More than 1,500 Arab refugees from Iraq, descendants of Arabs who fled pre-state Israel in the 1940s, have recently been welcomed into the United States and Chile. According to the English-language Arab news site Khaleej Times, refugees who relocated to Chile have settled in to their new home, and have received a warm welcome from Chile's leaders.
According to supporters of the Israeli Initiative, an organization promoting an alternative track to Israel-Arab peace, the U.S. and Chile's successful absorption of thousands of “Palestinian refugees” from Iraq proves that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency impedes Arab refugees from building a better future. Refugees living in Iraq have succeeded due to the fact that UNRWA is not currently working in their country, explained Gidon Yisrael.
"Recently we've seen refugees from Iraq successfully integrate in Iceland, Slovakia, Norway, and the United States,” he said. “None of them are among those under UNRWA's care. UNRWA does nothing to rehabilitate the refugees, and the millions of Palestinians under its care are doomed to remain refugees forever – that is, as long as the State of Israel survives.”
UNRWA is the UN agency tasked with assisting Arabs who fled Israel during the War of Independence and their descendants. The agency defines any descendant of an Arab who considered his or her primary place of residence to be pre-state Israel during the 23 months before the 1948 war as a “refugee.” It runs programs throughout the Middle East to provide refugees with housing, food and education; in Gaza, UNRWA gives aid to approximately 80 percent of the population.
The Israeli Initiative has accused UNRWA of encouraging a rapidly growing number of Arabs to define themselves as “refugees,” and of preventing their successful repatriation, thus “introducing fresh generations into the circle of poverty, despair and hate.”
UNRWA “is an agency that has yet to rehabilitate a single refugee, and will never do so,” says Israeli Initiative's head, former minister Benny Elon. “UNRWA was not created to serve the Palestinian population, but rather, to serve the Palestinian national narrative. As such, it perpetuates the conflict and offers the refugees conflict and blood instead of wellbeing and life.”
Plenty of Countries Waiting with Open Arms
There are many countries that would be eager to absorb refugees if UNRWA would allow such a solution to the “Palestinian problem,” Yisrael says. “In contrast to the myth that says nobody wants to take in the refugees, there are many countries eager for immigrants because their own population is aging, or because they need workers in certain professions, or for other economic reasons.”
There are several countries currently absorbing refugees from around the world in coordination with UNHCR, the U.N. agency that deals with all refugees worldwide who do not trace their roots back to pre-state Israel, Yisrael said – proving that if the U.N. were to desire to successfully repatriate Arab refugees, it is capable of doing so.
Studies show that the overwhelming majority of refugees under UNRWA's care would willingly repatriate if given the option of doing so, he said. “In the camps, they will never be able to create a new life for themselves,” he concluded.