- The “United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East” (UNRWA) was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1949 as a distinctly temporary entity to assist in reintegration, repatriation, or resettlement, with a view to furthering peace.
- But according to UNRWA’s mandate, refugee status extends to cover all future generations of Palestinians, and specifically “descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948.” Rather than narrowing the problem, this definition has extended it, with refugee status now applying into the fourth generation of Palestinians, exploding the number of registered refugees from an estimated 700,000 back in 1949 (per UNRWA’s claims) to 5,000,000.1
- This UNRWA mandate is far beyond the accepted international definitions and criteria for refugees that are the basis for the much more successful model for international refugee relief – the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), formed in 1950. The UNHCR seeks to resettle refugees, not perpetuate their camp existence.
- The UNHRC operates on the basis of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which does not say a word about passing refugee status to descendants. Refugee status, according to the convention, is not permanent.
- Refugees who become naturalized in their host countries, according to the convention, lose their refugee status. In contrast, in the UNRWA system, a Palestinian refugee who was born in Zurich and has a Swiss passport is still defined as a refugee.
- Any attempt to reach a final Israeli-Palestinian peace must require a complete suspension of UNRWA funding and financing with a view to dissolving the agency and dismantling the refugee camps. New housing should replace them. Funding should be transformed into direct assistance to the appropriate agencies to carry out this task. If the goal of a future agreement is to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all, then UNRWA’s current configuration makes a final peace impossible to achieve.
(full article online)
UNRWA Condemns the Palestinians to Refugee Status in Perpetuity
You're being misinformed.
Gosh, another one of your "I want a One State Solution" from an Arab/Muslim/Palestinian who wants to see Israel gone and all become the "State of Palestine"
Good one Tin man !!!
And a single Apartheid state, as now with Jews in control of a population of non-Jews as large as its own, or a single democratic secular with equality for all the inhabitants are the only two options left.