For six decades the Palestine refugees and their descendants have
suffered dispossession, exile, conflict and poverty. Many thousands
have lived their lives in concrete shanties where opportunities are
few and despair can be endemic. Their plight is unique in its
longevity and intractability and so, in turn, a unique organization
has catered for their needs.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
in the Near East (UNRWA) came into being in December 1949 and has
been with the refugees as they faced conflicts and crises, periods
of hope and long years of disappointment. It is a relationship
unparalleled in the annals of humanitarian and development
assistance.
The Palestinian flight from Mandate Palestine began in 1947, but
the vast majority left between April and August 1948. The
population from northern Palestine largely moved into Syria and
Lebanon. From Jaffa and the south, the refugees crowded into the
Gaza Strip. In all, some 200,000 refugees, including about 30,000
Bedouins from around Beersheba, went to Gaza, increasing the
population of a dusty strip of dunes by a factor of three. The Arab
population of the coastal plains, including some from Haifa and
Jaffa, and most Arab inhabitants of Ramle and around Jerusalem
sought protection in the hills of the West Bank - doubling its
population in the process. In 1948 and again in 1967, tens of
thousands were displaced into Jordan.
Like all refugees they suffered greatly. They lost homes,
businesses and farms, were separated from family and, in unknown
numbers, lost their lives. There was disease, lack of food and
water and little shelter. Tens of thousands crowded into disused
barracks or caves. More lived in the open until tented camps were
erected. Initially the Red Cross and the American Friends Service
Committee, a Quaker charity, provided relief.
The total number who fled has always been disputed. Largely because
no census had been held since 1931 and because of the nomadic
Bedouin population, accurate figures were hard to establish. The
UN's Economic Survey Mission, which was known as the Clapp Mission,
estimated the number to be 726,000 in December 1949. Neighboring
countries have generally put the number of refugees at between
750,000 and 800,000, while Israel has contended that no more than
550,000 refugees abandoned their homes. The Clapp Mission figure
has generally been considered the most reliable.
In December 1948 The General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 with
its famous commitment to the Palestine refugees either returning to
their homes and/or receiving compensation. However, all efforts,
either to repatriate refugees or to resettle and compensate them,
proved to be in vain. Resettlement was rejected by the refugees and
repatriation was rejected by Israel.
The Clapp Mission recommended the establishment of a completely new
organization to concentrate solely on the interests of the
refugees. In December 1949 the General Assembly established UNRWA
under GA Resolution 302 of December 8, 1949 "to prevent starvation
and distress and to further the conditions for peace and
stability." The Agency began operations on May 1, 1950. It was
unlike most other UN agencies because it delivered its services
directly. The Clapp Mission had envisioned UNRWA establishing
large-scale public works in the host countries to provide
employment for the refugees. These included plans for agricultural
terracing as well as road construction, irrigation schemes and
school construction. Significantly, Gordon Clapp, its chairman, was
a former head of the New Deal-era Tennessee Valley Authority.
However, by the mid-1950s it was clear that the lack of a peace
settlement as envisaged in Resolution 194 doomed the works and
resettlement programs to failure, nor was there ever adequate
funding from donor governments to execute them. From that point
onwards, UNRWA focused on developing the human potential of the
refugees by giving them the healthcare, shelter and, in particular,
the education to allow them to improve their own lives. It moved
from a "works" organization to a quasi-governmental human
development agency - but, crucially, it has no territorial
authority, no legislative power and no jurisdiction over the
refugees in its care.
From the 1960s onwards, the Agency expanded its education provision
by establishing training colleges and achieving gender parity in
all its schools. It also radically reduced infant mortality rates
with comprehensive vaccination coverage and by focusing on maternal
and child health. An important innovation was UNRWA's pioneering
use of oral re-hydration salts on a mass scale. Throughout its
history, UNRWA has worked closely with the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to ensure that its programs
reflect the very best practice in healthcare and education
provision.
Today the registered refugee population has grown to 4.8 million,
and the Agency employs over 29,000 staff, mostly refugees
themselves, to cater for their basic needs. It provides education
to nearly 500,000 pupils enrolled in 684 schools, and its
healthcare program runs 134 health clinics, which receive 9.5
million patient visits a year. The very poorest refugees, 255,000
special hardship cases, receive support from UNRWA's relief and
social services program, which also operates 65 community-run
women's centers and 39 rehabilitation centers for refugees with
disabilities. Since 1990 it has also operated one of the Middle
East's most successful micro-credit lending programs, which
currently finances 24,000 loans worth $30 million each year.
For the past six decades, it has also been there to provide
emergency relief in every one of the conflicts that have rocked the
region and which usually find a way to disproportionately harm the
refugees. From Gaza in 1956, through the cataclysm of June 1967, to
Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s and on to successive intifadas in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), UNRWA has provided
food, water, shelter and emergency healthcare, often in the most
dangerous of environments.
UNRWA had initially been envisaged as a temporary agency with a
three-year mandate. The lack of progress towards a peace settlement
or a resolution of the refugee issue meant the General Assembly
repeatedly renewed its mandate. In this way, the Agency has become
an expression of the international community's continuing
commitment to the protection and care of Palestine refugees. UNRWA
furnishes visible proof that the underlying issues remain on the
international agenda and that one day they may be successfully
addressed.
The Status Quo of the Refugees
At various stages in its history, UNRWA has faced competing claims
that it was either attempting to resettle the refugees against
their wishes, and against the terms of Resolution 194, or that it
was perpetuating the refugee situation rather than solving it. In
the 1950s there was suspicion among the refugees that the
replacement of tents by concrete shelters was resettlement on the
sly. Similarly, some of the early "works" projects seemed
predicated on the idea that an improvement in economic conditions
would see the refugees abandon their right of return - something
that has never proved to be the case. Nevertheless, at various
times in the last 60 years, the Agency has had to argue the point
that an improvement in the refugees' living conditions needn't be
at the expense of their rights.
Critics of the Agency who argue that it perpetuates the refugee
problem have made allegations that the Agency has, at various
times, prevented refugees from leaving the camps, something which
the Agency has no power to do. It has a mandate simply to provide
humanitarian assistance to the refugees pending a political
settlement - a settlement that will be drawn up by the parties
involved, not by UNRWA. Removing UNRWA from the scene would not
resolve the refugee issue; it would simply cause untold hardship
and distress and would contribute nothing to the stability of the
region.
It is sometimes tempting to believe that those who accuse the
Agency of perpetuating the refugee problem have in their sights
those elements of UNRWA's structure and organization that act as a
repository for the refugees' experience. Hundreds of thousands of
UNRWA family files, each filled with supporting documents
stretching back to 1948 - and to long-vanished villages in Mandate
Palestine - are a link to the past that some would like, no doubt,
to see broken. Equally damning, to some critics, must also be the
way in which many refugees acknowledge the small role UNRWA has
inadvertently played, through its registration lists and service
delivery, school culture and other systems, in contributing to a
Palestinian sense of identity.
That identity notwithstanding, there remain disparities in the
legal and socioeconomic status of the refugee communities UNRWA
serves in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the OPT. The refugees in
Jordan and Syria have the best levels of stability in their status
and personal security. In Jordan, the 1.9 million refugees mostly
enjoy Jordanian citizenship and are legally entitled to work and to
have access to government institutions. However, Palestinian
refugees who left the Gaza Strip in 1967 and their descendants are
issued renewable Jordanian passports valid only for two years and
without national identity numbers. They form a sizeable minority
who are unable to access Jordanian government services.
In Syria, the 450,000 registered refugees there have full access to
government services and to the labor market, with the exception of
those refugees who arrived on or after July 10, 1956, who are not
allowed to occupy civil posts in the government. According to
Syria's 1957 law on the legal status of Palestinians, the refugees
have almost the same legal protection as Syrian citizens but have
no right to be naturalized or to vote.
In June 2005 Lebanon's Ministry of Labor allowed registered
Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon to work at manual and clerical
jobs and to obtain work permits, both of which had been previously
denied. Palestine refugees are still effectively banned from
several professions, including medicine, law, journalism and
engineering. Consequently, unemployment among the 416,000
registered refugees is high and living conditions very poor. All
Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA received identity
documents and can acquire renewable travel documents. According to
a 1957 decree still in force, Palestine refugee camp residents have
to apply for permits to move to other camps. They have limited
access to government programs and have to depend almost entirely on
UNRWA for basic services, and Lebanon is the only country in which
the Agency has to provide secondary education for refugee children.
Legislation preventing Palestine refugees from buying immovable
property remains in force.
As has been well documented, in the OPT the movement of
Palestinians, including refugees, within, to and from the territory
is tightly controlled and subject to a complex permit regime
implemented by the Israeli authorities. Palestine refugees may
obtain identification documents, but the Israeli authorities
administer the population and control the issuance of identity
documents for the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Palestine refugees have full access to Palestinian Authority
services in the OPT and the same voting rights as other Palestinian
residents.
In socioeconomic and security terms, the refugees in Lebanon and
the OPT, and especially the Gaza Strip, have the greatest
difficulties to face. In Lebanon, 12% of the registered refugees
fall into UNRWA's special hardship category of refugees living in
dire poverty. In Gaza, the effects of years of conflict and siege
since the start of the second intifada mean that 900,000 people are
now reliant on UNRWA for emergency food aid.
Camp or non-camp residence also tends to mark a division in the
refugees' living conditions. The one-third of registered refugees
living in camps often suffer appalling squalor, overcrowding and
lack of natural light, with the worst conditions to be found in
Lebanon and Gaza. UNRWA estimated, before the recent conflict in
Gaza, that there were close to 10,000 refugee shelters in the camps
urgently in need of renovation to bring them up to minimum
international standards.
Lack of donor funding prevented UNRWA from rehabilitating any more
than 500 shelters during 2008 and, across the board, the inability
of donations to keep pace with rapid population growth has
undermined the quality of provision. Overcrowded classrooms
containing 40 or even 50 pupils can be found. Almost all of UNRWA's
schools operate on a double shift - where two separate groups of
pupils and teachers share the same dilapidated buildings. Doctors
in UNRWA clinics see over 100 patients a day, and its social
workers can have caseloads of 300 families. And all these regular
programs are run in conjunction with emergency relief programs in
the OPT and during crises like the summer war in Lebanon in 2006
and the destruction of Nahr el-Bared camp in 2007.
Before the second intifada, UNRWA had been planning its own demise
based on the expectation that there would be settlement of the
refugee issue. Donors reacted in the same way, and funding for the
Agency failed to keep pace with the needs of the refugees. The
prolonged and bloody conflict since 2000 extinguished hopes of an
immediate political breakthrough, and the Agency is now working to
raise the standards of its services and has made significant
strides towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals. In the
area of women's health, education and employment, for instance, the
social and economic advancement of Palestinian refugee women is one
of the great unsung stories of the UN.
Bringing the Refugees to the Negotiating Table
In looking to the future, UNRWAÂ advocates that the refugee
issue should be brought forward from its current designation as a
"final status issue" to be addressed only when all other problems
are resolved. The Palestine refugees embody the collective sense
and experience of Palestinian loss, and we ignore them at our
peril. A negotiated settlement will not be worthy of its name
unless it commands the endorsement of the Palestine refugees. And
it will not achieve that endorsement if there is not adequate
refugee representation during peace negotiations. Indeed, not just
representation, but the entire formulation of the refugee issue has
to be changed from the current discourse that sees it purely in
terms of a demographic and existential threat to Israel. There also
needs to be acknowledgement of the issue as one with human rights
dimensions - as one with legitimacy as an authentic issue of
international protection.
Excluding refugees from the negotiation process and recasting it in
purely demographic and existential terms prevents the valuable
preparatory work that should be taking place to clarify its
parameters. At this stage we should be seeking answers to questions
such as: Who will be entitled to avail themselves of the refugee
component of a settlement? There should also be a mechanism to
ascertain the interests, views and preferences of refugees. If
mediators fail to consult with the refugees, then they will deny
themselves the option of fully exploring the available avenues for
solutions.
Instead of assuming to know what the refugees want - that, given
the right of return, for example, they would attempt to return en
masse to Israel - the refugees should be given a place at the
negotiating table and a voice of their own. Refugees all around the
world often surprise with the wisdom of their choices - if, that
is, they are enabled and empowered to choose.
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