Wetherhorn

In his new book Jared Kushner claims that separating the Territorial dispute from the Jerusalem issue was a key element leading to the Abraham Accords. Too bad he didn’t take his thinking one step further and also break the refugee issue away from the territorial dispute. The whole world (including the Arabs) knows that the Palestinian refugees have been kept as a political pawn to further a Palestinian agenda. The people who suffer from this status are the refugees, themselves. It isn’t surprising that people fleeing from the Syrian civil war claimed they were Syrians, even when they came from UNRWA camps for “Palestinian” refugees. They had no desire to return to their former residences and be trapped by the UNRWA definition that claims the ONLY solution is repatriation to homes in Palestine where neither most refugees, nor their ancestors, were actually born.

Another side benefit from closing down UNRWA is shifting the burden of financial responsibility away from the US and European nations that currently foot most of the bill. UNRWA funding, sadly, is far too often syphoned off to the coffers of the rulers of the countries where it operates/ This often happens indirectly, but it does form part of what is used to build fortunes by many corrupt officials.

Israel closed down all UNRWA refugee camps within her borders prior to 1967. Now is the time to do this everywhere else.

This was originally prepared as a letter to a news magazine, but they did not select it for publication.