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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-hopes-make-palestinian-refugees-disappear">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-hopes-make-palestinian-refugees-disappear</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">How Israel hopes to make Palestinian
refugees disappear</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-01-08T18:25:43+00:00">8 January 2018</span></span>
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<article class="node-22901 node node-blog view-mode-full
node-is-page image-landscape">
<p>Israel has confirmed that it aims to destroy <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/unrwa">UNRWA</a>,
the UN agency that provides basic health, education
and other humanitarian services to more than five
million Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.</p>
<p>This comes days after the Trump administration
suggested it <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-happens-if-trump-does-stop-aid-palestinians">planned
to cut funding</a> to the agency in retaliation for
the Palestinian Authority’s objections to the US <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/oh-jerusalem-requiem-two-state-solution/22521">recognition
of Jerusalem</a> as Israel’s capital.</p>
<p>The US is UNRWA’s largest single donor and a funding
cut off could have disastrous humanitarian
consequences. In Gaza alone, one million Palestinians
– half the population there – rely on UNRWA emergency
rations, a number that has soared from just 80,000 in
2000 after years of Israeli siege and military
assaults.</p>
<p>But for Israel, UNRWA is part of a problem to be
eliminated: the existence of international
institutions and agencies that support Palestinians
and their rights.</p>
<h2>UNRWA “needs to pass from the world”</h2>
<p>Israel has long targeted the agency, politically and
literally: during its assaults on Gaza, Israel has
repeatedly bombed UNRWA schools and facilities, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-finds-israel-killed-dozens-gaza-schools-ducks-call-accountability">killing
dozens</a>.</p>
<p>“UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the
Palestinian refugee problem. It also perpetuates the
narrative of the right of return, as it were, in order
to eliminate the State of Israel; therefore, UNRWA
needs to pass from the world,” Benjamin Netanyahu <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/IsraeliPM/videos/1966726156675453/">said
Sunday</a> at the start of Israel’s weekly cabinet
meeting.</p>
<p>The Israeli prime minister urged that UNRWA support
funds be gradually shifted to UNHCR – the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “This is how to rid
the world of UNRWA and deal with genuine refugee
problems, to the extent that such remain,” Netanyahu
added, calling most Palestinian refugees “fictitious
refugees.”</p>
<p>Netanyahu is toeing a well-trodden line of the
Israeli far-right that Palestinian refugees only exist
because a special UN agency – UNRWA – was created to
care for them, and not because Israel denies their
internationally recognized right to return home.</p>
<p>Israel refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to
return home solely because they are not Jews and
therefore views them as a “<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/demographic-threat">demographic
threat</a>” to its continued <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/03/abunimahs-justice-palestine/">existence
as a Jewish supremacist state</a> that denies equal
rights to all its residents.</p>
<p>Far-right anti-Palestinian media <a
href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21528">in
Israel</a> and <a
href="http://freebeacon.com/blog/trump-can-cut-aid-horrible-u-n-program/">the
US</a> quickly began echoing Netanyahu’s message,
giving new life to a years-long smear campaign against
UNRWA.</p>
<h2>Mandate to return</h2>
<p>Ironically, Netanyahu’s proposal to dissolve UNRWA
and hand over the mandate for looking after
Palestinian refugees to UNHCR could actually
strengthen the right of return.</p>
<p>UNHCR has a <a
href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/excom/exconc/3ae68c9518/voluntary-repatriation.html">specific
mandate</a> not just to protect refugees while they
are refugees but to work to facilitate the exercise of
their right to return to their home countries.</p>
<p>UNRWA, <a
href="https://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/201006109246.pdf">by
contrast</a>, has no mandate to repatriate
Palestinian refugees to the homes from which Israel
expelled them, but only to provide relief until a
political “solution” is found.</p>
<p>“What perpetuates the refugee crisis is the failure
of the parties to deal with the issue,” UNRWA
spokesperson Chris Gunness told The Electronic
Intifada in reaction to Netanyahu’s comments. “This
needs to be resolved by the parties to the conflict in
the context of peace talks, based on UN resolutions
and international law, and requires the active
engagement by the international community.”</p>
<p>Until then, Gunness explained, “UNRWA is mandated by
the General Assembly to continue with its services
until a just and lasting solution is found for the
Palestine refugees.”</p>
<h2>Cut already made?</h2>
<p>Last week, President Donald Trump and his UN
ambassador Nikki Haley threatened to cut US aid to the
Palestinians, but it was <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/what-happens-if-trump-does-stop-aid-palestinians">unclear
if this included UNRWA</a> or just the Palestinian
Authority.</p>
<p>A <a
href="https://www.axios.com/scoop-us-freezes-funds-to-un-relief-agency-diplomats-say-1515262307-5f6b9d74-fb92-46d0-bc8b-a18d4a7b21e8.html">media
report</a> Friday claimed that the US had already
withheld a $125 million payment to UNRWA due this
month.</p>
<p>Gunness said UNRWA had seen the reports, but had “not
been informed directly of a formal decision either way
by the US administration.”</p>
<p>It would appear nonetheless that Israel is seeking to
use the additional leeway given to it by the Trump
administration to strike what it hopes will be
decisive blows to end international support for the
Palestinians.</p>
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