PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS TO CUT OFF funding to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Leftist Jews (J Street), including politicians such as California’s Diane Feinstein, mightily object, claiming
* It will undermine Abu Mazen’s authority,
* It will cause the PA to reject any peace initiatives,
* It will be bad for Israel,
* It will be bad for the region
Right wing, primarily observant Jews, favor the move, countering
* Abu Mazen has lost the respect of most “Palestinians,”
* The PA has for decades rejected all peace proposals,
* Non-”refugees” already attack Israelis – what’s new?
* “Palestinians” already are unwelcome in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria and likely will be expelled if the camps are closed.
What it might mean it that
* The UN funded camps will be forced to close, forcing the “campers” to integrate into ”Palestinian” societies,
* UN funded schools will be closed, removing at least one source of anti-Israel indoctrination.
On the negative side, closing the camps will put an additional burden on the PA’s budget; the payments to killers will continue but the PA residents, other than the political leadership, will suffer shortages.
The “refugees” can’t go to nearby states (Jordan, Syria, Egypt) because they are not welcome based on the states’ past experience with “Palestinians.”1 While there are UN camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon (as well as the PA and Gaza), the “Palestinians” are considered unwelcome guests by those states. Some agency – UN? “Palestinian?” – will need to fund repatriation of the “Palestinians” in camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon to the PA territory.
Translation: Abu Mazen & Company will have to absorb the grandchildren of the Muslims who left their homes “at the urging of Arab leaders who promised that all who left would return after a quick Arab victory.”2 Because the “Palestinian” leadership and its Arab allies – a dwindling number – repeatedly attacked Israel and lost territory, the land available to absorb the off-spring of the Arabs who ran away has shrunk.
Once U.S. funding of the UN camps ends, unless the Euro-libs pick up the funding, the camp residents will have to find employment. Where?
Israel employs many “Palestinians,” and there were factories near the border (e.g. SodaStream) that the BDSers drove away, and there are initiatives to educate Arabs to work in technology fields and to develop technology businesses in “Palestine” the infrastructure to employ former camp residents simply is not there. This could be one reason Feinstein et al are concerned that closing the camps will put more “Palestinians” on the streets and into the hands of terrorist organizations working for Abu Mazen & Friends. Pity the UN failed to provide job training for in-demand fields such as technology; but then, the UN failed in many things.3
Israel, smaller in 1948 than it is today, managed to absorb refugees from Muslim-dominated countries in numbers at least equaling the number of Arabs who ran from Israel to accommodate the Arab invaders. (Arabs who stayed in Israel proved to be better off than their cousins in the camps. They have citizenship, they have freedom of movement, they sit on the Supreme Court and the knesset, and they live in safety. They are exempt from military service, but are requested – albeit not forced – to perform national service in Arab communities. Druze do serve in the Israeli military with distinction and have risen to very senior officer ranks.4)
The camps have proven to be a breeding ground for terrorists. People who otherwise have no future, attainable goals.
Closing the UNRWA camps – if it comes to that – could actually benefit the residents by allowing, or forcing, them to integrate into some Muslim community, even if it means (for those in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) returning to Abu Mazen’s control.
Unless Abu Mazen and the PA can absorb these people, can provide housing to at least the level of the camps, unless Abu Mazen and the PA can provide jobs, and unless Abu Mazen can assure all PA residents that there will be no shortages, the Israeli government will have to re-enforce border patrol personnel at the PA borders and at Hamas’ border. (Egypt likely also will have to increase it’s border patrols.)
UNRWA is unique because of its responsibility and commitment to just one group of refugees, whereas all other refugee populations around the world fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).5 On UNRWA education: In 2013, video footage entitled "Camp Jihad" showed UNRWA summer camps inciting hostility to Israel among young Palestinians. “We teach the culture of the Nakba to campers,” emphasized Nasrin Bisharat, an UNRWA social worker at the Balata camp, in the video. “We try, on days like Nakba Day, to commemorate the Nakba in the school.”5
There is supposition that a portion of the fund donated to the PA goes no farther than the pockets of the PA leadership. If the camps are defunded and eventually closed, perhaps some of the funds now flowing into personal pockets might be used to absorb the refugees from the UNRWA camps.
Perhaps.
Sources
1. http://tinyurl.com/yb5evcfj
2. http://tinyurl.com/ycn6ano9
3. http://tinyurl.com/y83t3vt4
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghassan_Alian
5. http://tinyurl.com/y7jugu9s
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