Time to Expose the Lie that is UNRWA

Former member of Israeli Knesset Dr. Einat Wilf says that instead of helping to solve the "Palestinian refugee problem", UNRWA helps to perpetuate it.

Former MK Dr. Einat Wilf said on Tuesday that it was time to expose the lie behind UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees.

“UNRWA is advertised as the UN's humanitarian agency, the educational institutions of the neutral United Nations are mentioned, but in practice this is a Palestinian agency thinly covered by the United Nations, which is entirely dedicated to the perpetuation of the refugee problem,” Wilf, who served as an MK for the Labor and Atzmaut parties, told Arutz Sheva.

“The UN Convention placed the treatment of Arab refugees on a special agency, UNRWA, but instead of trying to deal with the refugees and resettle them, UNRWA refuses to settle them in places where they were born - in Gaza, Ramallah and Jordan - and instead leaves them asrefugees in refugee camps,” she continued.

“Every descendant of the original refugee is registered as a refugee, even though he was born in Gaza, and that is why there are currently five million refugees registered with UNRWA. Had UNRWA done its job, there would be zero refugees now, they all would be living in homes of their own,” Wilf said.

She called on the international community to stop funding UNRWA, saying, “The Palestinian tragedy is that, instead of dismantling the refugee camps and setting up regular neighborhoods, they are left as refugees with the hopes of returning to Israel.”

“It’s time to expose the lie and for Western countries to stop funding UNRWA,” said Wilf. “The United States gives them $250 million a year, and Australia, Japan and the European Union provide about a billion dollars a year. They just do not realize that their support for UNRWA willensure that there will never be a two-state solution, because the Palestinians will continue to receive legitimization of the right of return.”

UNRWA was embroiled in the recent fighting in Gaza, as Hamas was using the agency’s schools as storage sites for its rockets. Three stockpiles of rockets were discovered in UN schools during Operation Protective Edge.

After the first finding of rockets at an UNRWA school, it was reported that rather than destroying the rockets, UNRWA workers called Hamas to come remove them.

In addition, Israel was blamed several times for shelling UNRWA schoolsthat were used as shelters. In at least one case, Israel provided evidence that rockets were being fired in the vicinity of the school.

UNWRA textbooks in Gaza - continued

It would seem that there is a political game being played between UNWRA and HAMAS and the headline "Hamas blocks UN textbooks in Gaza" is all part of this game.

As David Bediun writes http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=7150&q=1 , there are false rumours about the UNWRA curriculum content.

David's article should be read in its entirety.

I strongly suggest to treat this story with serious caution.

Hamas blocks UN textbooks in Gaza

Hamas blocks UN textbooks in Gaza because they focus too much on ‘peaceful’ conflict resolution.


Ibrahim Barzak : Associated Press : February 13 2014

Gaza’s Hamas authorities have blocked a UN refugee agency from introducing textbooks promoting human rights into local schools, saying it ignores Palestinian cultural mores and focuses too heavily on "peaceful" means of conflict resolution.

Motesem al-Minawi, spokesman for the Hamas-run Education Ministry, said that the government believes the curriculum does not match the "ideology and philosophy" of the local population. He said the textbooks, used in grades 7 through 9, did not sufficiently address Palestinian suffering and did not acknowledge their right to battle Israel. "There is a tremendous focus on the peaceful resistance as the only tool to achieve freedom and independence," he said.

Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks, says that armed resistance is a key component of its struggle against Israel.

The group also objected to the books’ inclusion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - a document approved by the UN General Assembly in 1948 that recognizes the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family. Hamas believes that certain parts of the declaration violate Islamic law, including the right of people of different faiths to marry and the right to change one’s religion.

Al-Minawi said government officials had met with UNRWA officials and offered to form a joint committee to revise the book. Adnan Abu Hassna, a local UNRWA spokesman, confirmed that the curriculum had been suspended while the sides work out their differences.

The spat is just the latest in a line of disagreements between Hamas and UNRWA. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, assists Palestinian refugees and their descendants throughout the region. In Gaza, the agency runs some 245 schools serving more than 232,000 students plus dozens of medical clinics and it distributes food to many of the territory’s 1.7 million residents.


But Hamas has frequently squabbled with UNRWA in a rivalry for the hearts and minds of Gaza’s people. Hamas has pressed the UN not to organize mixed folkloric dancing for boys and girls; to keep Holocaust education out of its curriculum and it has used harsh rhetoric against previous senior UN officials. Last year, UNRWA cancelled its annual Gaza marathon after Hamas banned women from participating. 

UK parliament launches inquiry into funding for UNRWA.

AND ABOUT TIME  TOO!!! When is the world going to wake up?

By YUVAL PAIS, THE POST

The British parliament has formed a committee of inquiry to probe the flow of funds used by the international refugee agency UNRWA to support the Palestinians, according to an exclusive report first revealed on Saturday by The Jerusalem Post's Hebrew-language sister publication, The Post.

According to the report, the British government contributes 90 million pounds annually in aid to the Palestinians. A third of that sum is earmarked for UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.

The parliamentary committee was formed in response to heavy lobbying by pro-Israel organizations and with the encouragement of former Israeli Labor MK Einat Wilf. The committee is due to submit its recommendations to parliament soon.

"UNRWA is perpetuating the notion that the descendants of refugees are themselves refugees, and it is based on this principle that the Palestinians are demanding the right of return, something that will not happen in any future agreement," Wilf said.

"The main point is that UNRWA is entirely supported by Western countries whose official policy is to aim for a two-state solution," Wilf said. "This is completely in contradiction to the idea of a right of return for 5 million refugees and their descendants to Israel."

Dozens of Palestinian youths blocked several main roads and torched tires in the West Bank city of Ramallah last week demonstrating against a month-long strike by UNRWA, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

The protest against a lack of public services normally provided by the agency came as the Palestinian economy falters and while aid agencies struggle to cope with deepening refugee crises related to the civil war in Syria.

On Thursday, scores of Palestinian youths blocked a main road outside the Jalazoun refugee camp north of Ramallah, as well as roads linking other camps inside the city, to vent their anger over the repercussions of the UNWRA strike.

.

How Many Refugees?

Elliott Abrams  June 20, 2012


http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2012/06/20/how-many-refugees/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eabrams+%28Elliott+Abrams%3A+Pressure+Points%29

Today the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (or PCBS) commemorated World Refugee Day by releasing new statistics on Palestinian refugees. Therein lies a tale.

The PCBS reported that there are now 5.1 million Palestinian refugees. Here is what it said about their age:

The Palestinian Refugees are characterized as young population where 41.7% of them are under the age of 15 years for Palestinian refugees in Palestinian territory, 35.9% of Palestinian refugees in Jordan in 2007, and 33.1% for Palestinian refugees in Syria in 2009, while 30.4% for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 2010.

This means, for example, that more than a third of Palestinian “refugees” in Jordan were born after 1997. That is either thirty years (if after the 1967 war) or almost fifty years (if they fled when Israel was established in 1948) after their parents or more likely grandparents arrived in Jordan. Those in Jordan have full Jordanian citizenship and vote in Jordan, which means this: a young Jordanian of Palestinian origin, whose family has lived in Jordan for thirty years and who has himself or herself always lived in Jordan, is still considered a “refugee.”

This is bizarre, and the new statistics are a reminder of the unique definition applied to Palestinian “refugees.” For every other category of refugees in the world, the 1951 UN Convention on the status of refugees clearly applies to the refugee only and not subsequent generations. This is the definition used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees today. Only in the Palestinian case does a separate organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency, count not only those who actually left their homes but those in succeeding generations, presumably forever, and regardless of whether those progeny were born and are settled elsewhere with full citizenship.






So a young American boy of, say, ten years of age born in Chicago to American parents, but whose grandparents were Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, is counted by UNRWA as a “Palestinian refugee.”






It is not surprising that the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. Senate on May 31 adopted an amendment defining Palestinian “refugees” the way all other refugees are defined, and rejecting the definition that produces the number 5.1 million today and who knows how many more millions as the years roll by. What’s surprising is that this effort, led by Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois–who would represent the young boy in my illustration, and his parents–was widely held to be controversial. It is common sense.