How Many Real Palestine Refugees?

A "refugee from Palestine" is someone who could prove he/she was in the territory of the Palestine Mandate from two years prior to the 1948 war:

Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” 

Now, consider this:

Jerusalem (Feb. 4, 1946)
There are at present more than 10,000 Arabs in Palestine who entered the country illegally, an official Government estimate revealed today. Most of these illegal immigrants are concentrated in the Haifa district, the Government said.

If there were 10,000 illegal Arab residents in 1946, I presume there were more by the end of 1947 and that would mean that in addition to the ridiculously short time period, much shorter than that most countries demand as a requirement for citizenship, the numbers of refugees today is inflated.

^

When An American Jewish Leader Undermined Official Israel

Jacob Blaustein 

was an industrialist who was drawn into the complex world of diplomatic service. He participated in negotiations on behalf of two United States presidents, peacekeeping missions, and service at the birth of the nation of Israel. As President of the American Jewish Committee, he worked to protect the civil and religious rights of Jews and other minorities and to promote intergroup tolerance. Jacob Blaustein was a lifelong advocate for human rights and helped to promote the idea of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, a position that was established more than twenty years after his death in 1970.

And more relevant to the material below:

In 1950 AJC President Jacob Blaustein reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stating that the political allegiance of American Jews was solely to their country of residence. By the Six-Day War of 1967 AJC had become a passionate defender of the Jewish state, shedding old inhibitions to espouse the centrality of Jewish peoplehood...Before the Six-Day War in 1967, AJC was officially "non-Zionist". It had long been ambivalent about Zionism as possibly opening up Jews to the charge of dual loyalty, but it supported the creation of Israel in 1947-48, after the United States backed the partition of Palestine. It was the first American Jewish organization to open a permanent office in Israel.

According to this source, quite anti-Zionist, Blaustein made a speech in February 1948 that illustrated

the "Zionizing" of the otherwise integrated American Jewish community, and the development of inordinate American support for the State of Israel...[the] watershed February 1948 speech by chairman Jacob Blaustein — shows that the American Jewish Committee, then the nation's most influential American Jewish organization, had reluctantly supported partition of Palestine in an effort to stop escalating Jewish nationalist terrorism.  In fateful moments in America's relations with Palestine, after David Ben Gurion declared the Jewish nationalist state, the AJC kept silent on the betrayal of its ideal of nonsectarian government for all Palestinians.  This decision has reverberated in the American Jewish community since — hostage to Israeli state violence and left helpless to offer an alternative to Jewish domination of Palestine.

In April 1950, he had made another speech which clarifies his new outlook:

...as Jews, we are concerned lest our brethren, having once found a haven in Israel, be slaughtered in another war. In addition, any military defeat of Israel would be serious not only for Israel and the Israelis, but for Jews everywhere.  

However, as he explained there, he and the AJCom were not quite pro-Zionism at that time:

...while the American Jewish Committee and the [American] Council [for Judaism] technically have a common point of view concerning world Jewish nationalism and the disastrous consequences that would result if that concept should be successfully indoctrinated among Jews in America and elsewhere, a vast difference of opinion exists as to what, for example, constitutes a 'nationalistic' statement. To us it appears that the Council's definition is so broad as to be but a rationalization of an extreme and sweeping anti-Israel position. Further, it seems we are also apart on what the American scene is like.  We frankly do not understand what the Council hopes to gain by its particular kind of publicity in the general press. They can hardly expect to influence the statements and actions of Zionists and the Israeli by such attacks. Nor can it be believed that the favor of our fellowAmericans who are not Jews will be so won. On the contrary, the latter may unfortunately be tempted to conclude: a plague on all the Jewish houses.

Blaustein held to the view that

there can be no interference by the Government of Israel in the internal affairs of American Jewry

With that background and those credentials in place, we now reread a telegram that was sent from the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State on June 6, 1964 on the subject of the Arab refugees.

At dinner last night, [US Ambassador to the United Nationas Adlai] Stevenson discussed refugee question with PM [Levy] Eshkol of Israel. After emphasizing seriousness of problem for both Israel and US in Near East and in UN, Stevenson asked what plans Israel has for dealing with problem. Eshkol replied that he fully appreciated difficulties question presented for us but that Israel had no new suggestions to advance. After expressing firm opposition to Johnson proposal he said that adding 100,000 Arabs to the 250,000 now in Israel, and assuming the present rate of Jewish immigration continued at about 30 to 35,000 per annum, the higher birth rate of Arabs would “create a Cyprus situation” within 25 years. On this assumption he estimated Arab population would become one quarter of total. Arabs will force refugees back into Palestine by various devices and he was not sure that any open-end formula could even restrict repatriation of 100,000.

While extremely cordial and appreciative of US and UN problem, his position appeared inflexible and he advanced sundry arguments as to why any increase in Arab population was hazardous for Israel, including fact that Arabs do not serve in army. Eshkol referred repeatedly to integration of many of refugees into Arab countries and left no alternative but absorption of balance by Arabs.

After Eshkol leaves, someone else enters the room:

Following his departure, Jacob Blaustein asked Stevenson if he had discussed refugee problem, adding that if formula could be devised which would limit Arab repatriation to 100,000, he felt confident GOI [Government of Israel] could be persuaded to accept it in final settlement of problem. Stevenson concluded that Eshkol's official position at least no more tractable than Ben Gurion's.

Reread this:

he felt confident GOI could be persuaded to accept it in final settlement of problem

Blaustein and the AJCom had ideological and principled opposition to a 'dual loyalty' situation and refused for decades to be identified as Zionists and waged a battle to assure Israel's non-inteference in the life of American Jewry, but when Israel put forward a policy position, an intransigent one even, Blaustein felt that he was worthy enough to suggest that Israel could be "persuaded" to change its mind.

Reflect on that.

^ 

100,000 - 200,000 Errors

Yikes.

Page 331.

^

The "Palestinian Revolution" Began In 1965

In 1965 - before the 1967 conflict which resulted in the "occupation" and before "settlements" were constructed.

So says Abbas (thanks IMRA):-

Final Status Agreement Guarantees Our Rights

...Marking the 49th anniversary of the Palestinian Revolution, President Mahmoud Abbas stressed his commitment towards restoring the Palestinian rights and the termination of settlement building by diplomatic means.

...Abbas asserted that the negotiations with Israel are part of our people’s struggle aimed at reaching a final peace agreement. He also confirmed his objection to an interim or transitional state solution that could prolong the Israeli occupation.

“We negotiate with Israel to reach a solution that leads to a Palestinian state within the 1967 occupied territory, with Jerusalem as a capital. We negotiate to reach a fair solution to the refugees’ issue based on the UN Resolution 194 as stated in the Arab Peace Initiative”, said Abbas.

...Abbas made reference to the 1965 Revolution by saying it was a success; its ideas of adhering to the national rights and aspirations have been successful from one generation to another.

By the way, that reference to the refugees and the Peace Initiative?

As even moderate Itamar Rabinovitch has noted:

Arab Peace Initiative – clarifications needed

The main problem raised by the text is its open-ended approach to the refugee issue.

^

Who Cares What You Think, Roger Cohen?

Roger Cohen is at it, again.

In the NYTimes today, he pomposes about "My Jewish State":

...Then there is the rebounding Israel-is-a-Jewish-state bugbear: Netanyahu wants Palestinians to recognize his nation as such. He has recently called it “the real key to peace.” His argument is that this is the touchstone by which to judge whether Palestinians will accept “the Jewish state in any border” — whether, in other words, the Palestinian leadership would accept territorial compromise or is still set on reversal of 1948 and mass return to Haifa.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, says no; this “nyet” will endure. For Palestinians, such a form of recognition would amount to explicit acquiescence to second-class citizenship for the 1.6 million Arabs in Israel; undermine the rights of millions of Palestinian refugees;...

...This issue is a waste of time, a complicating diversion when none is needed....If Israel looks like a Jewish state and acts like a Jewish state, that is good enough for me — as long as it gets out of the corrosive business of occupation. Zionism, the one I identify with, forged a Jewish homeland in the name of restored Jewish pride in a democratic state of laws, not in the name of finicky insistence on a certain form of recognition, nor in the name of messianic religious Greater Israel nationalism.

Let's take one point of his:

 undermine the rights of millions of Palestinian refugees

and let's see what Arabs really think about it.

Here's President Hafez Asad back in May 1977 at the White House:

And that position has not changed for otherwise, why not accept Israel as a Jewish state?

Unless, of course, after a peace treaty is signed, it is not all that final and the 'right of return' becomes the next issue.

Cohen, you even admit:

It’s also true that Palestinians leaders, with zero democratic accountability, and through facile incitement, are not preparing their people for territorial compromise at or close to the 1967 lines.

Cohen, for a Jew, you're a failure for Israel.

_______

P.S.   Here, on p. 382, on July 19, 1977, is how a real Jew addresses the question of refugees:

_______

P.P.S.


EOZ piles it on.


^

News - No Pal. Refugees in Israel

The not-so-good news, this workshop:

Palestine Refugees and International Law

Date: 12:00am, Saturday, March 10, 2012 - 12:00am, Sunday, March 11, 2012
Presenter/Convenor: Refugee Studies Centre
Location: QEH, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB

The workshop examines, within a human rights framework, the policies and practices of Middle Eastern states as they impinge upon Palestinian refugees. Through a mix of lectures, working group exercises and interactive sessions, participants engage actively and critically with the contemporary debates in international law and analyse the specific context of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza).

The workshop commences with the background of the Palestinian refugee crisis, with special attention to the socio- political historical context and legal status of Palestinian refugees in the region. This is followed by a careful examination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including its philosophical underpinnings and ensuing human rights instruments in international law. The key themes, which have taken centre stage in the debate on the Palestinian refugee crisis, are statelessness, right of return, repatriation, self-determination, restitution compensation and protection. These themes are critically examined along with current discussions about the respective roles of UNRWA, UNHCR and the UNCCP in the Palestinian refugee case.

Instructors
Professor Dawn Chatty is University Professor in Anthropology and Forced Migration and Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. She...has conducted extensive research among Palestinian and other forced migrants in the Middle East...[and] Dr Susan M. Akram is Clinical Professor at Boston University School of Law, teaching immigration law, comparative refugee law, and international human rights law...She is a past Fulbright Senior Scholar in Palestine, teaching at Al-Quds University/Palestine School of Law in East Jerusalem.

Want to attend?

Fee: £300. Maximum twenty-five places on the workshop.
For further information contact: Heidi El-Megrisi
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, United Kingdom
Tel +44 (0)1865 281728
Email: [email protected]

And the good news?

Seems there are no "Palestinian refugees" in Israel.

That's progress.

(k/t=IsraeliNurse)

^
^

Anglo-French Cooperation...on "Palestine"

.

^

Fudging History

Pay attention to this retelling of the flight of Arabs from their homes in 1947-1948:

What began slowly soon developed into a mass exodus, especially following the death in battle of the Palestinian leader Abdel-Qader Al-Husseini and the Deir Yassin Massacre. After the Jewish victories at Haifa and Jaffa in the last ten days of April, the pressure of war forced the Palestinians to relocate. At first they moved internally, to "safer" areas within exposed cities and in Arab-dominated areas of Palestine, as they sought to get out of harm's way. The relentless pressure of the Jewish militias (the Haganah, the Irgun, and others), together with the random but deliberately orchestrated bombardment of the largely civilian population, lay behind this initial exodus.

To restate, the initial flight of Arabs was caused by Jewish violence.

But,

a. the Arabs began the violence on November 30th.

b. "initial exodus" refers to what period? By mentioning Deir Yassin, April 9th, he creates a problem because up until then, the Jews were losing all over. The major battles had not yet started.

c. and if you continue reading there, you'll find this about Jaffa:

...there was a belief that the Jews were generally cowards. Thus the people of Jaffa, as well as the members of the National Committee, believed that if they made ready a bit, and if the British army did not interfere on the side of Jews, as it had done previously, then they were sure to emerge victorious.

and this:

During the first three weeks following the UN Partition Resolution people began to evacuate the frontline district, and by the end of December 1947 all these areas had become a no man's land.

And this:

At the beginning, those who left Jaffa were the affluent. They were ashamed of their desertion, and gave various excuses for leaving, such as that they were going to Cairo for a honeymoon (my family squatted in a flat of a newly-wed couple who never returned from their honeymoon); that they were having to go abroad for medical treatment or for some other personal emergency; and so on. We young ones used to view these people with disdain and talk about how typical their desertion was of the behaviour of the rich and well-to-do.

and this:

I arrived in Beirut on 4 May, I believed that we would be returning to Jaffa in a couple of weeks.

So, the basic Zionist claim, that the majority of Arabs who left actually did flee, thinking they were to return after a great Arab "victory", and those who felt forced were the result of their own iniated violence and expectations.

Oh, the writer of this is Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University, Evanston, and Professor of International Studies at Birzeit University.

^

Resettlement, Not Settlement

Kenneth Bandler, I have discovered, beat me to it. I had an idea but in researching, I found he had published an article in the Miami Herald: UNRWA: Time to start planning for resettlement last year in which he suggested

shouldn't UNRWA -- the United Nations Relief and Works Agency -- start planning to evolve from a refugee support agency to one devoted to resettlement?

As he noted,

UNRWA is the only international refugee agency dedicated to exclusively benefit one population group, the Palestinians. All other refugees worldwide are covered by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which not only provides sustenance but, importantly, also strives to resettle them, to ensure that their refugee status is not a permanent condition.

UNRWA's mandate, it would appear, does not call for resettlement.

A David Project paper points this out, although the date for the change is unclear in their document:

General Assembly resolutions funding UNRWA dropped resettlement and rehabilitation as goals and emphasized repatriation and compensation exclusively, using the term “inalienable right of return.”

A 1951 UN document notes:

At the present time UNRWA, in accordance with its terms of reference, is carrying out studies with a view to determining the cost of resettling the refugees

...The cost of resettling a peasant would be very different according to whether he were settled on state domain land in Jordan, in the Ghor, or on land to be reclaimed in the swampy area of the Gharb-orontes in Syria.

...When the time comes to pay compensation, it is to be hoped that a large number of the refugees will already have been resettled by UNRWA.

Elliot Green informs me that

"The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency...Founded in 1943, it became part of the United Nations in 1945, was especially active in 1945 and 1946, and largely shut down operations in 1947."

He found a booklet called "Britain and the United Nations" [1964 Brit Info Services], wherein appears this:

"The work done by UNRRA on behalf of refugees was taken over by the International Refugee Organization (IRO), which began operations in July 1947. By the time it was wound up in January 1952, IRO had helped over 1.6 million people, of whom 1,039,000 had been resettled and 73,000 returned to their homelands."

It should be known that the UNRWA's biggest donors are the USA (in 2009, its total contribution was around US$268 million), followed by the European Commission (US$232.7 million).

David Bedein has done, together with Arlene Kushner, great work on investigating UNRWA and promoting its reform and more. For example, consider this statement at the FAQ section of UNRWA's website:

Does UNRWA only provide services to Palestine refugees?

No. For example, the Agency also provides services to refugees and people displaced by the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967 and subsequent hostilities.

I would presume this is perhaps referring to Lebanese, Jordanian or Syrian nationals but since this is all bound up with the question of Palestine, the statement is mischievously nocuous.

Getting back to resettlement, the original decision of the UN General Assembly 194 (III) of December 1948, reads:

...11. ...Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;

There is more than one solution to the problem of Arab refugees.

Resettlement is for sure one of them.

^

Refugees Have No Citizen Right, Says PLO

Just so that it goes on record here.

Lesen this on Pal. refugees:

Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.

...Ambassador Abdullah...unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees...“How the issue of the right of return will be solved I don’t know, it’s too early [to say], but it is a sacred right that has to be dealt with and solved [with] the acceptance of all.” He says statehood “will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

Commentary from:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/09/palestinian-arab-refugees-wouldnt-be.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/09/we-dont-want-you-in-palestine-poster.html
http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2011/09/pa-palestinian-refugees-wont-be.html
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/21/palestine-citizenship-palestinians/
http://honestreporting.com/fright-of-return-3-reasons-why-the-palestinians-arent-likely-to-make-successful-transition-to-statehood/
http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/09/post_76.html
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/09/16/caroline-glick-the-palestinian-obsession/
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/257747_Palestine_is_not_for_Palestini
http://cifwatch.com/2011/09/16/what-the-guardian-wont-report-about-palestinian-independence-it-wouldnt-solve-the-refugee-problem/
http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/2011/09/will-palestinian-refugees-living-in.html
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/09/45-of-palestinian-residents-would-be.html
http://fresnozionism.org/2011/09/palestine-no-refuge-for-palestinians/

and Mondoweiss (ROFL)
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/who-would-be-a-considered-citizen-in-a-new-state-of-palestine.html

To sum up:

this interview simply confirms once again, for those who didn't know it before, that the PLO/PA does not want to solve the refugee problem!!! This point has to be made to some of the very ignorant and gullible peacemongers in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora who believe that creation of an Arab state called Palestine will mean the end of the refugee problem, since such a state will take them in. But such a state will NOT take them in as Abdullah Abdullah made clear.

^

A Diplomat Looking for 1947-48 Documents

Here's Esther Herlitz's letter in Haaretz (Hebrew) from August 24:

שוב ושוב מתעוררת השאלה: ערביי פלסטינה (א"י) ברחו, או גורשו? הסיפור, חלקו, אולי כולו, מתועד.

כמזכירת המחלקה הערבית של הסוכנות נפל בחלקי בכל בוקר לרשום בעברית ולהפיץ את מה שאנשי ה"ש"י" (שירות הידיעות של ההגנה) אז קלטו בערבית, בהאזנה לשיחות הטלפון של המופתי.

במו אוזני שמעתי את המופתי מייעץ לאוכלוסייה הערבית לקום ולברוח, שהרי ממילא בתוך זמן קצר יחזרו לבתיהם. חאג' אמין, המופתי, גם הוסיף כי סתימת הכבישים הראשיים בהמוני "בורחים" תחסום את המעבר בפני הכוחות היהודיים.

כל זה קרה בתקופה שבין החלטת האו"ם להכרזת העצמאות. האם שמרו בארכיון המדינה את התרשומת היומית המעניינת הזאת?

זאת ועוד, כידוע, אבא חושי, ראש העיר חיפה, הפיץ כרוז לערביי העיר בשפתם וקרא להם להישאר. רבים לא שעו לקריאתו ועשו את דרכם ללבנון. הכרוז הזה קיים בלי ספק בארכיון עיריית חיפה.

לא ידוע לי אם מפקדי כיבוש לוד ורמלה כתבו יומן מלחמה שנשמר. מותר לומר על הפליטים מהערים האלה, שהם גורשו.

אסתר הרליץ

תל אביב

Translation:

Again and again, the question arises: the Arabs of 'Palestina' (Eretz-Yisrael) fled or were they expelled? The story, partially and perhaps all, is documented.



As the Secretary of the Arab Department of the Jewish Agency, it was my job every morning to record in Hebrew and distribute what the Haganah's intelligence service, Shai, had taken down in Arabic, listening in to the telephone conversations of the Mufti.


I heard the Mufti advise the Arab population to rise and run, especially as they would in any case soon return to their homes. Haj Amin, the Mufti, also added that the blocking of highways by multitudes of those "fleeing" would then block the passage of the Jewish forces.


This all happened in the period between UN Partition Decision and Israel's Declaration of Independence. Would the state archives still possess these daily interesting protocols?


Moreover, as we know, Abba Hushi, the mayor of Haifa, issued a proclamation to the Arabs in their own language and called on them to stay. Many did not heed his call and made ​​their way to Lebanon. This leaflet is without doubt in the Haifa municipal archives.


I do not know if the commanders who conquered Lydda and Ramleh preserved a battle log. It may inform us about the refugees of whom we can say were deported.


Esther Herlitz
Tel Aviv

Esther was a diplomat, becoming an Ambassador and was a Labour MK.

Well, where are those documents?

^

The French Have It

A new book, Réfugiés palestiniens. Otages de la diplomatie is out.

The main contention is that the Palestinian refugees possess a unique status, which is defined by the UN since 1948 and as embodied by UNWRA, and it actually violates international law. In addition, it also contravenes the basic human rights of the Palestinian population. They call for an alignment with normative international practice as regards all refugees and a gradual but complete and effective dismantling of UNRWA.

The authors ask How is it that the High Commissioner for Refugees UN, which seeks to eliminate all refugee populations through their integration in host countries, could allow the situation degenerate in this way?  They point to a breach of the UN, which, by a legal anomaly and discriminatory, created an agency  specifically to address the problem: UNRWA, whose sole mission is to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees in the areas of health, education and social services. However, it is clear that the agency - which gives a status to the Palestinian refugees different from all other refugees in the world - is one of the leading causes of deprivation of basic rights for the Palestinians: the right to work, nationality, property and education. To its detriment, the Palestinian people is found and handled, and as hostages of international diplomacy.

Here is another appreciaiton via Google translation plus my editing:

The book traces the history of the conflict and, noting the various international attempts to solve it, shows that there is, throughout its history, a question that seems resolutely omitted: that of Palestinian refugees. Country by country, the authors report their intolerable living conditions intolerable for the past 62 years and protest the policy of the UN which, by creating a specific agency to help them, UNRWA, paradoxically maintains an unacceptable situation of moral and material misery instead of promoting their integration and improve living conditions in their respective host country.

Palestinian refugees have been victims of an institutionalization, in a sense, of their vulnerability which reinforces the violence of the conflict. It is time, in their opinion, to help these generations of Palestinians escape this status and to adopt at the international level, a new way of thinking the issue.

When will it be translated into English?

^

Give the "Arab Palestinian Refugees" Human Rights

Here.

^

Yes, Jews Are Different

From Warren Kozak's piece, What If Jews Had Followed the Palestinian Path?

...In 1945, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors living in DP Camps (displaced persons) across Europe. They were fed and clothed by Jewish and international relief organizations. Had the world's Jewish population played this situation as the Arabs and Palestinians have, everything would look very different today.

To begin with, the Jews would all still be living in these DP camps, only now the camps would have become squalid ghettos throughout Europe. The refugees would continue to be fed and clothed by a committee similar to UNRWA—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (paid for mostly by the United States since 1948). Blessed with one of the world's highest birth rates, they would now number in the many millions. And 66 years later, new generations, fed on a mixture of hate and lies against the Europeans, would now seethe with anger.

Sometime in the early 1960s, the Jewish leadership of these refugee camps, having been trained in Moscow to wreak havoc on the West (as Yasser Arafat was) would have started to employ terrorism to shake down governments. Airplane hijackings in the 1970s would have been followed by passenger killings. There would have been attacks on high-profile targets as well—say, the German or Polish Olympic teams.

By the 1990s, the real mayhem would have begun. Raised on victimhood and used as cannon fodder by corrupt leaders, a generation of younger Jews would be blowing up buses, restaurants and themselves. The billions of dollars extorted from various governments would not have gone to the inhabitants of the camps. The money would be in the Swiss bank accounts of the refugees' famous and flamboyant leaders and their lackies.

So now it's the present, generations past the end of World War II, and the festering Jewish refugee problem throughout Europe has absolutely no end in sight. The worst part of this story would be the wasted lives of millions of human beings in the camps—inventions not invented, illnesses not cured, high-tech startups not started up, symphonies and books not written—a real cultural and spiritual desert.

None of this happened, of course. Instead, the Jewish refugees returned to their ancestral homeland. They left everything they had in Europe and turned their backs on the Continent—no "right of return" requested. They were welcomed by the 650,000 Jewish residents of Israel.

An additional 700,000 Jewish refugees flooded into the new state from Arab lands after they were summarily kicked out. Again losing everything after generations in one place; again welcomed in their new home.

Excellent.

^

So, How Many Jewish (yes, Jewish) Refugees Are There?

I need your assistance with a mathematical problem.

The official UN accepted number of Arab refugees is actually 4.8 million which takes into account their descendants.

Here:

Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. [wow, just two years of residency and you are a "Palestinian" refugee. that's shorter than most citizenship requirements and, considering that many of the Arabs who became "refugees" were recent transients from neighboring countries due to the better economic situation in the Palestine Mandate, downright unfair]

UNRWA's services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. The descendants of the original Palestine refugees are also eligible for registration. When the Agency started working in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, 4.8 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.

By the way, in 1951, Israel informed UNRWA to stop assisting Jewish refugees from the territories of Judea, Samaria and gaza, just over 3,000 (with an additional 15,000 almost of non-Jews) as the stat of Israel could do that by itself.


[CORRECTION (k/t = EOZ):  from the 1950 UNRWA Report - 30. In Israel, the Agency has provided relief to two types of refugees, Jews who fled inside the borders of Israel during the fighting, and Arabs in most instances displaced from one area in Palestine to another. Jewish refugees at first numbered 17,000 but, during the current summer, all but 3,000 of these have been absorbed into the economic life of the new State. Arabs on relief were first numbered at 31,000 but many have been placed in circumstances in which they are self-supporting, so that it was possible to reduce the number to 24,000 at the end of August 1950.
31. Recent discussions with the Israel Government indicate that the idea of relief distribution is repugnant to it, and the Agency was informed that already many of the 24,000 remaining refugees were employed and that all able-bodied refugees desiring employment could be absorbed on works projects if they would register at the government registry offices for that purpose. It was stated that they all have status as citizens of Israel and are entitled to treatment as such. It was claimed that after cessation of relief, aged and infirm refugees would be cared for under the normal social welfare machinery of Israel. The Agency was requested to share financially in a programme of re-establishment of displaced Arabs now within the boundaries of Israel.]
 
Now, the question has come up: if the number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is that "there were more former Jewish refugees uprooted from Arab countries (over 850,000) than there were Palestinians who became refugees in 1948. (UN estimate: 726,000)" ( from JJAC) but there's this, too: "A total of 586,269 Jews from Arab countries arrived in Israel with at least 200,000 emigrating to France, England and the Americas. Including their offspring, the total number of Jews who were displaced from their homes in Arab countries and who live in Israel today is 1,136,436, about 41% of the total population. At least another 500,000 currently reside in France, Canada, the United States, Latin America and Australia" (from this 2002 paper) can anyone accurately calculate a true number of  "Jewish refugees from Arab lands" that need to be included in any discussion of refugee rights?  Or is 1.2 million fair based on the above?
The Arab annual growth rate could be probably 1.0317.

If we start with 800,000 Jews and apply the same growth we get 5.2m in 2008. I'd say you could happily claim anywhere from 3.8 million to 5.2 million descendants of Jewish refugees which doesn't add up to the quoted figures above.

So, who knows math?

______________________

This:

"Silent Exodus"


More than a million Jews were expelled from Arab and Muslim countries between 1948 and 1974, without asking for compensation or the right to return. Pierre Rehov's "Silent Exodus", is a tribute to their tragedy.

Promo reel.

Full Length Movie

______________________________________
______________________________________

BOL has suggested these numbers -

Just by using the same growth rate as the Pals. we have this data:


Palestine Arabs, Growth Rate: 1.03, if in 1948 711,000, then in 2012 = 5,233,917
Jews, Growth Rate: 171.03, if in 1948 800,000, then in 2012 = 5,889,076

So, if the Arabs can claim 4.8 million (and not 6 million like that Coldplay recommended song asserted), well Jewish refugess from Arab Lands number 5.9 million.


=======================
=======================

While we're on demographics, consider this:

...fresh from the just-released update of the United Nations' population forecasts: At constant fertility, Israel will have more young people by the end of this century than either Turkey or Iran, and more than German, Italy or Spain.  With a total fertility rate of three children per woman, Israel's total population will rise to 24 million by the end of the present century. Iran's fertility is around 1.7 and falling, while the fertility for ethnic Turks is only 1.5 (the Kurdish minority has a fertility rate of around 4.5).

...if present trends continue, Israel will be able to field the largest land army in the Middle East. That startling data point, though, should alert analysts to a more relevant problem: among the military powers in the Middle East, Israel will be the only one with a viable population structure by the middle of this century.

That is why it is in America's interest to keep Israel as an ally. Israel is not only the strongest power in the region; in a generation or two it will be the only power in the region, the last man standing among ruined neighbors. The demographic time bomb in the region is not the Palestinian Arabs on the West Bank, as the Israeli peace party wrongly believed, but rather Israel itself.

^

Coldplay's Propaganda Ploy

That song, "Freedom for Palestine"?

Well, at 10 seconds you hear "6 million refugees".

Six million.

Sound familiar? Does it resonate?

Like in the Holocaust?

Do you think that was a coincidence? (*)

At 0:36 seconds, "no matter your faith or community" is heard. Of course, if you are Jewish, you may have a problem with your faith being accepted. Even Arafat couldn't bring himself to include "synagogues" when mentioning Jerusalem or Jews.  Like here:

“The Palestinian flag "will fly over the walls of Jerusalem, the churches of Jerusalem and the mosques of Jerusalem."

Yasser Arafat (Jordanian TV, 13 September 1993)

oder

"Jerusalem is the capital of our Palestinian state. It is our Jerusalem. And as brother Yasser Arafat said... Jerusalem is not only a Palestinian cause. It is a Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and Christian cause. It is the central issue. And the central axis in all of the realms of our activities."
Falastin al-Thawra, the P.L.O.'s official magazine, in an editorial on 15 August 1993

At, 1:22 you hear the words "racial segregation". Like when Arab teenagers kill only Jews in their sleep? Followed by "all religious communities unite". What BS.

At 2:12, an Israeli soldier pushes down an Arab woman holding a baby. Fabrication.  That's why it is drawn cartoon style, with Magen David symbols on their helmets, in best antisemitic imagery.

At 2:16, they even have a Hassid appear, obviously a Neturei Karta follower:

He's wearing a pro-Pal. button.

Oh, and who is going to tell these back-up singers that dressed that way in a "Palestine" is not the most advisable way to go about?  And the fellow just above would also be very unhappy with that cleavage.

Useless fools.  What the Communists used to refer to as "running dogs" or what Encounter magazine once termed "ideological pilgrims", involved as "cultural warriors".


> On War on Want see here.
_____________

(*)  Found here:

Four million UN-registered Palestinian refugees trace their origins to the 1948 exodus; 750,000 people belong to families displaced in 1967 - many for the second time.


Palestinian refugee populations
Jordan: 1,835,704
Syria: 434,896
West Bank/Gaza: 1,699,025
Lebanon: 405,425
Total: 4,375,050

Palestinian advocacy group Badil says another 1.5 million hail from pre-1948 Palestine but were not UN-registered, while an additional 274,000 were internally displaced inside Israel after 1948, and 150,000 were displaced in the occupied territories after 1967.

That makes more than six million people, one of the biggest displaced populations in the world.

Check this out for some facts.  Here, too, to realize those numbers are purported.

UPDATE

Found this:

by sammykatz87
@ Coldplay band removed the anti-Israel song 'Freedom for Palestine' from their Facebook page

^

 

And The Overriding Obstacle Is...?

Peter Berkowitz:

...Thanks to “The Palestine Papers and the Right of Return,”...we know that what has been widely assumed is wrong. The study (available online as a PDF file) carefully analyzes the leaked Palestine Papers...[that]show that the biggest stumbling block is fundamental disagreement about refugees...the Palestine Papers do not reveal conciliatory Palestinians pitted against inflexible Israelis. For example, whereas Israel is prepared to welcome a small symbolic number of refugees, the PA seeks to preserve an unlimited flow that would, by sheer numbers and deliberate intention, end Israel by turning it into an Arab-majority state.

The refugee question is inseparable from a neglected aberration in international law. For all peoples but one, international law defines a refugee as a person forced to live outside the country of his origin. For Palestinians alone, international law treats refugee status as passed down from parents to children...for the last ten years Palestinian negotiators — led since 2004 by PA President Mahmoud Abbas and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat (who resigned after it was determined that the documents published by Al Jazeera were leaked from his office) — sought a formula that guarantees an individual right of return to the state of Israel inhering in each of the seven million Palestinians on whom international law confers refugee status...

...The commitment to an unlimited right of return compels Palestinians to reject recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people...President Abbas has refused to specify the number of refugees that he anticipates would choose to exercise a right to return to Israel.

...President Obama has been wrong: freezing construction beyond the 1967 borders, whatever one thinks of Israel’s settlement policy, is not the key to reinvigorating peace negotiations. The question of refugees, moreover, is much more than, as the president described it in his State Department speech, a “wrenching” issue. Palestinian dedication to a right, with no precedent under international law, inhering in seven million Palestinians to establish residence in the state of Israel has been and remains the overriding obstacle to a secure and lasting peace...

UPDATE

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was disappointed by President Barack Obama's comments on Israeli-Palestinian peace in his speech on the Middle East, a senior Israeli official said on Friday.

"There is a feeling that Washington does not understand the reality, doesn't understand what we face...The prime minister's tough response expresses the disappointment with the absence of central issues that Israel demanded, chiefly the refugee (issue)," he added.

^

Giving The Pal. Refugees Citizenship - Not

Did you know that a new Saudi Arabian naturalization law

would not be applicable to Palestinians living in the Kingdom as the Arab League has instructed that Palestinians living in Arab countries should not be given citizenship to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland.

Diplomatic sources have estimated the number of Palestinians in the Kingdom at about 500,000. There are large concentrations of Palestinians in the country’s western, central, eastern and northern provinces.

That no-no by the Arab League was decided back in 1959.

Here:

in 1959 the United Nations Secretary-General put forward proposals aimed inter alia at actively involving the refugees in the socioeconomic development of the Middle East at large and the wealthy Gulf states in particular. The Arab League rejected these proposals for they saw them as an indirect means of depopulating the camps and burying the right of return. It also argued that the socioeconomic development of the region should not be linked to the settlement of the refugee issue. On their part, the 45 representatives of nine refugee organisations based in Lebanon also rejected the proposals...

That rejection included the no citizenship granting in this decision: see page 88, note 129:

LASC/RES/1547 (531) of March 9, 1959

It's content also described thus:

Resolution 1547 of 9 March 195941, which encourages Arab states –– as a general rule –– to preserve the Palestinian nationality of the refugees...

in a publication entitled: Rights in Principle - Rights in Practice, Revisiting the Role of International Law in Crafting Durable Solutions for Palestinian Refugees, Terry Rempel, Editor, (here: BADIL Resource).

Is that a nice thing to do?

^

Your US Tax Dollars at Work

I've been informed that the U.S. Contributes $126.8 Million to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and here's the full statement:

The United States is pleased to announce a contribution of $126.8 million toward the 2011 operations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The contribution, funded through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, will support UNHCR’s programs worldwide, including refugee returns to such places as Afghanistan and the Sudan; local integration and resettlement; and protection and life-saving assistance. U.S. funding supports the provision of water, shelter, food, healthcare, and education to refugees, internally displaced persons, and other persons under UNHCR’s care and protection in countries such as Iraq, Colombia, Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda.

However, did you know that last March, the Office of the Spokesman of the State Department announced that

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Eric P. Schwartz welcomed Filippo Grandi, recently appointed Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), to Washington DC on March 11, 2010, and announced that the U.S. will make an additional planned contribution of $55 million to UNRWA.

The United States is UNRWA’s largest donor. The announced contribution of $55 million includes $30 million to UNRWA’s General Fund, which provides core services to Palestinian refugees across the region, and $25 million to UNRWA’s Emergency Appeal for the West Bank and Gaza. This additional funding will bring total U.S contributions to UNRWA thus far in Fiscal Year 2010 to $95 million. In 2009, the United States provided more than $267 million to UNRWA.

I tried to do some math.

The number of refugees the UNHCFR takes care of is

The latest figures available show that the number of refugees of concern to UNHCR stood at 10.4 million refugees at the beginning of 2011, down slightly from a year earlier.

and

A further 4.7 million registered refugees are looked after in some 60 camps in the Middle East by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was set up in 1949 to care for displaced Palestinians.

So, aided by IB, it seems that the US tax payer is contributing $20.20 or so to a "Palestinian refugee" where as any other type of refugee only receives $12.20 per person.

Does that sound fair?

And consider just one figure I found on page 27:-

An estimated 251,500 refugees and 2.2 million IDPs returned in 2009. This is the lowest number of refugee returns in 20 years, and signifcantly below the 604,000 refugees who returned home in 2008.

So, whereas there is a major flux of population from refugee status back to indigenous status or resettled status, the "Palestinian refugees" do neither.  They stay where they are and refuse to be resettled even though the UN stipulated that in addition to repatriation, compensation is also an alternative.

So for all those who leave nasty comments about US tax money going to Israel, have fun with this figure.


__________

P.S.  I have been updated:

June 18, 2010

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced today that the United States will be making an additional contribution of $60.3 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to support UNRWA’s core budget and special projects in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

The $60.3 million contribution will provide critical services, including health, to 4.7 million Palestinian refugees. Of this contribution, $5.7 million will support nine special projects, including reconstruction and rehabilitation of schools in Jordan, Syria, and the West Bank, an afterschool program for refugee children in Lebanon, and a referral system to help refugees facing gender-based violence.

With this contribution, the U.S. will have provided more than $225 million to UNRWA in 2010, including $120 million to its General Fund, $75 million to its West Bank/Gaza emergency programs, $20 million to emergency programs in Lebanon, and $10 million for the construction of five new schools in Gaza.

The U.S. commitment to the welfare of the Palestinian people was further underscored by the President’s June 9 announcement that the United States will move forward with $400 million to increase access to clean drinking water, create jobs, build schools, and address critical housing and infrastructure needs in the West Bank and Gaza. As UNRWA’s largest bilateral donor, the U.S. recognizes the critical role UNRWA plays in assisting Palestinian refugees and maintaining regional stability and calls upon other donors to enhance their support for UNRWA.

I'll let you do the additional math.


^

How Not To Negotiate Peace

The gaps in December 2009:

Refugees:

The Israeli side proposed the following:

The return of 1,000 refugees to Israel annually and for a period of five years. These would return for humanitarian reasons.
Return to the State of Palestine would be an internal Palestinian affair.
An international compensation fund would be established, on which Israel would be a member.
Israel rejected to bear any liability for the calamity caused to the Palestinian refugees.
Israel would bear a special liability for the compensation of refugees

.

and

the Palestinian side stated the following:

Solutions for the refugees’ properties would be discussed.
The right to return is safeguarded by the international law and UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
The return of 15,000 refugees to Israel on an annual basis for a period of ten renewable years.
Return to the State of Palestine shall be subject to the Palestinian law only.
An international compensation fund shall be incorporated, whereby all refugees would be compensated regardless of their choice. The right is to return, not to either return or receive compensation.
Host countries would be compensated.

The differences of opinion is not just negotiation posture and maneuvering for room to lose or gain but a fundamental and ideological chasm.

This is not peace. Or an intention for peace.

And, by the way, where is the agenda item of Jewish refugees?

^