Allegations against the United Nations Relief and Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees, (UNRWA), have been accused of participating in the Hamas attack on southern Israeli towns in the early morning hours of this past Oct. 7.
Whatever evidence was put before the UN must have been quite persuasive, because the UNRWA fired all 12 employees accused of involvement.
The UNRWA is 75 years old, and has always been rumored to be sympathetic to the different Palestinian militant groups. The group runs clinics, schools, and many of the services usually provided by municipalities. Gaza in particular, and the larger Palestinian population centers, (primarily on the West Bank), have been largely transformed into a welfare state.
The UNRWA plays the role of the benevolent father figure, and those 'poor' Palestinians are reduced to the role of mendicant; subsisting on alms and cash from the good offices of the UN. Henceforth, there will be less cash dedicated to supporting the Palestinians.
The US, along with Britain, Australie, Canada, and Finland, Iceland, and Germany, have suspended their contributions to UNRWA, at least for the moment
Perhaps the most significant difference is that the Israelis are smart and ambitious and believe in the value of education. They have "..made the desert bloom...", as the old cliche goes.
The Palestinians, by contrast, have languished in the ghettos and refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, plotting to take their revenge on the Jews, rather than rolling up their sleeves and making a nation for themselves.
Much of the blame for their plight can be laid at the feet of the larger Arab world, which has used the Palestinian diaspora as something to make the State of Israel look bad.
No Arab country has any intention of allowing Palestinians to settle in their respective countries, because
The UNRWA operates 68 refugee camps, located in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as Gaza and the West Bank. Most were established in the wake of the Israeli War for Independence, (1948 et. seq.), and 10 or so were established in the wake of the 'Six Day War', (1967). In the wake of Israel's War of Independence both the Palestiniaqns and the Israelis were faced with urgent refugee problems.
Israel faced the problem of some 700,000 Jews expelled from various Middle Eastern countries. She dealt with the problem by welcoming the refugees, and working to integrate them into the. larger Israeli society.
There are not, and to my knowledge,never have been, Israeli refugee camps. At the same time, there was a similar refugee problem with refugees on the Palestinian side of the equation. Their refugee problems were due to displacement caused by the Nakba. (The Nakba is an Arabic word that means "catastrophe". It refers to the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and homeland during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The Nakba also includes the destruction of Palestinian culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.)
Palestinians who had fled in anticipation of an Arab pogrom that would drive the Jews into the sea, found themselves stateless when their militarily incompetent champions got their hats handed to them. There were about 700,000 displaced Palestinians in the wind, and the solution proposed and implemented by the UN was to put them in camps. What was a large but manageable problem of dealing with a displaced population has, over the ensuing 75 years, become an intractable problem involving over 5 million souls. That's the difference between a civilized society and a primative one. The Palestinian people suffer for the sins of their supposed leaders.
Whatever evidence was put before the UN must have been quite persuasive, because the UNRWA fired all 12 employees accused of involvement.
The UNRWA is 75 years old, and has always been rumored to be sympathetic to the different Palestinian militant groups. The group runs clinics, schools, and many of the services usually provided by municipalities. Gaza in particular, and the larger Palestinian population centers, (primarily on the West Bank), have been largely transformed into a welfare state.
The UNRWA plays the role of the benevolent father figure, and those 'poor' Palestinians are reduced to the role of mendicant; subsisting on alms and cash from the good offices of the UN. Henceforth, there will be less cash dedicated to supporting the Palestinians.
The US, along with Britain, Australie, Canada, and Finland, Iceland, and Germany, have suspended their contributions to UNRWA, at least for the moment
Perhaps the most significant difference is that the Israelis are smart and ambitious and believe in the value of education. They have "..made the desert bloom...", as the old cliche goes.
The Palestinians, by contrast, have languished in the ghettos and refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, plotting to take their revenge on the Jews, rather than rolling up their sleeves and making a nation for themselves.
Much of the blame for their plight can be laid at the feet of the larger Arab world, which has used the Palestinian diaspora as something to make the State of Israel look bad.
No Arab country has any intention of allowing Palestinians to settle in their respective countries, because
The UNRWA operates 68 refugee camps, located in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as Gaza and the West Bank. Most were established in the wake of the Israeli War for Independence, (1948 et. seq.), and 10 or so were established in the wake of the 'Six Day War', (1967). In the wake of Israel's War of Independence both the Palestiniaqns and the Israelis were faced with urgent refugee problems.
Israel faced the problem of some 700,000 Jews expelled from various Middle Eastern countries. She dealt with the problem by welcoming the refugees, and working to integrate them into the. larger Israeli society.
There are not, and to my knowledge,never have been, Israeli refugee camps. At the same time, there was a similar refugee problem with refugees on the Palestinian side of the equation. Their refugee problems were due to displacement caused by the Nakba. (The Nakba is an Arabic word that means "catastrophe". It refers to the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and homeland during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The Nakba also includes the destruction of Palestinian culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.)
Palestinians who had fled in anticipation of an Arab pogrom that would drive the Jews into the sea, found themselves stateless when their militarily incompetent champions got their hats handed to them. There were about 700,000 displaced Palestinians in the wind, and the solution proposed and implemented by the UN was to put them in camps. What was a large but manageable problem of dealing with a displaced population has, over the ensuing 75 years, become an intractable problem involving over 5 million souls. That's the difference between a civilized society and a primative one. The Palestinian people suffer for the sins of their supposed leaders.
The camps in question have alway featured gunplay and intrigue. Over the past few months, there has been fighting in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, adjacent to the Lebanese port city of Sidon, located between Beirut to the north and Tyre to the south.
No one has been successful in controlling the violence, but things have moderated to the point where it's been reduced to a smolder. Perhaps the most notorious case of camp violence occurred in the Sabra refugee camp, (Lebanon), and the adjacent Shatilla neighborhood which was reported to have cost between 3,500 and 5,000 Palestinians their lives in 1982. Even as Gaza burns, both Egypt and Jordan have refused to provide sanctuary to the displaced Palestinians. Wherever they go, chaos follows...
No one has been successful in controlling the violence, but things have moderated to the point where it's been reduced to a smolder. Perhaps the most notorious case of camp violence occurred in the Sabra refugee camp, (Lebanon), and the adjacent Shatilla neighborhood which was reported to have cost between 3,500 and 5,000 Palestinians their lives in 1982. Even as Gaza burns, both Egypt and Jordan have refused to provide sanctuary to the displaced Palestinians. Wherever they go, chaos follows...
