Commentary
Counting Palestine Refuaees In Technically Correct Terms
Philadelphia
he fetid, dark heart of the
Arab war on Israel, I have
long argued, lies not in dis-
putes over Jerusalem, checkpoints or
"settlements." Rather, it concerns the
so-called Palestine refugees.
So-called because of the nearly 5
million official refugees served by
UNRWA (short for the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East), only
about 1 percent are real refugees who
fit the agency's definition of "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." The
other 99 percent are descendants
of those refugees, or what I call fake
refugees.
Worse: Those alive in 1948 are
dying off and, in about 50 years,
not a single real refugee will remain
alive, whereas (extrapolating from
an authoritative estimate in Refugee
Survey Quarterly by Mike Dumper)
their fake refugee descendants will
number about 20 million. Unchecked,
that population will grow like Topsy
until the end of time.
This matters because the refugee
status has harmful effects: It blights
the lives of these millions of non-
refugees by disenfranchising them
while imposing an ugly, unrealistic
irredentist dream on them; worse, the
refugee status preserves them as a
permanent dagger aimed at Israel's
heart, threatening the Jewish state
and disrupting the Middle East.
Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, in
short, requires ending the absurd and
damaging farce of proliferat-
ing fake Palestine refugees
and permanently settling
them. 1948 happened; time to
get real.
I am proud to report that,
in part based on the work car-
ried out by the Middle East
Forum's Steven J. Rosen and
myself over the past year, the
U.S. Senate Appropriations
Committee on May 24 unani-
mously passed a limited
but potentially momentous
amendment to the $52.1 billion fiscal
2013 State Department and foreign
operations appropriations bill.
The amend-
ment, proposed
by Mark Kirk
(R-III.), requires
the State
Department to
inform Congress
about the use of
the annual $240
million of direct
American taxpay-
er funds donated
to Palestine refu-
gees via UNRWA.
How many recipi-
ents, Kirk asks,
meet the UNRWA
definition cited
above, making
them real refu-
gees? And how
many do not, but
are descendants
of those refu-
TWO,
gees?
The Kirk
amendment does
not call for elimi-
nating or even
reducing benefits
to fake refugees.
Despite its lim-
Dry Bones MEN AND NOW
3,000 YEARS AGO,
GOLIATH'S ARMOUR
HAD A VULNERABLILITY
THAT LITTLE DAVID
THESE DAYS THE
THREAT IS FROM
IRANIAN NUCLEAR
CENTRIFUGES AND
LITTLE DAVID IS
FORCED
HIT WITH A
STRATEGICALLY
PLACED PEBBLE,
TO USE A
STRATEGICALLY
PLACED COMPUTER
VIRUS OR
Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, in short,
requires ending the absurd and damaging farce
of proliferating fake Palestine refugees and
permanently settling them.
ited nature, Kirk calls the reporting
requirement a "watershed." Indeed,
it inspired what a senior Senate GOP
aide called "enormous opposition"
from the Jordanian gov-
ernment and UNRWA
itself, bringing on what
Foreign Policy magazine's
Josh Rogin called a raging
battle.
Why the rage?
Because, were the State
Department compelled
to differentiate real
Palestine refugees from
fake ones, the U.S. and
other Western govern-
ments (that, together,
cover more than 80 percent of
UNRWA's budget) could eventually
decide to cut out the fakes and there-
by undermine their claim to a "right
of return" to Israel.
Sadly, the Obama administration
has badly botched this issue. A let-
ter from Deputy Secretary of State
Thomas R. Nides opposing an earlier
version of the Kirk amendment dem-
onstrates complete incoherence. On
the one hand, Nides states that Kirk
would, by forcing the U.S. govern-
ment "to make a public judgment on
the number and status of Palestinian
refugees ... prejudge and determine
the outcome of this sensitive issue."
On the other, Nides himself refers to
"approximately 5 million [Palestine]
refugees," thereby lumping together
real and fake refugees — and prejudg-
ing exactly the issue he insists on
leaving open. That 5-million refugee
statement was no fluke; when asked
about it, State Department spokes-
man Patrick Ventrell confirmed that
"the U.S. government supports"
the guiding principle to "recognize
descendants of refugees as refugees."
Also, by predicting a "very strong
negative reaction [to the amendment]
from the Palestinians and our allies in
the region, particularly Jordan," Nides
invited Arabs to pressure the U.S.
Senate, a shoddy maneuver unworthy
of the State Department.
Through all of Israel's 64-year exis-
tence, one American president after
another has resolved to resolve the
Arab-Israeli conflict, yet every one
of them ignored the ugliest aspect of
this confrontation — the purposeful
exploitation of a refugee issue to chal-
lenge the very existence of the Jewish
state. Bravo to Sen. Kirk and his staff
for the wisdom and courage to begin
the effort to address unpleasant reali-
ties, initiating a change that finally
goes to the heart of the conflict.
Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president
of the Middle East Forum and Taube
distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover
Institution of Stanford University, Palo Alto,
Calif.
standing
guard
... For Israel
And Our Jewish
Community
The national convention of the
Presbyterian Church (USA) meets on
June 30 and will consider a resolution
to divest from Israeli companies
and companies that do business with
Israel. Visit the following website to
join a letter-writing campaign that
speaks out against divestment: http://
bitly/KmiKEw.
Prepared by Allan Gale, Jewish
Community Relations Council of
Metropolitan Detroit
June 2012, Jewish Renaissance Media
jwren 14c 2012
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