The "Palestinian" Refugee Industry

Under UNRWA's operational definition, 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". Not only that – UNRWA's definition encompasses also the descendants of the original refugees, as we can see from UNRWA's own website. There does not appear to be any basis for such a sweeping definition in the UN resolution which established UNWRA and it would appear that this definition was a later development. Once again, when it comes to the Israel-Arab conflict, the goalposts have been moved and just like the concepts of "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", "apartheid" and "democracy", so too the word "refugee" has been re-defined. "Palestinians" are the only group of refugees able to "bequeath" their refugee status to their descendants. Furthermore, "Palestinians" are the only group of refugees in the world to have a United Nations agency dedicated specifically and uniquely to helping them.

UNRWA has a staff of over 25,000 to deal with some 5 million "Palestine refugees". Of these, 99% are locally recruited "Palestinian" Arabs. No wonder it has become politicised! In contrast, UNHCR deals with all the other refugees in the world (about 33.9 million persons in 125 countries) with a staff of less than 8000! It seems clear that UNWRA has become a self-serving organisation, which has helped to perpetuate the "Palestinian refugee" problem rather than to solve it.


THE VIEW FROM THE PALACE