The Overseers of Jenin
FISCHER, DOV B.
The Overseers of Jenin What exactly is the U.N. doing in its refugee camps (with our money)? BY DOV B. FISCHER AMONG THE MAIN Mideast developments at this writing, it now appears that a United...
...This makes no sense...
...secretary general, is the only head of a United Nations body authorized to report directly to the General Assembly...
...By comparison, Saudi Arabia pledged $2,500,000—less than 1 percent of the UNRWA total and a minuscule fraction of the American contribution...
...program that has institutionalized dependency among four generations of Arabs—while the oil princes barely contribute...
...And why is the United States essentially bankrolling these camps when wealthy Arab oil sheikhdoms barely contribute...
...Perhaps oddest of all is the American role as chief bankroller...
...Thus, the overwhelming majority of its population are the children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of those who first were placed in UNRWA camps in 1950...
...So they were absorbed directly into the Israeli polity, and their offspring bear no indicia of refugee status...
...fact-finding commissions are all the rage, here is a subject for congressional fact-finders to investigate: Why are we throwing away all those tax dollars...
...Under the UNRWA's auspices, the number of refugees it serves has grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 3.8 million today...
...Oil-rich Kuwait pledged $2 million...
...There was no United Nations agency to serve their health, educational, and social needs...
...Its commissioner-general, appointed by the U.N...
...Iraq and Libya apparently had difficult years...
...In the aftermath of Israel's military incursion into the UNRWA refugee camp in Jenin, that agency has been under a microscope, partly because it has schooled four generations of Jenin children...
...It is remarkable, too, that the refugees and their descendants are still living in squalor half a century after the helping hand first was extended...
...Locally recruited "Palestinian refugees" make up 99 percent of UNRWA's staff in the 59 refugee camps that UNRWA operates in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the disputed territories that Israelis call "Judea and Samaria" and that the Arab world calls "the West Bank...
...According to U.N...
...According to the UNR-WA, it is the main provider of basic social services in all those camps...
...Palestinian Arabs alone are under the aegis of the UNRWA...
...The purpose of Arafat's Jenin visit is to draw public sympathy for residents of the United Nations refugee camp there, where fierce fighting occurred several weeks ago...
...should focus more on underlying questions: Why is the United Nations running refugee camps for people who claim to be living in their own land...
...Syria pledged $37,209...
...All the world's other refugees are served by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR...
...In 2000, for example, the United States pledged $89,560,000 towards the $337,014,742 total that UNRWA raised from all nations and sources in the world...
...It also is odd that a "refugee camp" under United Nations auspices has emerged as a terror center where Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade terrorists ran wild, stocking arms, building bomb-making factories, and recruiting and training children educated at UNRWA schools to detonate themselves...
...According to the UNRWA, its schools use the same curricula and textbooks as do the host government schools...
...The majority of UNRWA camps and nearly 60 percent of their residents are in the three Arab countries, the remainder in the areas administered by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority...
...auspices become a world center for recruiting and training suicide bombers...
...For Americans, perhaps our attention Dov B. Fischer is an attorney in Los Angeles...
...UNHCR serves the needs of more than 21.8 million refugees in 120 countries ranging from the Balkans, Colombia, West Africa, and Chechnya to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Timor, and the Horn of Africa...
...Egypt pledged $10,000...
...How could a refugee camp under U.N...
...records, the United States finances more than one-fourth of the cost of operating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA...
...In a time when U.N...
...The UNRWA is a subsidiary of the United Nations...
...In all, the UNRWA operates 266 schools with 242,000 students in the area administered by the Palestinian Authority...
...For example, the president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, is the child of Iranian Jewish refugees from that time...
...Palestinian Authority textbooks incorporate maps of the Middle East that omit Israel, and their texts delegitimize Israel, Judaism, and Jews...
...The UNRWA was founded by Resolution 302(IV) of December 8, 1949, and to this day remains unique within the world body as a relief agency assigned to serve only one class of people...
...The UNRWA's largest budget item is its school system, comprising half its budget and two-thirds of its staff...
...BY DOV B. FISCHER AMONG THE MAIN Mideast developments at this writing, it now appears that a United Nations commission will not be traveling to Jenin, but Yasser Arafat will be...
...With Washington now scouring its outlays in the face of projected budget deficits, it is remarkable that America continues to pump scores of millions into a U.N...
...they pledged nothing, although Iraq sends bounties of $25,000 each to the families of suicide bombers...
...Between 1947 and 1950, approximately 750,000 Jewish refugees were driven from Arab countries in the Middle East...
...Israel reports that approximately half the suicide bombers who have struck over the past 19 months were residents of the Jenin UNRWA camp or terrorists who were trained there...
Vol. 7 • May 2002 • No. 34
