I received a fundraising email from UNRWA-USA where they give a reason why UNRWA must exist:
UNRWA was created nearly 70 years ago by the United Nations at the will of the international community to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees until a just and durable solution to their plight was achieved.
If we look at UN General Assembly resolution 302 that created UNRWA – on the UNRWA webpage – here is the entire part of the resolution describing the creation and purpose of the agency:
7. [The General Assembly] Establishes the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East:
(a) To carry out in collaboration with local governments the direct relief and works programmes as recommended by the Economic Survey Mission;
(b) To consult with the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available.
Nowhere does it say that UNRWA must exist until a permanent solution is found to peace in the Middle East. On the contrary – UNRWA was always meant to be a temporary agency, to work with all the countries in the Middle East (later reduced to Gaza/Egypt, Jordan/West Bank, Syria and Lebanon) to provide works projects and temporary aid with the goal of integrating the Palestinian Arabs into the existing countries of the region. The expected lifetime for UNRWA was meant to be only a year or two, because the resolution didn’t expect to continue funding UNRWA forever – the refugees from the 1948 war were expected to be integrated into the countries they fled to as all refugees had throughout history and UNRWA’s job was to assist them.
The original mandate of UNRWA has been trampled upon by the Arab world and self-declared Palestinian “leaders” who insist that Palestinians must remain stateless and “refugees” until “return.”
The UNRWA of the early 1950s was conscientious and actually tried to do its job. It tried to find permanent solutions to the refugee issue. It tried to create works programs so the Palestinian Arabs could be integrated into the economic life of the Arab world. It tried to reduce the rolls of those it provided assistance to, eliminating tens of thousands who pretended to be refugees in order to get free food and shelter. All of these efforts were fought against and ultimately thwarted by a cynical Arab world and the so-called Palestinian leaders themselves, against the wishes of the majority of actual Palestinian refugees who just wanted to have a home in an Arab country to raise their families with honor.
The UNRWA of today is a joke that justifies its existence on the back of millions who are now permanently considered “refugees” by its bizarre administrative definition that it now claims (falsely) is international law.
The idea that UNRWA was always meant to exist until there is a diplomatic and “just” solution is just another lie its spokespeople tell a gullible world. The only reason that Palestinians are uniquely considered refugees forever – not Syrians, not Iraqis, but only Palestinians – is because of the Arab desire to destroy the Jewish state.
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