I mentioned the “Palestinian ” refugee problem previously. This is one aspect of the ongoing argument that appears to be easy to remove from the discussion. The Palestinian Authority won’t like it, but they have a lot of things they don’t like. Their position has always been that the only solution is to return all the ‘refugees’ to their prior homes. What they refer to as “the right of return” has been the sole solution they are willing to accept. The rest of the world has been willing to adopt that stance because it is a position that causes them the lest problem. Those refugees remain hostages in the camps created for them, and the “humanitarian aid” provided for them is paid for by the more prosperous countries. I think it is time to consider an alternative.
There are few people still living who were actually listed as refugees in 1949. The Arab position has been that ALL descendants of anyone who was listed automatically inherit this right of return. That means that their captive hostage population cannot escape, even though they never lived in what was once the territory of the Palestine Mandate.
What would happen if those prisoners were given a chance to build a new life somewhere else? The example of “Palestinian” refugees in Syria is an instructive example. They seem to be only too happy to exchange their “Palestinian” status for that of refugees from the Syrian Civil War. Why? Because they now have options. They do not have to remain in those camps. There is another way open. They can go to another country and build a new life. The Arab world doesn’t like this solution. They have been unwilling to accept such refugees as citizens. It means giving up the income from the agencies dealing with the refugees (UNRWA) and that income, both direct and indirect, can be quite substantial. Jordan, for example, is a state that is always dependent upon some kind of external funding for its’ very existence.
Then we have the problem of defining who is a “Palestinian” refugee. The 1949 requirement was for residence in mandate territory for a short period prior to the 1948-9 fighting. But as many as 70 % of them were actually from families that immigrated to British controlled Palestine from Iraq and Syria in the 2 decades before the fighting, They did so then because there was a better life available in economic terms in Palestine. Today Europe is being inundated with such economic refugees, most claiming to have been displaced from their former homes by armed conflicts, whether true or not. The important thing to remember is that they came by choice. The “Palestinians” don’t have that choice. They need to have it restored.
It is possible to do that by gradually removing the people involved from the entrapment of being assigned to the responsibility of UNRWA. UNRWA should be absorbed n the framework of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees. It need not be done all at once. A multi-year program, such as that offered by President Trump, could be the way to do it. Contributing nations can just move funding from UNRWA and earmark it for UNHCR. UNRWA would disappear, and the refugees would find themselves under a regime that gives them more choice regarding their futures than they currently have.
Wetherhorn 