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UNRWA: An Obstacle to Peace?
(Fathom) Einat Wilf - One of the greatest obstacles to peace, and certainly the least acknowledged, is the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem and the inflation of its scale by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). For Palestinians, uniquely, refugeeness is an hereditary trait. Whereas the actual number of Arabs who could still claim to be refugees as a result of the Arab-Israeli war of 1947-1949 is today no more than several tens of thousands, the number of those registered as refugees is reaching 5 million. If the descendants of the Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war were treated like all other refugees, including the Jewish ones, they would not quality for refugee status because almost all of them (upward of 80%) are either citizens of a third country, such as Jordan, or they live in the places where they were born and expect to have a future such as Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians born in the West Bank and Gaza are not fleeing war and are not seeking refuge. They are considered citizens of Palestine by the Palestinian Authority itself. No other people in the world are registered as refugees while being citizens of another country or territory. When some EU countries already recognize Palestine as a state, it makes no sense to argue that people who were born and are living in Palestine are refugees from Palestine. The writer, a former member of the Israeli Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, is a Senior Fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute.