UNRWA, the agency that assists Palestinian refugees, has
come under sustained attack from the Israeli government.
April 5, 2012
With the world media focusing on
the crisis in Syria, it has been forgotten that Syria is home to some
400,000 Palestinian refugees. This includes 14,000 Palestinians who
inhabit a refugee camp in the bombarded city of Homs, and who rely on
UNRWA, the UN Agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees, for
their daily needs.
Hamas’s
recent condemnation of the Assad regime is unlikely to endear it to the
Syrian government, but in fact over the years Syria has treated the
Palestinians relatively well, if one compares the way Lebanon, Jordan,
and Egypt have treated their Palestinian refugee communities. Moreover,
unlike Israel, Syria has never threatened the UN Agency or plotted its
demise, a move that could precipitate a humanitarian crisis of epic
proportions.
The most recent Israeli threats against UNRWA include an
attack by
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, that blamed the Agency
for perpetuating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In conjunction with a
PR firm and the right-wing, US-based StandWithUs organization, Ayalon
has created a series of videos on YouTube that attempt to promote
Israel’s image and spin the history of the conflict. His most recent
video is on Palestinian refugees. Ayalon proposes that UNRWA be
dismantled and blames it for prolonging the refugee issue and the
conflict. Instead, he proposes that Palestinian refugees be placed
under the UNHCR’s mandate. In fact, however, the primary reason why
UNRWA still exists is due to Israel’s consistent rejection of UN General
Assembly resolution 194 (III) calling for the right of refugees to
return and compensation.
