Aiding the Arab Refugees
HEUVEL, WILLIAM J. VANDEN
THINKING ALOUD Aiding the Arab Refugees By William J. vanden Heuvel How you view the current Middle East dilemma depends ultimately on whether or not you accept Israel as a sovereign reality. To...
...In 1956, when Israel had temporary control, many of the Gaza refugees came forward to cooperate...
...Thus the conflict does not simply revolve around borders or compensation or water rights...
...The region at present offers gainful employment to many of the refugees...
...Let construction on one plant begin...
...We will wait...
...In Gaza, 350,000 people have endured a rootless life in camps little better than prisons...
...As long as there is a chance of Egypt's resuming control, the refugees in Gaza will fear being caught again in the vise of changing political fortunes...
...A consortium of nations could easily provide the necessary funds, including capital for desalinization plants...
...Most important is the de facto resettlement of the refugees...
...To facilitate this, Israel should again make clear its willingness to compensate Arab refugees for any legitimate claim regarding property abandoned at the time of the 1948 War...
...First, Western countries could implement emigration programs to get at least 25,000 refugees on their way to a new life in friendly nations within the next 12 months...
...The likelihood, to be sure, is that a political stalemate will continue for an indefinite time...
...We were talking about the possibilities of an autonomous Arab state that could supervise and direct the resettlement of the refugees, and I assumed a mutual desire that further war should be avoided...
...Instead, international and economic pressure should be kept on Nasser to accord Israel recognition??for unless Egypt takes the lead, no other Arab nation can risk the internal political consequences...
...Three choices could be opened to them: 1. Emigration to other countries, like Australia...
...Certainly it will further complicate the intolerable situation of the Palestinian Arab refugees...
...Approximately one million people have been living under the legal status of "refugee" in the border lands of Israel...
...Second, a contractural arrangement??for example, between unwra and a private international agency, such as the Community Development Foundation??could be concluded, financed by the consortium of nations, with the single and immediate purpose of resettling the refugees of one specific camp within a set time period...
...To many Americans, the very suggestion that there could be any doubt about this will seem absurd...
...It is urgent that we keep talking, but we will accomplish very little unless we simultaneously begin to show that real resolutions are possible and that human misery can be relieved...
...The nations of the West could easily absorb 200,000 refugees within a three-year period if the exodus were properly organized and financed...
...The third step would be to persuade the United States to guarantee the $200 million needed to build a desalinization plant??preferably in Israel, perhaps at Ashdod, at a place where Arab refugees could share at least equally in the benefits of abundant water...
...Let Israel play whatever role the circumstances permit, but let an international third force lead the way without a further lapse of time...
...This lesson has not been forgotten...
...2. Absorption of a limited number by Israel...
...And if Israel's existence were accepted, of course the refugees could be resettled ??the land, the will, the water, the money are all available...
...Making matters worse, this narrow strip of desert claims, among the other costs of its vacuous existence, the highest birth rate in the world...
...Yet it is not absurd at all...
...has taken the lead in raising the question of emigration, both at the State Department and before international organizations...
...The refugee population there already approximates 600,000, and properly developed, the land can absorb a significant migration from Gaza as well...
...For Gamal Abdel Nasser and his allies, the objective continues to be annihilation of the "invaders" of the ancient lands of Palestine...
...Senator Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass...
...And Israel, in spite of its good intentions and unparalleled experience, cannot dominate that resettlement and still expect Arab cooperation...
...It will take three years to complete??meanwhile, the practicality of the project in both political and economic terms will become apparent and spur the rest of the program...
...Continued Israeli occupation of the lands west of the Jordan, on the other hand, represents a nettle of dangerous possibilities...
...Refugee" status, though, means unwra rations, so the rolls never decrease...
...William J. vanden Heuvel, a New York City lawyer, is president of the International Rescue Committee...
...They have no loyalty to Nasser, however, and little relationship to Egypt...
...Soviet intentions in the Mideast are unclear, but the USSR's financial stake there already gives it the leverage to either encourage or forestall such a development...
...But the financing arrangements are complex, and delay is inevitable if the area must wait for the multiple project to be accepted...
...The fierce reaction of my host quickly indicated that I was wrong: "Israel has won one war, two wars, now three wars...
...Indeed, Gaza has 150,000 additional inhabitants, and 80,000 of these permanent citizens also require some form of welfare assistance, unwra's modest technical programs have no real outlet for their trainees...
...Conversely, if total destruction remains the goal, then resettlement is impossible because the refugees' degrading, suffering condition is necessary to give some shadow of political equity to the Arab sword...
...He is an Arab: proud, infinitely patient, and wounded by a quarter-century of history that can hardly be comprehensible to him...
...It would take only a modest effort for the Arabs to carry on guerrilla warfare under circumstances that would undermine the vast international goodwill now available to Israel...
...After years of frenzied talk, they remain the victims, whose true attitude is practically impossible to fathom...
...Nevertheless, when an Israeli writer offered to take him to Tel Aviv, he wanted to go...
...It is true that despite the rigors of statelessness, the Palestinian refugee frequently considers himself superior to his Arab brothers because of his relatively high level of culture and achievement...
...Despite the efforts of unwra, there has been no prospect for resettlement or rehabilitation...
...Only the dole has been possible...
...Canada and Argentina, which have expressed interest in accepting such immigrants...
...The virulence of the Arab rancor was sharply impressed upon me recently one hot, grueling day in Nablus, a town in the area west of the Jordan River occupied by the Israeli Army...
...Of the three alternatives, settlement west of the Jordan River offers the greatest hope...
...The crucial point is to begin now, even if only on a modest scale compared to the scope of the problem...
...It would be wrong, too, in my judgment, to pressure King Hussein to reach a formal peace agreement with Israel at this time...
...Three steps could be taken immediately...
...His contradictory feelings, I could not help thinking, reflected the mistrust and uncertainty that will dominate the Middle East in the immediate years ahead...
...Jerusalem will probably be kept as one city??the capital of Israel??with appropriate international protection given to the Holy places and the Arab population...
...Private agencies with international experience in refugee resettlement could provide technical personnel...
...Naturally, it must be recognized that such property settlements are directly related to equitable consideration of similar claims by Jewish refugees forced to leave their homes in the Arab nations...
...When told of this, the unwra official said that it was irrelevant...
...But while the complexities of the situation may permit us political despair, they in no way remove our obligation to resolve the human tragedy...
...he wanted to see a modern city and had no fear of being harmed...
...If the number of those who want resettlement can be shown to be 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 before another year passes, a process of rehabilitation will have been set in motion that all the bitterness and political strife will find hard to stop...
...Extended Israeli occupation of the Sinai will offer no immediate problem because there is no indigenous population to confront, and it secures Israel against its most belligerent foe...
...He did not know that twice last June 5 Israel had communicated with King Hussein, pleading with him not to begin hostilities??and assuring him that no attack would be launched against Jordan...
...In fact, there is considerable substance to the argument in international law that Turkey never relinquished its sovereign claim to the Sinai when it granted administration of the territory to Egypt in the early part of the century...
...President Eisenhower and others have already lent their prestige to a plan for building three or more plants of this kind...
...others support their families by working in Kuwait and forwarding regular remittances...
...If there is to be any hope for a new and better life, they must be moved to a more viable territory...
...With the return of Egyptian authority they were peremptorily punished, and in many cases executed...
...The camp outside Hebron might be a good one to begin with...
...There will always be a final war, and we Arabs will win that...
...The refugees in Gaza have been schooled in the polemics of hatred against Israel...
...Let the Jews win 50 or 100 wars...
...Every major problem of the region, including the fate of the Arab refugees, is related to this fundamental attitude...
...3. Emigration to the Israeli-occupied territory west of the Jordan River...
...But for all the tenuousness of his historical and political links with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, it is still an illusion to think he would prefer alliance with Israel...
...My host was an official from the United Nations Work and Rehabilitation Administration (unwra), a director of a refugee camp, an Arab...
...Confronted by problems they feel can never be resolved, statesmen tend to settle for interminable discussion...
...for Israel it is survival...
...But while a de facto settlement with Jordan is required, Israel is entitled to secure its borders and to reject any Jordanian military build-up in the west bank area...
Vol. 50 • October 1967 • No. 21
