PA 'refugee camp'
PA 'refugee camp'Flash 90

At a time when the subject of human rights is so widely discussed, President Biden took the opportunity of his visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia to express support for Arab human rights and civil liberties.

In that context, President Biden announced an increase of more than $200 million to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

According to the 2022 Diary issued by PASSIA, registered as a non-profit Israeli organization under the Israel Ministry of Interior's Non-Profit Sector as the "Palestinian Academic Society for International Affairs", UNRWA now serves 6.7 million Palestinian Arabs in 59 "temporary" refugee camps set up for displaced persons from the 1948 Israel War of Independence.

That UNRWA refugee population now includes third- and fourth-generation descendants of the refugees displaced by the 1948 war.

UNRWA today allocates 58% of its $1.6 billion budget on education, from 67 nations and 33 humanitarian organizations.

That means that UNRWA children represent the most literate refugee population in the world.

That may not be a positive development.

Our review of more than 1,000 PA texts provided for UNRWA and examined by Arabic education expert, Dr. Arnon Groiss, show that the new UNRWA school curriculum for this generation of UNRWA youth focuses on the dictate that this refugee population must continue to dwell in the indignity of teeming refugee camps, under the promise of the "right of return" to villages that existed before 1948.

If forcing 6.7 million descendants of refugees to live as refugees for perpetuity is not a violation of fundamental human rights and civil liberties, then what is?

David Bedein is director of Israel Resource News Agency and heads the Cener for Near East Policy Research.