In Short, There Are No "Palestinian" Refugees

In 1917, the British Empire wrested Palestine away from the Ottoman Turks and occupied the land there until 1947. Shortly thereafter, the UN decided to divide the area into a country for the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews accepted this partition plan even though they were only going to receive 20% of the land and even though Jerusalem would not be completely included either.

Not one of the 22 Arab states were happy with this partition simply because it provided Jews with a Jewish country. Not only did they reject it, but five Arab nations (with help from a couple others) decided to wipe it off the map within one day of its birth.

In order to protect Arabs, those nations warned the Arabs living in Israel at the time to flee, to get out of the way of their incoming armies. Those Arabs, approximately 539,000 of them, followed their instructions and voluntarily abandoned their homes and property so that the Jews would (in their hope) be murdered and eliminated. The Arab nations promised the Arabs that they could return and move into the Jews' houses after the anticipated successful annihilation of the Jews.

"We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." -Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nahbah ("The Secret Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari Nazareth, 1952

The Jews of Palestine tried to get the Arabs of Palestine to stay.

"Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and business open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe. [However] ...A large road convoy, escorted by [British] military... left Haifa for Beirut yesterday... Evacuation by sea goes on steadily. ...[Two days later, the Jews were] still making every effort to persuade the Arab populace to remain and to settle back into their normal lives in the towns... [as for the Arabs,] another convoy left Tireh for Transjordan, and the evacuation by sea continues. The quays and harbor are still crowded with refugees and their household effects, all omitting no opportunity to get a place on one of the boats leaving Haifa." -Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, quoted in Battleground by Samuel Katz

The Arabs refused, choosing instead to abandon their possessions and land. "The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce; they rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did." -Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, told to the United Nations Security Council, quoted in the UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p.14.

At the same time, 850,000 Jews were expelled from other Arab countries where they had lived for hundreds of years. Some of the people who were forced to leave were successful professionals, and they left behind their property which was, of course, immediately confiscated. They all fled to the newly born Israel.

These Jewish refugees were immediately accepted by the State of Israel. They were given shelter, food, and clothing. They were treated as equals.

The Arab refugees who had voluntarily abandoned their land and property for the other Arab nations were not welcomed. They were treated as unwelcome migrants and placed in dilapidated refugee camps. The UN, through UNRWA, gave assistance because the host countries refused to.

Eventually, the camps become training camps for terrorists whose goal was to eliminate Israel. The host countries provided the training, weapons, explosives, and yet, the Arabs still weren't considered full citizens.

Rather, these Arab countries kept the displaced Arabs in misery, fed their anger, and used them as tools against the Jews and Israel, and pawns in the worldwide media.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, a refugee is "someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence." Based on this definition, there are no Palestinian Arab refugees. The Jews of Palestine never forced any Arabs of Palestine to leave. Quite the contrary. The Jews practically begged the Arabs to stay.

The Haifa Workers Council posted a bulletin on April 28, 1948, stating, "...our city flourished and developed for the good of both Jewish and Arab residents... Do not destroy your homes with your own hands; do not bring tragedy upon yourselves by unnecessary evacuation and self-imposed burdens. By moving out you will be overtaken by poverty and humiliation. But in this city, yours and ours, Haifa, the gates are open for work, for life, and for peace, for you and your families."

Even Great Britain recognized what was going on. The Times of London reported on April 4, 1948, "...the Jewish Hagana asked (using loudspeakers) Arabs to remain at their homes but most of the Arab population followed their leaders who asked them to leave the country."

Additionally, even if they were refugees, this status does not extend to further generations.

"The refugee status of the Palestinians was perpetuated by the host countries and the Palestinian leadership, and by the international community, through the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the only UN body dedicated to a specific refugee group (all other refugees in the world are the responsibility of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees). As a result, refugee status was passed down from father to son to grandson over 50 years, so that, today, they number three million to four million. That is why the Palestinians now account for about one-fourth of the world's refugees -- an impressive figure until one imagines how many refugees there would be if all the Finns and Germans and Indian Hindus and Muslims and European Jews who were made refugees after the Second World War (not to speak of the Greeks and Turks and Armenians who were made refugees during and after the First World War) were still considered refugees in the year 2000." -Mark Heller, co-author of No Trumpets, No Drums: A Two-State Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In essence, the "Arab Palestinian Refugee" problem is of their own doing. They made the decision to abandon their land, property, and possessions because they assumed the Arab countries would kill the Jews and defeat Israel. Their intent was evil and their actions backfired. They trusted other Arab countries who, not only failed to protect and take care of them, but then used them as weapons against the Israeli state and the Jews. They are now trying to take advantage of other countries, the UN, and people's ignorance of history and law. We cannot allow this.

The Jews of Palestine had requested that the Arabs of Palestine stay. Israel has repeatedly gone above and beyond to make peace with them. They still turn it down. [Most of] The Arabs still hate and kill. History hasn't changed, and neither will the future. Even today, as of June 2014, 60% of "Palestinians" oppose a two-state solution; they prefer that their leaders "work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea." Two-thirds of those polled support continued resistance against the Jewish state. And if you're wondering about the remaining 40%... well, they view such a move as "part of a 'program of stages' to liberate all of historic Palestine later."

Let us be honest with them and ourselves and move forward from here. Let us focus on Israel, her Jewish future, and those who truly support her.

An Accurate History of Palestine, Israel, and the "Palestinians," Part II (1948 - Early 1950s)

PART II

War of 1948
One day after the State of Israel was born, on May 15, 1948, no less than five Arab nations invaded Israel. The new State fought against Syria and Lebanon in the north, Iraq and Transjordan (Jordan) in the east, Egypt (assisted by contingents from the Sudan) in the south, and Arabs and volunteers from other Arab countries from within. Being that Israel had just been born, these five Arab countries had superior armor, artillery, and air forces.

On May 31, the Haganah was renamed the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and suffered initial setbacks, but after three weeks, they were able to halt the offensive, stabilize the front, and even initiate some local offensive operations. By mid-July 1949, Israel was able to capture the upper Galilee, the Negev in the south (which had been allotted to the Jewish State by the UN), and end the war. The Arab countries signed Armistice Agreements; first came Egypt on February 24, 1949, Lebanon on March 23, 1949, Jordan on April 3, 1949, and Syria on July 20, 1949. Only Iraq did not sign an agreement. It preferred to withdraw its troops and hand over its sector to the Arab Legion of Jordan. In the end, not only did Israel eject the Arab forces, but it also took 5,000 square kilometers over and above the areas allocated to it by the United Nations.

As soon as the armistice agreements were signed, the IDF was disbanded. But it was too soon to do so. The former Arabs of Palestine (and neighboring Arab countries, in an effort to show Israel and the rest of the Arabs that they hadn't given up the war) started sending suicide troops across the ill-protected border to steal farm equipment, laying of mines, killing of individuals, and wholesale massacres. They were trained, equipped, and paid by Egyptian intelligence, but they operated from bases in Jordan (which caused Jordan to bear the brunt of the retaliation). Each time Israel would retaliate, the UN Security Council would condemn it.

Post-1948 War through the Early 1950s
Despite the refugee problem being admittedly caused by the Arabs fleeing (due to the Arab Higher Committee encouraging them to leave their lands) and the surrounding Arab states, Israel was still willing to take back the Arabs who had scattered in the hopes of an Arab victory in 1948.

On November 19, 1948, the General Assembly created the UN Relief for Palestinian Refugees, later renamed UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to dispense aid to the refugees. The Arab refugees of Palestine are the only refugee group that gets their own UN organization. All other refugees utilize the UN Refugee Agency. Regardless, UNRWA was originally given a budget of $50 million to assist the estimated 650,000-711,000 Arab refugees of Palestine (according to the UN).

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a refugee is someone who has been forced to leave a country because of war or for religious or political reasons. Recall that Israel never forced the Arabs to leave Palestine/Israel. In fact, Israel insisted and requested that they stay and help them build the country. The Arabs were the ones who rejected the Jewish request and abandoned their property.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, pursuant to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is someone "who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country" (emphasis added).

On another section of the UNHCR website, refugee is defined as "someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence." Again, the Jews of Palestine practically begged the Arabs to stay; the Jews were not the reason the Arabs left.

Additionally, the new Israeli government was more than willing to take the Arabs back into the country. The Arabs rejected this offer (see below).

[Note: For this reason alone, there are no Arab refugees from Palestine. For argument's sake, even if there were, the number would be limited to the original 650,000-711,000. Refugee status does not extend to additional generations. There is no international law that provides for this and no other refugee group can, or does, claim this. Despite this, Arabs from Palestine insist that their descendants are entitled to keep this label (and UNRWA supports it), thus making the number of "Palestinian refugees" an unwieldy and ridiculous five million people. And reductio ad absurdum, if you continued along these lines another 20-30 years, you would have over thirty million Arabs claiming the Right of Return to Israel.

In the history of the world, all refugees have eventually been assimilated (since WWII, 165 million). All but one -- the Arabs of Palestine. Due to the application of the definition of refugee, all numbers of refugees have declined to zero (either from absorption or from them dying off); all except the Arabs of Palestine. Their numbers have increased, despite all rules of law and mathematics.

We won't discuss here the ignored issue of the Jewish refugees, mainly because Israel absorbed them as soon as they fled and arrived in Israel.

For a more in depth conversation on the refugee issue, please refer to my already written blog, There Are No Refugees.]

According to UNRWA (now the largest UN agency, with a staff of over 30,000) and the US Department of State, from 1950-1999, the US gave $2,222,000,000.00 to UNRWA. That's over $2 BILLION (with a "B"). As of 2012, the US has given a total of $4,300,510,350.00 to UNRWA, whose only focus is the Arabs from Palestine alleged refugee problem. In 2010, the European Commission gave UNRWA $165 million. That same year, Sweden gave $47 million, the UK gave $45 million, Norway gave $40 million, and the Netherlands gave $29 million.

On December 11, 1948, the UN passed Resolution 194, which stated that, "refugees willing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so ... and that compensation should be paid for property of those choosing not to return..." (emphasis added). Those emphasized words show that the UN did not expect Israel to repatriate a hostile population that might endanger its security. The solution to the problem would have to include resettlement of Arabs into neighboring Arab countries. Israelis did not expect the resettlement issue to be a problem, but the Arabs were, still, unwilling to negotiate and cooperate and unanimously rejected the UN Resolution, on claimed moral and political grounds.

The only country that has assimilated, in significant numbers, the Arabs of Palestine is Jordan. No other Arab country has absorbed them or given them full citizenship despite the fact that many of them were born in those countries and have lived there for years.