Refugees, “Refugees,” and Responsibility

December 8 marks the 58^th anniversary of the establishment of an entire UN agency devoted exclusively to Arab refugees — and their successive generations of descendants — arising from the war Arabs commenced in 1948 to destroy a member of the UN, in violation of a UN resolution that would have given Palestinian Arabs a state.

After six decades, it is appropriate to review how UNRWA started, what it has become, and how it contributes to maintaining, rather than solving, the problem it was established to resolve — particularly because this bears directly on the new Annapolis process the Bush administration has initiated.

Here’s how UNRWA started, as reported by The New York Times on December 9, 1949, the day after the UN passed a resolution establishing it:

The United Nations General Assembly approved yesterday a $54,900,000 program [probably more than a billion in today’s dollars – JCI] to provide jobs on public works projects and direct relief for 652,000 Arabs who fled from Palestine during the fighting that followed the end of the British mandate. . . .

[T]he relief program, first authorized by the General Assembly a year ago, is dependent upon contributions from individual governments.

The United Sates contributed more than $15,000,000 to the relief program, about 55 percent of the total, and the United States delegation has pledged a “fair share” for its continuation.  This is generally expected to be about $30,000,000. . . .

The resolution provides for the establishment of a new agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees [UNRWA] . . . . The commission recommended that the projects be carried out in the Arab countries where the refugees now are . . .

The head of the UN mission told the Times that the projects were intended “not only to help unemployed Arab refugees but give the Arab countries the technical ‘know-how’ and impetus to carry on future development themselves” because they would get “practical experience to carry on after United Nations aid ends.”  The relief period was envisioned as extending 18 months.

According to the Times report, the original proposal was that the UN raise only $48,000,000, with $6,000,000 to be contributed by the Arab countries where the projects were to occur.  But the U.S. could not win Arab support for the UN resolution without eliminating the $6,000,000 provision, so the U.S. dropped it and stated it would contribute the $6,000,000 itself.

And where are we today — 58 years and billions of dollars and millions more “refugees” and four generations later — and how does all this relate to Annapolis?  See today’s New York Sun:  Rick Richman, “Shadow of 1947.”