Although the UN Refugee Agency and UNRWA are both UN agencies, the annual UNHCR report seems most reluctant to include the fake “Palestine” refugees in its statistics.
For the main statistics, it includes them as a separate category:
The report is sprinkled with footnotes excluding the 5.6 million UNRWA “refugees.”
UNHCR could easily work with UNRWA to create a combined report, but the UNHCR knows that UNRWA’s definitions of refugee are a joke that would cheapen the plight of real refugees if they were included. For example:
Even UNRWA admits that there aren’t anything close to 476,000 Palestinians in Lebanon – the number is closer to one third of that amount, and their registration system is a joke. And the vast majority of Palestinians in Jordan are citizens – people UNHCR would remove from the rolls of refugees and count as a success story. (The same applies to “refugees” who live in the West Bank and Gaza, who live in the areas of British Mandate Palestine.)
The most damning part of the report to UNRWA doesn’t mention UNRWA:
UNHCR tries to resettle refugees. UNRWA doesn’t. UNHCR tries to reduce the number of refugees, UNRWA tries to increase them. UNHCR has rigid requirements for people to remain classified as refugees, UNRWA includes hundreds of thousands whose ancestors weren’t ever refugees to begin with, let alone their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. UNHCR refugees can apply for asylum in most countries as refugees, UNRWA “refugees” cannot – because they aren’t refugees, and everyone knows it.
UNHCR takes refugees seriously, UNRWA uses them as a means to stay in business.
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