Category: Israel and refugees

Arab “refugees”: Problem is unresolved for a reason

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve written on this topic many times, but a friend reminded me recently that repetition is critically important and I think it’s especially so with a blog where each day we have new readers from all over the world.

To me the most galling and underreported issue regarding so-called Palestinian refugees is the FACT that their Muslim brethren have no interest (for 60 years!) in resettling the displaced Arabs.   Actually no one has any interest.  Have you ever heard the refugee lobbying groups like Refugees International make a big pitch to resettle the Arabs living now in “camps” in Gaza to the West or to Arab countries.  NO!   They only want them to “return” to Israel!    Why no resettlement?  Because they don’t want to buck the Arab world —-Muslims need to keep the so-called Palestinians suffering.

Also, that is why the recent rumor that Obama was using $20 million to resettle Gazans to the US is so obviously false.   As a matter of fact, if Obama were to begin calling for Palestinian resettlement to the West or to Arab countries all hell would break loose from the Arab world toward Obama.   [Excepting the Iraqi Palestinians—groups are lobbying for their resettlement but that is another story!]

Here is a blog I came across this morning with a long footnoted history of the Arab refugee problem.  I’m posting it because it’s so thorough and I don’t want to lose it for future reference.    The blog called ‘Writing the Wrongs’ posted this yesterday:

Only a George Orwell or a Franz Kafka could have done justice to the story of the Arab refugee problem.

[….]

The perpetuation of the Arab refugee problem by the Arab states has the same central purpose as its creation: to bring about the destruction of the State of Israel. No Arab leader has ever tried to hide or obscure this aim. All have repeatedly made it clear that their refusal to absorb refugees into their large, empty, and population-hungry territories stems from their insistence on the right of the refugees “to return to their home,” a “right” held to be identical with the right of the Arab people to Palestine. A natural corollary of this right is the destruction of Israel as a state. The perpetuation of the “refugee problem” is part of the same policy that refuses to concede Israel’s very right to exist.

“Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem not based on assuring the refugees’ right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason,” stated a resolution of the Refugee Conference held at Homs, Syria, in 1957. “If Arabs return to Israel — Israel will cease to exist,” Gamal Abdel Nasser himself said in an interview in Zibicher Woche, September 1, 1961.

The Arab states hoped to achieve the right to introduce into Israel an army (labelled refugees) to blow it up from within as they have failed to destroy it from without.

Gosh, I wonder if they annihilated Israel, where would all the desperate African Muslims go?  Destroying the goose that lays the golden egg—-kind of insane, don’t you think?

Totally digressing!  LOL! Did you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?   It might well have been titled “Killing the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs.”

Somalis want out of Muslim Egypt….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and into that “haven of hope” —the Jewish State of Israel!   From The Media Line:

[Cairo, Egypt] Ali Ahmed is struggling with life in Egypt. The Somali refugee, who was in jail for nine months, has no job. He recently got as far as the Sinai Peninsula before turning back to Cairo after plans to cross into Israel fizzled out following a run-in with police.

For many African refugees and migrants like Ali, life in Egypt is becoming unbearable, and illegal attempts to cross borders are becoming an almost daily occurrence.

Since 2006, some 13,000 Africans have entered Israel, and since June 2007, more than 30 Africans have been gunned down by border police, highlighting the ongoing struggle between rights groups and the Egyptian and Israeli governments.

Ahmed tells The Media Line at a local Somali refugee center in Cairo that he wants to get out of Egypt. He would rather “face death than continue living in a country” where he is treated as a “second-class person.”

What!  How can that be?   Where is the famous Muslim charity?  Why is a Muslim country treating its fellow Muslims as “second-class persons?”

It is Israel that is mecca for these Somali Muslims.

Africans in Cairo boast of friends who have succeeded in running the border gauntlet into Israel. Ahmed admits that despite abandoning his own plans to cross into Israel, he knows that success in the Jewish state can be a reality.

“I have a number of friends who have told me of the joy they are having in Israel, where they work and have a life again,” Ahmed continued.

Egypt said, “jump!” and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, “how high?”

The UNHCR has officially stopped granting refugee status following a request from the Egyptian government, which has made the living situation extremely difficult for the Africans. Without U.N. refugee status, the likelihood of gaining asylum in a third nation is almost nil for thousands of refugees.

Of course there is the obligatory whack at Israel which I won’t even discuss (Judy addressed the issue here in January).

It is Israel African refugees seek—they aren’t trying to break into Muslim countries except as jumping off points to “havens” only “Western culture” provides.

Israel is seen as a place where lives can be recreated. Rumors of work opportunities over the past few years have created an atmosphere within the refugee community that sees the Jewish state as the haven of hope for a new life.

No hope for Palestinian “refugees” as long as UNRWA is in charge

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Dissolve the UNRWA is the title of an article on FrontPage Magazine today by Joseph Puder.  UNRWA stands for United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and its sole responsibility is the Palestinian “refugees.” There are many reasons to put “refugees” in quotation marks; one is that alone among all agencies, UNRWA counts as refugees all descendants of those who were originally defined as refugees after the founding of Israel. That is why from the original 5-700,000 Palestinian Arab refugees there are now  many millions.

We’ve posted on UNRWA and the Palestinians many times. The agency is a hotbed of terrorism, with the great majority of its employees members of Hamas, and diligently funneling much of the aid money it receives directly to Hamas, which uses it to buy weapons. Instead of doing what refugee agencies are supposed to do — resettle refugees — it is devoted to perpetuating the refugee status, and the misery, of the Palestinians under its care, as a way to put pressure on Israel through the media, who almost always report only on the pathetic conditions of the “refugees” without giving any context or the reasons that they are in that condition.

Puder’s article discusses the dramaic contrast between the agency in charge of the post-WWII refugees and UNRWA:

Prior to the creation of UNRWA, the allies organized the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in 1943.  True to its mission, UNRRA provided relief as quickly as possible and ably rehabilitated millions of World War II refugees; then having accomplished their goals, they were disbanded.

….UNRRA was created in November 1943, at a White House conference attended by 44 nations.  Its mission was to provide economic assistance to European nations after WWII, and to repatriate and assist refugees who had come under allied control.  The U.S. government funded almost half of the UNRRA budget.  UNRRA assisted in the repatriation of millions of refugees in 1945, and managed hundreds of Displaced Persons camps in Germany, Italy, and Austria.  UNRRA provided health and welfare assistance to the DP’s as well as vocational training.    

Voluntary Jewish welfare agencies such as the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation through Training), and HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) which operated in the DP camps had as its aim normalizing the lives of the refugees and assisting them in finding permanent homes throughout the world, especially Israel, and the U.S.    

By 1947, UNRRA completed its mission as millions of Holocaust survivors and non-Jewish slave laborers from throughout Europe, who were pressed into service by the Nazi military machine, were settled.   

Then, its mission accomplished, it disbanded. I would add that many more people were resettled after WWII in population exchanges among European countries. They were not considered refugees because their destination countries were not in question.

We’ve made similar recommendations to Puder’s. Here’s what he concludes:

The U.S. and western governments have allowed UNRWA to continue perpetuating a problem that should have been resolved decades ago and have been remiss in not demanding from the Palestinian Authority (a recipient of U.S. and E.U aid) their assistance in demolishing the refugee camps and providing their people with permanent housing, jobs and health care.  

…. The time has come to dissolve UNRWA and unburden the U.S. taxpayers of this failed U.N. agency.  The UNHCR, a less politicized and far more effective organization should take over some of UNRWA’s functions, while other functions should be assigned to the Palestinian Authority (PA).  It is also high time that the U.S. and its Western allies stop coddling the PA by providing it with millions in aid without accountability (much of the aid is funneled into accounts that are used to pay terrorist gangs) and the responsibility to take care of their own unfortunate people.     

We’ve also mentioned the idea of pressuring the neighboring Arab states to take in the Palestinians, as Israel took in close to a million Jewish refugees forced out of Arab countries at Israel’s founding. But strangely, other countries don’t want the Palestinians. In fact, in 1971 Jordan kicked out thousands of Palestinians and killed thousands more. So it’s up to the UN to stop this absurd and dangerous state of affairs. I’m not holding my breath. Meanwhile, if we had a government with any sense, we would stop our aid to UNRWA. But I’m not holding my breath on that either.

Gaza is teeming with aid money, much going to Hamas

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve reported a number of times on the connection between UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian “refugees,” and Hamas, the terrorist organization whose goal is to wipe out Israel. Today FrontPage Magazine has an article, Terror and the UNRWA, by Anav Silverman, that summarizes the vast amounts of aid money flowing into Gaza and the problems with it. 

In recent years, billions of dollars have poured into Gaza from hundreds of countries and international organizations. How much of that money has actually reached Palestinian civilians, effectively improving their quality of life and economy, has yet to be completely determined thanks to vague audits and on-line information.

Only recently, with a relatively silent international press, have there been questions from top political leaders, primarily from US, about the way in which the donor money will be transferred into Gaza.

Here’s a small excerpt; there’s lots more if you want details.

Jonathan Halevi, a former IDF intelligence officer who specializes in Palestinian terrorist organizations, recently told Fox News that he estimates that 60 percent of homicide bombers are educated in UNRWA schools. Past UNRWA textbooks blatantly deny the Jewish connection to Israel and are filled with anti-Semitic remarks.

In any case, the United States remains UNRWA’s largest sponsor, providing the organization with over 75% of its initial budget according to UNRWA‘s former senior legal advisor, James Lindsay. Lindsay, who served as an attorney for the US Justice Department for two decades asserts in his publication for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy which came out on January 29 that UNRWA is providing services to those who are actually not in need of them.

The bottom line:

As the Gaza Strip soon teems with money, world donors and leaders must ask the following question: Who will monitor the transfer of these funds and account that they are indeed effectively used for Gaza reconstruction and not for restoring the Hamas terrorist infrastructure?

There’s no way our government can effectively monitor the funds. We need to stop pouring money into UNRWA unless and until they disassociate themselves from Hamas. And that’s not going to happen.

Senator Kyl bases amendment on misinterpretation about Palestinian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m late posting this, but better late than never. Senator Jon Kyl introduced an amendment to the budget bill:

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be available to resettle Palestinians from Gaza into the United States.” 

Talking Points Memo (TPM) reports that Kyl realized the threat of resettling Palestinians from Gaza here might not be real and quotes him as saying: 

There has been a suggestion that perhaps [refugee resettlement of Palestinians] might be permitted, and we simply want to make it clear that will not be permitted with any funds in this bill.

Talking Points Memo and other sites call it “an internet rumor making the rounds on the right.” A number of leftist blogs have had great fun pointing out Kyl’s error, calling it “anti-Palestinian bigotry,” “clearly discriminatory,” and the like.  The New York Times blog said:

Internet headlines and blogs had twisted the meaning of the memorandum, suggesting that Mr. Obama was financing potential terrorist migration paths.

Our posts pointing out the misinterpretation are here, here, and here.  I repeat what I said in the first of those posts a month ago:  

It is understandable that the directive would be interpreted as it was. We have learned that we cannot trust anything President Obama says or does. And he has been positively obsequious toward the Muslim world since he took office — no, since well before he took office.

And I add now that the reason the rumor became so widespread is that every day it becomes more obvious that this is something Obama wouldn’t hesitate to do if it served his purposes. So we don’t fault Senator Kyl; his staff just should have checked the facts better. Kyl is a terrific fighter for freedom, who hosted Geert Wilders and a showing of Fitna on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago. His other amendments to the bill are these, TPM reports:

The second of Kyl’s three amendments is arguably redundant: it would prevent any of the $900 million that Secretary of State Clinton has pledged for Gaza reconstruction from going to entities controlled by Hamas … a rule that Clinton has already set. [We’ll see how effective Clinton’s rule is. Not at all, since UNRWA is controlled by Hamas and that’s where a lot of the money is going.–JW]

Kyl’s third amendment would require the State Department to report on whether American aid to Egypt could be used to improve the counter-smuggling effort along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Senator Kyl withdrew his amendment about the refugees and his other two amendments were defeated.

(Sorry about the typefaces; sometimes WordPress translates copied text into the normal typeface and sometimes it doesn’t, and I don’t know how to change that.)