by Elliott Abrams
There are over 500,000 Palestinian "refugees" in Syria, as counted by the U.N. agency handling Palestinian "refugees," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The quotation marks are especially apt in this case, for the great majority of the "refugees" were born in Syria and have lived there all their lives. Only under UNRWA's definitions of "refugee" (Palestinians who left what is now Israel in 1948, and all of their descendants until the end of time) would they qualify.
"Palestine refugees in
Syria have been severely affected by the armed conflict in the country,
with virtually all their residential areas experiencing armed
engagements or the use of heavy weapons. The number of Palestine
refugees in need of assistance in Syria is rapidly approaching the total
population of 529,000 registered refugees. Over half have already been
displaced from their homes."
"The Government of
Jordan announced a policy of non-entry to Palestinians fleeing the Syria
conflict in early 2013. This stemmed the flow of Palestine refugees
from Syria towards Jordan and compounded the extreme vulnerability of
Palestinians seeking safety in Syria, as well as that of those who
managed to enter Jordan."
"'The Lebanese have
made it clear they don't want to see more than a certain number of
people coming here,' a high-ranking aid official told [the United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] on
condition of anonymity. ... Officially both Jordan and Lebanon are
keeping their borders open for all refugees from Syria. But unlike
Syrians, who can freely enter Lebanon for up to six months, Palestinians
receive only a one-week residency permit. Once that expires, they must
pay 50,000 LBP (US$33) each month to renew it."
"After escaping
shelling in Damascus and terrifying bloodshed at sea, 14 month-old
Palestinian twin girls are now among hundreds of people living in limbo
in grimy Egyptian police stations, with no end in sight to their plight.
Of the 2 million people who fled Syria's civil war, none may have it
worse than Palestinians, who have known no other home than Syria but do
not have Syrian citizenship and have therefore been denied even the
basic rights secured for other refugees. The United Nations says the
Egyptian government has refused it permission to register Palestinians
from Syria as refugees and give them the yellow card that allows them to
settle. As a result, hundreds of Palestinians civilians have ended up
detained in police stations, with no place else to go. ...
"If the family were
Syrian citizens, once detained they would most likely have been
permitted to leave Egypt for refugee camps in other countries in the
region, says Human Rights Watch. ... The overwhelming majority of the
Palestinians have never set foot in the Palestinian territories and have
considered Syria their only home. But Egypt refuses to allow the United
Nations refugee agency to treat them like other refugees from Syria.
'It is the view of the government of Egypt that Palestinians fall
outside of [the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees'] mandate,' said
Teddy Leposky, a UNHCR spokesman in Cairo. 'UNHCR has therefore not been
able to provide assistance or advocate effectively on behalf of
Palestinian refugees in Egypt.'"
In one sense this is an
old story: Arab states using the Palestinian issue against Israel often
treat Palestinians badly. Jordan is the only country that has given
them full citizenship rights.
But there is another story here:
the way UNRWA's special treatment of Palestinians has backfired. It is
not just a whim that the government of Egypt does not allow UNHCR to
treat Palestinians the way it treats all other refugees, for in fact
Palestinians are the only refugees over whom UNHCR has never had
jurisdiction. When those fleeing Syria attend UNHCR or UNRWA schools, or
receive medical attention at UNHCR or UNRWA clinics, that division is
perpetuated and deepened. Once upon a time, Palestinians thought this
special status was a great boon. For Palestinians fleeing Syria it's
hard to see it that way today. UNRWA can now add to its achievement of
perpetuating "Palestinian refugee" status the achievement of separating
Palestinians from all other Syrian refugees. And now we can use the word
refugee without quotation marks, for we are speaking of people born and
raised in Syria and now driven from their homes there. This is just
another piece of evidence that UNRWA has outlived its usefulness and is
doing more harm than good for Palestinians.
Elliott Abrams
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6397
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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