The New Arab Refugees

...Most Hebrew newspapers already refer to them as parts of Israel...

...Both conquerer and conquered are in strange positions...

...The refugees, they argue, have been pampered far too long and must now be shown the new realities of life...

...They included some Arab residents of Kalkilya, adjoining Israel's former frontier at its most narrow strip of territory, who were forced to leave their village...

...Egypt was criticized for keeping the refugees locked in the narrow confines of the Gaza strip, and Jordan for inflating ration lists and failing to find jobs for those in camps...

...After the recent war nearly the total population of Gaza and some three-quarters of the West Bank Jordanians remained in their homes...

...Israel now encounters the prospect of having to govern for an indeterminate but lengthy period nearly one and a half million Arabs, many of them refugees from land previously incorporated into the Jewish state...

...UNRWA officials are jealous of their prerogatives as international civil servants...

...We have a relative in Amman...

...Since the war, little has been heard about the new Syrian refugees...

...Israeli officials charged with responsibility for the occupied territories and the Arab refugees look upon UNRWA and its staff with a jaundiced eye...

...Some of these moderates would accept a bi-national solution in which Palestine would be reunited into a single state governed by both Jews and Arabs, or some form of federation between Israel, Arab Palestine, and possibly Jordan...

...However, those who took to the roads were in danger...

...Pilot projects for refugee resettlement are thus integrated into plans for overall rehabilitation of the West Bank...

...Once a family or group of families headed toward Jordan, they found it difficult to return...

...One of their leaders was recently deported across the Jordan River for insisting that he was still a subject of King Hussein, and not a new citizen of the Jewish state...

...Later, after the fighting, additional tens of thousands left their homes to cross the Jordan River...

...Less violent but equally fervent are those Palestinians who urge passive non-cooperation and insist that they remain Arab rather than Israeli subjects...

...The policies of the Ministry of Education differ...

...Their desperate acts fortify the views of Israeli hard-liners who say that Arabs understand only force...

...After we have worked out our plans we will involve Arabs," explained one top official...

...Yearly each Director or Commissioner General of UNRWA reported these feelings in his annual report to the United Nations General Assembly...

...The "realities" differ from one government agency to another...

...True, the farm has been cut off from most of its pre-June markets and is going through a difficult period of readjustment, but there are Israeli officials who are interested in its continued success...

...Israelis, with few exceptions, hesitate to divulge their concept of a peace settlement, and each moderate Palestine Arab leader is waiting for some other leader to take the initiative which will unfreeze the stalemate...

...The 1967 refugee situation differs from 1947-48 not only in numbers...

...Only two days after their premature celebrations, the war fever that had rampaged through the Palestine Arab community was broken...

...By occupying all the West Bank and Gaza, Israel now controls all territory disputed in the "Palestine Problem...

...Although UNRWA is authorized to operate in Israel-held regions, beneath the surface lurk mutual suspicions...

...So far they have failed to make any impression on Israel's security forces...

...There are no precise figures on either disaster, but we know that the flight last June was much smaller...

...Israel's record is thus relatively good compared to other Western nations in recent history...

...Jericho had become one of the world's largest refugee centers during the past twenty years...

...The most adamant have taken to guerrilla fighting and saboThere are extra dividends when you give The Progressive for Christmas tage...

...The largest number of such "old" refugees came from the Jericho region near the Jordan River...

...Many who left Jordan sent monthly subsidies to their families in the Palestine camps to supplement the meager U.N...

...With each passing day the status quo becomes less and less provisional, and Israel looks more and more like a larger and more Arab nation...

...If for no other reason than for the sake of the Palestinians, the conflict with Israel must be resolved in peace and compromise—by both sides...

...others remained in makeshift housing in Israel-occupied territory...

...The majority of the UNRWA Advisory Committee is comprised of representatives from Arab host countries with whom each UNRWA chief had to contend before submitting his report...

...However, the numbers of unauthorized returnees may never be known, since long stretches of the Jordan River have received only cursory surveillance by Israel's soldiers...

...Somewhat less than half of the 180,000 to 220,000 Palestine Arabs who fled in June were "new" refugees...

...For the military, "reality" means acceptance of the new status quo, recognition that the Arab armed forces have been smashed, and abandonment of any attempt to create either guerrilla activity or political dissidence...

...This includes approximately half of the 1947-48 Palestine Arab refugees...

...A bewildering number and variety of government committees have been established to deal with problems in the occupied areas...

...Only weeks later when a modest repatriation was authorized did some 14,000 Palestinians come back...

...ration...

...The terrorist activities have also subjected fellow Palestinians to curfews, military searches, and the other discomforts of martial law...

...The major town abandoned in the war was Kuneitra, the once "impregnable" center of the proud Syrian army...

...UNRWA schools were adorned with maps and slogans reminding their pupils of the day of return, defeat of the enemy, and redemption of the homeland...

...My son works in Kuwait and sends money every month...

...Among the former Jordanian cabinet members and other high government officials can be found a few who recognize that the June war created an entirely new situation in the Middle East They believe that Arab attitudes towrard Israel must change...

...They are Palestinians who fled during 1947-48 from Israel-held regions, settled in West Jordan, and fled again from Jewish rule last June...

...Israel thus faces a situation radically different from that which it faced when it took over some 15,000 leaderless Arabs in 1948...

...The closer they came to the river, the more encouragement they received to keep moving east...

...Since Israel has become the largest Arab refugee host country, it now faces the practical challenge of dealing with the problem...

...In the few months since this new relationship developed, there have been numerous incidents in which Israeli security forces raided refugee camps, arrested Arab UNRWA employes suspected of subversion, and otherwise asserted what they consider to be their prerogatives...

...A week earlier, most of the fleeing Arabs had been rejoicing about the imminent demise of Israel...

...They are men who have not only been close to, but who actually held power in the Arab world...

...Even if the occupied regions or parts of them are returned to Jordan, the planners reason, schemes now initiated will raise living standards, facilitate easy absorption of the Arab refugees, and thus lessen the economic causes of unrest in the Middle East...

...And even the Communist Party is split into a pro-Arab faction and a small group which insists on peace before evacuation of Arab territory...

...Although some Israelis talk of territorial concessions and possible return of additional refugees after peace, there is no political party, other than the Communist, which calls for major concessions now...

...UNRWA teachers and the books in UNRWA schools did not disguise these sentiments...

...Until last June, Israelis were the loudest critics of the Arab host countries, claiming that they had done nothing to solve the refugee problem despite their potential to do so...

...In Jerusalem, too, several hundred families were forced to abandon their homes to make way for municipal "improvement" schemes hastily devised within hours after the shooting stopped...

...During the few days of absence more than half of the villagers' homes were deliberately blown up, leaving Kalkilya looking like the scene of a major battle, which it was not...

...Thousands flocked to Damascus, Syria's capital, where they are jammed into abandoned houses and slum areas, or into property and homes seized from Syrian Jews who bore the unmerciful brunt of reaction to the defeat of Syria's army...

...Amicable working relationships have been established between the international agency and Israeli officials...

...The activities of its Arab affairs division are completely dominated by Jewish educators who feel that teaching in Arab countries has been "fascist oriented," imbuing its students with psychopathic hatreds and irrational attitudes...

...What about the Arabs in occupied Palestine...

...There are so many committees that even the military government authorities are not aware of all their activities, although the military holds de facto control of all occupied territories...

...Strangely, the Syrian government has said little about the problem in contrast to the great outcry stirred in the Arab world and in the West about those who fled from Jordan's West Bank...

...Israeli tourists are becoming increasingly attached to the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights...

...Still others had emigrated to the Persian Gulf, leaving behind their U.N...

...These settlements included three small villages in the Latrun enclave which had cut off the main road from Tel Aviv to Jewish Jerusalem for twenty years, and one or two villages in the Hebron area near the former Jewish settlements in the Etzion block...

...Refugee camps stretched for miles in and around the ancient town...

...By the time they reached the blown-out Jordan River bridges, few, if any, were permitted to return...

...In two other areas Arabs who lived in strategically-placed villages were forced to abandon them and their houses were destroyed...

...Of more than one million Arabs who fell under Israeli army control, not more than twenty or thirty thousand were actually driven from their homes...

...Several have worked in close collaboration with directors of Musa Alami's agricultural school and experiment station, assisting it to restore and improve its prewar production levels...

...Among them are prominent physicians, attorneys, jurists, teachers, former cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and other high ranking government officials...

...From personal observation, during and immediately after the June war, it was clear to me that most Palestinians who remained in their houses were not driven away...

...The crux of Israeli policy toward refugees who left the occupied territories and toward those who remained is that both problems are subsidiary to the overall dispute with the Arab states...

...When questioned about the cause of their flight at the Allenby Bridge, few responded rationally...

...Their views, they insist, can be made public only if all Arab leaders agree...

...The military's "no-nonsense" policy is expressed in blowing up Arab houses suspected of harboring snipers or saboteurs, the sudden encirclement of a village and arrest of "uncooperative" men, or deportation and exile of leaders who publicly express their discontent with Jewish authority...

...Peretz has written two books on the Middle East: "The Middle East Today" and "Israel and the Palestine Arabs...

...Unless and until Egypt, Jordan, and Syria agree to direct peace negotiations and recognition of the state of Israel, there can be no resolution of, or concessions on, issues such as the refugees' return, evacuation of occupied territories, or retreat from the Suez Canal...

...Probably eighty to ninety per cent of the Syrian occupants of the heights fled, leaving behind fewer than 7,000—mostly Druze villagers...

...By far the largest number of its employes were nationalist Palestinians who regarded Israel with venomous hatred...

...In all these instances many "evacuees" crossed over to Jordan...

...Israeli suspicions of UNRWA are revealed by the Hebrew press and government officials...

...They believe the sooner the Agency ends its operations in the Middle East, the better...

...While they are willing to discuss such proposals in privacy, they have so far been reluctant to join with Israeli counterparts in a public proclamation of their views...

...There are ministerial committees, committees of directors-general, committees of experts and specialists which include agronomists, urban planners, demographers, sociologists, horticulturists, and others, and a high level committee of university professors which cuts across many of the other committees...

...identity or ration cards...

...UNRWA's Commissioner General now finds himself in the peculiar position of traveling frequently between his organization's headquarters in Beirut and Israel's capital in Jerusalem...

...What this means is not quite clear...

...Today only two or three hundred bedraggled residents still live in the deserted and ransacked city...

...Only a vague, but awesome, fear drove most refugees on their perilous hegira...

...They, too, argue that "now is not the time," or that such a proclamation would embarrass Arab leaders abroad...

...The 1967 Arab exodus differed both in size and significance from the flight during the 1948 Palestine War...

...The most obvious defect in this wide-ranging scheme of economic improvement and social rehabilitation is that not a single Arab leader within Israel's expanded borders—either Israeli, Jordanian, or Gazian—has been invited to play an active role in its conception or execution...

...The longer the status quo remains, the more entrenched Israel becomes...

...Although all officials working in the occupied regions are under military authority, they do not all reflect the military concept of "how to deal with the Arabs...

...The new refugees include approximately 80,000 to 90,000 Syrians who fled in the heat of battle from the heights overlooking Israel's northeastern border settlements...

...Nothing came of his second thoughts, since the military threw out the idea of involving Arab leadership in top level planning "for the present...

...Only by showing strength can Israel make clear to the Arab mind that its concept of Israel and the Jewish people has been filled with unrealistic delusions...

...DON PERETZ is a professor of political science and director of the Southwest Asia and North Africa Program at the State University of New York at Bing-hamton...

...The plans include revised estimates of how to use the Jordan River waters, howr to change crop patterns, how to market Arab produce within Palestine and abroad, and how to alter urban-rural patterns of life...

...Approximately 100,000 Arabs are refugees for a second time in twenty years...

...Not only is it difficult to identify them all, but also to locate the center of control or direction...

...men noted for their contributions to the Arab nationalist cause, for their intellectual and professional attainments...

...Later most Kalkilyans were permitted to return when world opinion caused Israeli security authorities to have second thoughts about the evacuation...

...So the stalemate continues...

...Until June the international organization had avoided too intimate association with Israel...

...In recent years the camps had become, for all practical purposes, permanent settlements complete with all the infrastructure of established village life, including paved main roads, schools, health centers, electricity, water, and other conveniences...

...Once immediate fear of the unknown had passed they gave tangible reasons for leaving: "We don't want to live under the Jews...

...Although UNRWTA officials have raised questions about these incidents, Israel has shown that it firmly and definitiveTHE PROGRESSIVE ly controls all occupied Palestine...

...His articles have been published in Foreign Affairs, The Reporter, New Republic, The Commonweal, Christian Century, and others...

...Although the number of Arabs who fled their homes is large, many more remained, including men of stature, prestige, and influence...

...The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) must also face a radically new situation...

...The vision of Palestine redeemed was lost and a new generation of refugees was created...

...Representative of this group are Muslim religious dignitaries in Jerusalem who cannot tolerate Israeli control of the holy places nor, for that matter, of any Arab territory...

...He was in Israel during the June war and returned there during July and August...

...On second thought he agreed that it might be useful both politically and psychologically to involve Arab leadership at an early stage, and to call the matter to cabinet attention...

...The New Arab Refugees by DON PERETZ I became aware of the new Arab refugee exodus last June only a few hours after I witnessed the joyous prayers of Jewish combat soldiers at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem...

...Now how will I be able to live without it...

...For example, specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture have shown interest in ways to increase Arab crop output...

...Thousands of their occupants worked in Jerusalem, Amman, and in other Jordanian towns...

...Soon after assuming responsibility for the occupied regions, Israeli planners became aware that the refugee problem could not be solved outside the context of overall economic and political plans for Gaza and the West Bank...

...The total number of Arabs who recently fled from Israel-occupied areas of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan is about 300,000 compared to more than 700,000 who fled twenty years ago...

...All this must be changed, they insist...

...Contrary to some propaganda tales circulated in the United States, Musa Alami's farm near Jericho was not destroyed, but is operating as well as can be expected under the occupation...

...Two types of refugees were created by the June war, the "new" and the "old" (or "double") refugees...

...They too have begun to display a variety of thoughts about their dilemma...