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Source: https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/266610/time-to-rethink-our-attitudes-to-middle-east-refugees
Time to Rethink Our Attitudes toward Middle East Refugees
(Tablet) Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander Joffe - There are currently 655,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, another 1.1 million in Lebanon and 3.5 million in Turkey. In addition, there are over 6 million internally displaced persons. This does not begin to count other Middle Eastern refugees, in Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere. UNRWA, a permanent welfare organization dedicated to Palestinian refugees, has spent tens of billions since its creation in 1950. Wages, salaries and employee benefits for UNRWA's 30,000 employees comprise over $700 million in annual expenditures. UNRWA is a vast internationally funded jobs program. There are far more pressing crises in the world than the Palestinian issue and it is an obstacle to providing for real refugees. It is time for the international community to realize, at long last, that Palestinians are not refugees; they are residents and citizens of various countries. Countries like Lebanon, which have discriminated against Palestinians in housing and employment, must accept reality and integrate the populations they have hosted for decades. For decades, Western states were convinced they were buying regional stability with massive payoffs to Palestinians and disproportionate political attention to their cause. But the immensity of contemporary refugee crises, the strident demands of Palestinians to remain at the front of the welfare line, and the collapse of the old Arab state system have created a new mindset in the Arab world. The stark disparity of real needs versus Palestinian claims (and threats) should disabuse the West about the putative centrality of the cause. UNRWA and the PA are perpetuating an ideology that Palestinians are entitled to permanent international support pending a magical return to a mythical status quo that predates the creation of Israel. Asaf Romirowsky is Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. Alexander Joffe is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow of the Middle East Forum.