWA has adopted what has been dubbed by Arlene Kushner as a “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” approach to this scandal, claiming it redirects funds from any entity found to be engaged in terrorism.
UNRWA has gone to extraordinary lengths to justify its existence in perpetuity by ensuring its “charge”—Palestinian Arabs—do not repatriate. If administered under the UNHCR, a refugee loses such status if “he has acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.” Yet, the UNRWA-administered camps in Jordan include Palestinian Arabs who have obtained Jordanian citizenship…but who remain counted as refugees.
The not-so-subliminal message being sent is that this population is kept caged so that it can someday invoke the “Law of Return,” an unprecedented meshing of a political goal with what is supposed to be a humanitarian effort. UNRWA thus fosters an unvarnished affront to the existence of the State of Israel, a sovereign member of the UN. And, UNRWA has actively lobbied against Israel’s efforts to provide any type of permanent housing for refugees in Gaza and Judea/Samaria. Thus has the agency worked against reasonable settlement of the refugee issue.
By expanding its problematic definition of a Palestinian refugee to include an escalating number of descendants, UNRWA guarantees that their limbo-status remains ongoing, ever-growing, and thus ever-worsening. This may befit the political needs of Arab leaders who would leverage such suffering to paint Israel as a convenient scapegoat for the region’s political, social, and economic ills. But such blame-games are transparent…and tired; autocratic tradition in the Middle East must finally confront the challenge of democratization.
UNRWA’s Specific Activities
Unlike every other UN agency, UNRWA hires Palestinian Arabs and thereby creates conflicts-of-interest through which sympathetic staffers turn a blind eye to beneficiaries and other UNRWA employees who are terrorists. For example, on July 6, 2001, Hamas convened a conference in an UNRWA school in Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp with the full participation of its administrators and faculty. Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin spoke of the “liberation of Jerusalem,” and Saheil Alhinadi—UNRWA’s representative from the teachers’ sector—extolled Hamas students who had been suicide/homicide bombers against Israelis exclaiming, “The road to Palestine passes through the blood of the fallen.”
Hamas-affiliated workers control the UNRWA union in Gaza, including teachers. They countenance the activities of the Hamas-inspired Islamic Bloc, which ideologically prepares future generations of Palestinian Arabs for the “liberation of Palestine” by organizing special events and distributing printed materials.
Meanwhile, UNRWA-run camps are riddled with small-arms factories, explosives laboratories, Kassam-2 rocket manufacturing plants, and suicide-bombing cells. The full extent of the terrorist infiltration of these camps emerged during Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield in 2002—mounted in response to an unprecedented wave of terror attacks inside Israel—during which it was found that a number of wanted terrorists were hiding inside UNRWA schools; that youth clubs operated by UNRWA were meeting places for terrorists; and that an official bureau of the Tanzim (Fatah-affiliated) militia was being housed by UNRWA.
Furthermore, funds intended for humanitarian relief were redirected to terrorists. In an interview with CNN in February 2002, PA Minister of Labor Ghassan Khatib remarked that every young man in UNRWA’s Balata refugee camp had his own personal weapon because the local steering committee–an official UNRWA body –had voted that charitable donations received would be used for guns rather than food or other relief. And, lest we forget, Syria uses its UNRWA camps to funnel arms and personnel into Southern Lebanon through Hezbollah.
UNRWA employees themselves engage in terrorism, having been arrested and convicted by Israeli military courts of throwing firebombs at an Israeli public bus; possessing materials used for explosives; and transferring chemicals to assist in bomb-making. UNRWA ambulances have been used to transport terrorists and firearms in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Even the European Union rejects Hamas’ claim of a distinction between its “political” and “militant” factions; comparable to the pregnant woman, one cannot be “just-a-little-bit terroristic.”
The Remedy
The U.S. finances 25% of UNRWA’s budget, and U.S. law requires UNRWA to take every possible measure to ensure these monies are insulated from terrorists and terrorist groups. Yet, UNRWA flouts federal constraints as funding flows.
To interrupt this domestic and foreign inertia, on May 3rd, Congressman Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL) introduced “H.R. 5278 – The UNRWA Integrity Act”; Rep. Lantos is the lead Democrat-sponsor and Reps. Pence and Rothman are original co-sponsors, It would amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to assist Palestinian refugees in Gaza and Judea/Samaria to move to post-refugee status.
Under this Act, the President must certify to Congress that UNRWA is subject to comprehensive financial audits by an internationally recognized, independent auditing firm; does not provide employment, refuge, assistance or support of any kind to members of foreign terrorist organizations; does not promote denial of Israel’s right to exist or anti-Semitism; and ceases serving as an impediment to finding a lasting solution for Palestinian refugees residing in the region.
JINSA would go further, altering UNRWA’s mandate to match that of UNHCR (i.e., resettlement of refugees in countries that will absorb them) and shifting responsibility for the Palestinian Arabs (and programmatic funding) to UNHCR. And JINSA would mandate that educational funding cease until all textbooks used in all UNRWA-administered schools are rendered completely free of racist, anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli propaganda. Maps finally must include “Israel.”
The Implications
The original refugees were denizens of the British Mandate for Palestine (a defunct entity) or, prior to that, subjects of the Ottoman Empire (also defunct). They came to Israel from Egypt, Jordan and Syria because of economic opportunities provided by Jewish settlement (Yishuv), not because of historical linkage to this land. Thus, for those born into refugee status, there is no “prior” identity to assume. Resettlement is humane and is the only way to peace.
As long as Palestinian Arabs do not have to face the hard choice of resettling– the fate of all other refugees–they can cling to the belief that the international community can be forced to correct its “mistake,” the establishment of Israel.
As long as the Palestinian community is led to believe that its status is unique—that it alone will be able to turn back the clock and return to places that no longer exist—it will serve as a pawn for the most radical of Palestinian demagogues.
As long as UNRWA uses refugees—human lives and human families—for self-serving political purposes, it serves as an obstacle to peace. UNHCR relocates refugees worldwide, but UNRWA camps destabilize Lebanon (as recognized by a Security Council resolution) and Jordan (as reflected in Al Qaeda’s recognized use thereof to attack the host-country’s infrastructure).
Throughout, UNRWA activities provide well-funded opportunities to inculcate within the Palestinian population a sense of grievance that can only be assuaged by removing its cause – Israel – and “returning” them to what they claim as their previous status. Children are taught Israel is illegitimate, that she stole their parents’ and grandparents’ land; and that they should hope to return thereto. (How the UN would accommodate the millions of Israeli “refugees” created in the process, alas, this isn’t a valid consideration.)
The Politics
A recent article composed by Ms. Kushner provoked a revealing response from an UNRWA spokesperson that illustrates all that is wrong with UNRWA, and why it must be fixed. [Read both by searching “UNRWA” at http://www.azure.org.il.]
After having documented the rationale for her suggestion that UNRWA be folded into UNHCR, she concluded:
“Whether UNRWA is afraid to interfere with terrorist activity in its camps, or has become so entrenched in the terrorist infrastructure as to be effectively indis-tinguishable from it, … an agency mandated to serve a humanitarian purpose has been drafted to further a militant political agenda. Yet complicity in terrorist activity is only the worst element of an entire UNRWA regime structurally aimed at advancing the Palestinian cause rather than relieving Palestinian suffering.”
This provoked critique from Gina Benevento, UNRWA’s chief spokesperson in the Public Information Office in Gaza City. She claimed rare misuse of UNRWA facilities by militants had prompted strong protests to the “Palestinian Authority, just as it protested every time the Israeli army commandeered UNRWA facilities during its military operations to use them as detention or interrogation centers.” Thus was starkly revealed UNRWA’s “moral equivalency” of terrorism and those combating its unambiguous goal, the massacre of civilians.
Benevento recoiled at any “damaging accusation” that American monies end up helping terrorists, but Kushner cited a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office documenting that UNRWA has never once cut off funds to a registered recipient because of involvement with terrorism. Benevento even claimed that 14 staff internationals visiting UNRWA installations are able to track where UNRWA money goes when, by comparison, it has taken years for legions of UN staffers (and outside accountants) to document details of the “Iraqi oil-for-food” scandal.
She also claimed that UNRWA is humanitarian, not political. UNRWA repeatedly undermines this posture, however, as noted (for example) in its June 22 press release that “Strongly Condemns Death and Injury to Gazan Refugees…by Israeli army” performing extrajudicial killings.
After having listed who had died (both children and adults) without noting if any had been terrorists and without recognizing terrorists routinely mix with civilians, the UNRWA Commissioner-General, Karen AbuZayd, stated: "I was extremely saddened to learn of these tragedies, so soon after the killings on Gaza beach.” This event, conveniently filmed for international broadcast, had triggered analysis by Israeli pathologists that had demonstrated that these deaths had not been caused by Israeli weaponry, but she conveniently forgot to cite that fact.
Such imbalanced assertions are notable when issued by the UN, but UNRWA claims to be focused on their minions; yet, citing the Gaza beach episode—which most of the public still ascribes to Israelis despite release of subsequent data—reflects how UNRWA has become self-marginalized as a credible resource.
Finally, UNRWA’s complicity with terrorism was documented when it was noted that the chief London bomber, Assem Hammoud, had trained in a Lebanese “Refugee” camp run by UNRWA, Ein El-Hilweh.
The Seminar
JINSA is sponsoring a breakfast-meeting discussion of UNRWA-Reform with the bill’s introducer (Rep. Kirk), on Thursday, July 13th, in Washington, D.C., at the Rayburn House Office Building (Room 2168). Also speaking will be Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R, FL-18), Chair of the Middle East and Central Asia Sub-committee (of the International Relations Committee) and Sen. Norm Coleman, Member of the Near Eastern & South Asian Affairs Subcommittee (of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee). RSVP to Shoshana Bryen – 202-667-3900 or sbryen@jinsa.org.
Dr. Sklaroff is an oncologist/hematologist/internist.