UNRWA's first report on its progress, A/1451/Rev.1, is a fascinating document on many levels. It describes its progress in the first six months of its existence.
Here are some excerpts:
HISTORY
6. When UNRPR was set up by the General Assembly, it was presumably with the idea that the problem would be resolved in a matter of months. During the summer of 1949 it became obvious that some other approach was needed, and the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East was dispatched to study and report on conditions and to make recommendations concerning future activity. After three months of exhaustive study in the field, the Mission's interim report to the General Assembly in November 1949(1) recommended the creation of a new agency, which would not only carry out relief on a diminishing scale, but would inaugurate a works programme in which able-bodied refugees could become self-supporting and at the same time create works of lasting benefit to the refugees and the countries concerned. The recommendations of the report were embodied in resolution 302 (IV) which provided for the setting up of UNRWAPRNE. The final report signed in Paris in December covered the subject comprehensively and has been accepted by the Agency as its guide.2
UNRWA did not intend at first to be a permanent agency. It really tried to provide jobs for the Palestinian Arabs and to work with Arab governments to help integrate them. The Arabs' recalcitrance is the single major reason we still have so many "refugees" today, and after a few years UNRWA gave up and turned into a giant, self-perpetuating welfare system.
NUMBERS OF REFUGEES
16. The Agency has accepted as realistic the figures set forth in appendix B of the first interim report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission, but recognizes that the numbers have increased in conformity with the extremely high birthrate of the refugees. There is reason to believe that births are always registered for ration purposes, but deaths are often, if not usually, concealed so that the family may continue to collect rations for the deceased.
17...The figures for Lebanon (128,000) are confused due to the fact that many Lebanese nationals along the Palestinian frontier habitually worked most of the year on the farms or in the citrus groves of Palestine. With the advent of war they came back across the border and claimed status as refugees. Only an exhaustive and expensive census, now under way although ardently opposed by those concerned, will divide worthy from false claimants.
18. The former Trans-Jordan and the portion of Palestine remaining in Arab hands and now annexed to the Hashimite Kingdom of the Jordan received the greatest influx of refugees of any of the countries adjacent to Israel -- probably more than half of all the refugees. For various reasons, the largest number of fictitious names on the ration lists pertain to refugees in this area. All earlier attempts at a close census of those entitled to relief have been frustrated, but a comprehensive survey, now under way, is achieving worthwhile results in casting up names of dead people for which rations are still drawn, fraudulent claims regarding numbers of dependents (it is alleged that it is a common practice for refugees to hire children from other families at census time), and in eliminating duplications where families have two or more ration cards. The census, though stubbornly resisted, will eliminate many thousands from the lists of refugees now in receipt of rations.
19. Unauthorized movement between camps, and sometimes across international boundaries, as well as deep-rooted reluctance of refugees to reveal personal information to census-takers, make it very difficult to obtain accurate statistics concerning them.
As far as I know, the census was never completed and the problems of exaggerated numbers of refugees remain, even today. A sense of entitlement will turn many people into lazy opportunists, and if they have no disincentive to act that way this behavior gets passed on to the next generation, and the following ones as well.
MORALE
26. Strangely enough the general morale of the refugees is higher than might be expected after spending more than two years in exile under most trying conditions. Real trouble-makers are confined to a very small proportion of the total number of refugees, and food strikes and work stoppages are generally considered to be the result of organized pressure groups.
27. During August, a campaign of bitter criticism of the Agency, its motives and personnel, was carried on in a large section of the Arab Press. The rather unvaried monotony of the charges gave indication of central inspiration. An organized series of work stoppages occurred in Lebanon in early September wherein small groups threatened the workers in such a manner that they declined to work for a time. The Syrian office of the Agency, located in Damascus, was destroyed by explosives and a bomb was thrown at a truckload of workers in Lebanon. Threats of violence have been made against individual employees of the Agency. It seems likely that the two campaigns--denunciations in certain sections of the Arab Press and violence--are closely related and spring from the same source which fostered the food strikes in the early days of the Agency.
Arab governments in general considered UNRWA the enemy, and they did everything possible to thwart any chance of solving the refugee crisis, instead wanting to use the refugees as pawns to pressure Israel. This attitude has not changed in sixty years.
REFUGEES IN ISRAEL
30. In Israel, the Agency has provided relief to two types of refugees, Jews who fled inside the borders of Israel during the fighting, and Arabs in most instances displaced from one area in Palestine to another. Jewish refugees at first numbered 17,000 but, during the current summer, all but 3,000 of these have been absorbed into the economic life of the new State. Arabs on relief were first numbered at 31,000 but many have been placed in circumstances in which they are self-supporting, so that it was possible to reduce the number to 24,000 at the end of August 1950.
31. Recent discussions with the Israel Government indicate that the idea of relief distribution is repugnant to it, and the Agency was informed that already many of the 24,000 remaining refugees were employed and that all able-bodied refugees desiring employment could be absorbed on works projects if they would register at the government registry offices for that purpose. It was stated that they all have status as citizens of Israel and are entitled to treatment as such. It was claimed that after cessation of relief, aged and infirm refugees would be cared for under the normal social welfare machinery of Israel. The Agency was requested to share financially in a programme of re-establishment of displaced Arabs now within the boundaries of Israel.
How great a contrast is there between how Israel treated its Arab refugees and how the Arab nations did! Within a short time after the war, Israel managed to fully integrate every single Arab refugee as citizens (and they eventually allowed tens of thousands more to come into Israel for family re-unification.) Not only did Israel inform the UNRWA that its services would not be needed for long, but said that the very idea of an outside agency taking responsibility for its Arab citizens is repugnant!
So while the number of Arab claimants for UNRWA services went down from 31,000 to zero in a relatively short time, in every Arab country those numbers only increased.
Fully half of the report deals with specific works projects that were attempted to allow the refugees to find jobs. As we now know, most of these projects went nowhere because of fears by Arab countries that their Palestinian Arab brethren would want to actually stay in their countries as equal citizens.
The appendix of charity organizations and NGOs that contributed to help the Palestinian Arabs does not mention a single Muslim charity.
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So while the number of Arab claimants for UNRWA services went down from 31,000 to zero in a relatively short time, in every Arab country those numbers only increased.
Fully half of the report deals with specific works projects that were attempted to allow the refugees to find jobs. As we now know, most of these projects went nowhere because of fears by Arab countries that their Palestinian Arab brethren would want to actually stay in their countries as equal citizens.
The appendix of charity organizations and NGOs that contributed to help the Palestinian Arabs does not mention a single Muslim charity.
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UNRWA just had a meeting where they described their financial problems in providing services - works programs are now tiny initiatives run by UNRWA itself, and in many ways UNRWA itself is a Palestinian Arab work program as it employs many descendants of refugees. It has become rabidly anti-Israel and intensely political.Even though there are far more "refugees" today than could ever fit in a nascent "Palestine," UNRWA still refuses to request that Arab governments do their part to reduce the number of stateless Arabs.
Jordan hosts some 41% of all "refugees" today. Yet Jordan was the only Arab country to extend citizenship to non-Jewish Palestinians. One must wonder, why there are still refugee camps in Jordan 62 years after 1948? The vast majority of camp residents are full Jordanian citizens! Yet, because UNRWA is now a mere self-perpetuating technocracy, Jordan has no incentive to integrate these citizens into its population even today - 60 years after Israel did exactly that.
Jordan hosts some 41% of all "refugees" today. Yet Jordan was the only Arab country to extend citizenship to non-Jewish Palestinians. One must wonder, why there are still refugee camps in Jordan 62 years after 1948? The vast majority of camp residents are full Jordanian citizens! Yet, because UNRWA is now a mere self-perpetuating technocracy, Jordan has no incentive to integrate these citizens into its population even today - 60 years after Israel did exactly that.
As a follow-up to my post on the 1950 UNRWA report, here are some highlights from the 1951 report.
5.... In the large towns such as Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, there was, in addition, a fairly large floating population of unskilled labourers, working in the ports, or for the oil companies, who had migrated from the country owing to the pressure on the land. Since the last census under the Mandate was taken, as far back as 1931, such persons were mostly registered in their village of origin, although for many years they had lived and worked in the large towns. The effect of this unrecorded movement of population has been to introduce a double source of error into any estimates of the number of persons who could have become refugees; since more people came out of towns in Israeli-held territory than were registered there and fewer people were actually living in the villages of the area which was later annexed to Jordan.Here is another source of error of counting the numbers of refugees: People who really lived in Jordan and the West Bank would work in the coastal cities for much of the year. They fled along with the other Arabs, but they had homes to go to. Even so, they seem to have been counted as "refugees" anyway.
15. Today, after nearly three years, the refugees are still scattered over 100,000 square miles of territory in five different countries; still dependent on relief and without knowledge of the future; the victims of circumstances they are unable to grasp. Legally, humanly and economically speaking, they are little better off than they were when they first left Palestine, since against the sporadic and low-paid work that some of them have found must be set the exhaustion of the resources that others managed to bring out. No government, except in Jordan, has proclaimed their right to stay.
28. The number of refugees housed in UNRWAPRNE camps has risen by some twenty per cent since May 1950, and is still rising. Many thousands of new applications are received each month. These originate from (I) families who have hitherto managed to maintain themselves in lodgings but are now too poor to pay the rent however small; (II) new arrivals from Israel; (III) refugees who have been evicted for quarrelling with the villagers or for cutting down the fruit trees for fuel; and, lately (IV), some considerable movement of the population in the search of water, particularly in Jordan, as a result of the severe drought that has dried up wells and cisterns.Why were there new arrivals from Israel in 1950 and 1951? I am not aware of any expulsions or mass flight during that time period; on the contrary, as I showed in the previous post, Israel bent over backwards to accommodate the refugees and displaced persons. My only guess is that some Arabs either wanted to go to the same camps as their families; they were disgusted at the idea of living in a Jewish state; or they decided that it would be better to move to a camp with free lodging, education and medical care than to try to find jobs in Israel.
This next section is probably the most accurate description of how Palestinian Arab refugees thought, written before UNRWA became hopelessly corrupt:
(c) The morale of the refugeeIn 1951, Arabs from Palestine exhibited zero sense of nationalism or unity. The idea that they self-identified with a nation called Palestine is a joke. To be sure, they were attached to their homes, but these ties were familial and tribal, not national. As we saw during the 1948 war, Palestinian Arabs would not fight for any other villages besides their own.
32. Owing to his intense individualism, the refugee has little sense of solidarity with his fellows. The concept of giving increased relief to the very needy is incomprehensible to him, making it very difficult for the Agency to distribute welfare goods to special cases. In the same way, much persuasion is necessary before he is willing to contribute labour for the greater good of the camp, or even for mending his own tent, unless he is paid for it.
33. To his natural individualistic tendencies has now been added the characteristics of the typical refugee mentality, and its passive expectation of continued benefits. In the crowded and abnormal existence that the refugee leads, moral values tend to deteriorate and the authority of the head of the family, which would formerly have kept such behaviour in check, has seriously declined; yet, in spite of this, he has retained his inherent dignity to a remarkable degree.A welfare state generates laziness. To be sure, many Palestinian Arabs took the initiative and started finding jobs; tens of thousands moved to Gulf states in the 1950s and helped build countries there from scratch. However, the camps tended to attract the ones who felt a sense of entitlement, and they in turn bred more of the same. This mentality infested UNRWA itself over the years, as the agency lost interest in finding jobs for the PalArabs.
34. It is probably true to say that the refugees are physically better off than the poorest levels of the population of the host countries; and in some cases better off, in the way of social services, than they were in Palestine; but, in their minds, the overwhelming fact of being uprooted from their homes, dependent and yet insecure, is more than enough to cancel out these benefits.The mentality can be understood in 1951, but the fact that it has become institutionalized today is one of the greatest failings of UNRWA. The report mentions a number of times how its services were very attractive to neighboring Arabs who were not directly affected by the war.
35. The United Nations, in particular certain of the great Powers, are considered by the refugee to be entirely responsible for both his past and present misfortunes, and for his future fate. They say that they have lost faith in United Nations action since, after more than thirty months, the General Assembly resolution recommending their return home, although not revoked, has never been implemented and no progress has been made towards compensation.
36. The relief given by the Agency is therefore considered as a right, and as such is regarded as inadequate. Individual efforts to explain the situation to them are usually in vain; the refugee will listen politely but in the end remains convinced both of the bitter injustice done to him, and the fact that little or nothing is being done to rectify it.
37. The desire to go back to their homes is general among all classes; it is proclaimed orally at all meetings and organized demonstrations, and, in writing, in all letters addressed to the Agency and all complaints handed in to the area officers. Many refugees are ceasing to believe in a possible return, yet this does not prevent them from insisting on it, since they feel that to agree to consider any other solution would be to show their weakness and to relinquish their fundamental right, acknowledged even by the General Assembly. They are, moreover, sceptical of the promised payment of compensation.
38. This sense of injustice, frustration and disappointment has made the refugee irritable and unstable. There are occasional strikes, demonstrations and small riots. There have been demonstrations over the census operation, strikes against the medical and welfare services, strikes for cash payment instead of relief, strikes against making any improvements, such as school buildings, in camps in case this might mean permanent resettlement; experimental houses to replace tents, erected by the Agency, have been torn down; and for many months, in Syria and Lebanon, there was widespread refusal to work on agency road-building and afforestation schemes.This mentality became institutionalized, and eventually accepted by the UN. The nadir of the same counterproductive thinking that caused the 1951 refugees to tear down houses may have occurred in 1977, with UN Resolution 32/90, in response to Israel's having built permanent housing for Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip. The resolution called on Israel to return the Arabs to the camps rather than let them have real homes, thus showing how important the perpetuation of the "refugee" problem had become to the UN itself thirty years after it had started.
39. This then is rich and tempting soil for exploitation by those with other motives than the welfare of the refugee. Happily, there are defences that blunt this effort. There are enduring religious defences and there still exist resistant strengths of communal ties and leadership. There are sustaining services of food, shelter, health and education from many sources. There are refugees who left no assets in Palestine. There are refugees who wish to live in Arab countries. There are refugees who have sought and found new roots.The refugees who no longer needed to be on the UN dole were therefore ignored in future reports, and the idea that all Palestinian Arabs are needy refugees became the conventional wisdom in part since UNRWA had no responsibility for the many who actually took control of their lives.
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