One state, two states, three states, four...?

The League of Nations “Mandate for Palestine” irrevocably establishes the legal right of Jews to settle anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It was conferred on April 24, 1920 at the San Remo Conference, its terms outlined in the Treaty of Sèvres on August 10, 1920; it was finalized and unanimously approved on July 24, 1922, by the Council of the League of Nations, which was comprised at that time of 51 countries, and became operational on September 29, 1923. The League's Trust was transferred to the UN, and that legal right is intact.

Furthermore, after a century of defensive wars, as Professor, Judge Schwebel, wrote in "What Weight to Conquest":
"(a) a state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are... necessary to its self-defense;
"(b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense;
"(c) Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.
"... as between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively, in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has the better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt."

So we should stop looking for some final solution to the problem. Just manage it. Stay in iron-clad control of the entire area to the Jordan River. Annex all vacant land there. Where enemies of the state in that area reside there, let them have their local autonomy or whatever they damn-well want as long as they leave us alone.

...and let time do its work. May the Moshiach come: bim'hera, b'yamenu...

What "Occupation"?

The following document was presented by Eli Hertz at the meeting of the Board of Governors of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists on December 3, 2009 in Washington D.C.

Dear friend,
Have you ever asked yourself why during the period between 1917 and 1947 hundreds of thousands of Jews throughout the world woke up one morning and decided to leave their homes and go to Palestine?
The majority did this because they heard that a future National Home for the Jewish people was being established in Palestine, on the basis of the League of Nations' obligation under the "Mandate for Palestine." This historical document laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law.

The "Mandate for Palestine" was not a naïve vision briefly embraced by the international community.

 Fifty-one member countries - the entire League of Nations - unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:
"Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

American Support for a Jewish National Home:
On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution (the Lodge Fish Resolution) of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine – anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
"Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected." [italics in the original]

On September 21, 1922, President Warren G. Harding signed the Lodge-Fish Resolution, endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The U.S. Government (not a member of the League of Nations) maintained that her participation in WWI and her contribution to the defeat of Germany and the defeat of her Allies, entitled the United States to be consulted as to the terms of the "Mandate for Palestine."

The outcome of this request was a "Convention [Treaty] between the United States of America and the United Kingdom with respect to the rights of the two governments and their nationals in Palestine," a relationship governed by international law. The Convention contains the entire text of the "Mandate for Palestine" including the preamble and was concluded and signed by their respective plenipotentiaries in London on December 3, 1924; Ratification advised by the Senate, February 20, 1925; Ratified by President Calvin Coolidge, March 2, 1925; Ratified by Great Britain, March 18, 1925; Ratifications exchanged at London, December 3, 1925; Proclaimed, December 5, 1925.

In ratifying the Convention, the United States of America formally recognized the terms of the "Mandate for Palestine" and the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.

Any attempt to negate the Jewish people's right to Palestine - Eretz-Israel - and to deny them access and control in the area designated for the Jewish people by the League of Nations is an actionable infringement of both international law and the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution), which dictates that Treaties "shall be the supreme Law of the Land".
We collectively and individually must do all we can to support the Jewish people and the state of Israel. There is no more crucial time than today, and I believe that this body has the capacity to help defeat the "Occupation" mantra by insisting that the land of Israel has been given to the Jewish people as of right, and in accordance with existing international law.

Sincerely,
 Eli E. Hertz

Palestinians ‘Peoplehood’ Based on a Big Lie

From Myths and Facts, 31 March 2008, by Eli E. Hertz:

The Palestinians claim that they are an ancient and indigenous people fails to stand up to historic scrutiny. Most Palestinian Arabs were newcomers to British Mandate Palestine. Until the 1967 Six-Day War made it expedient for Arabs to create a Palestinian peoplehood, local Arabs simply considered themselves part of the ‘great Arab nation’ or ‘southern Syrians.’

“Repeat a lie often enough and people will begin to believe it.”

Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels

 

“All [that Palestinians] can agree on as a community is what they want to destroy, not what they want to build.”

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman

 

There is no age-old Palestinian people. Most so-called Palestinians are relative newcomers to the Land of Israel

Like a mantra, Arabs repeatedly claim that the Palestinians are a native people. The concept of a ‘Stateless Palestinian people’ is not based on fact. It is a fabrication.

Palestinian Arabs cast themselves as a native people in “Palestine” – like the Aborigines in Australia or Native Americans in America. They portray the Jews as European imperialists and colonizers. This is simply untrue.

Until the Jews began returning to the Land of Israel in increasing numbers from the late 19^th century to the turn of the 20^th, the area called Palestine was a God-forsaken backwash that belonged to the Ottoman Empire, based in Turkey.

The land’s fragile ecology had been laid waste in the wake of the Arabs’ 7th-century conquest. In 1799, the population was at it lowest and estimated to be no more than 250,000 to 300,000 inhabitants in all the land.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Arab population west of the Jordan River (today, Israel and the West Bank) was about half a million inhabitants and east of the Jordan River perhaps 200,000.

The collapse of the agricultural system with the influx of nomadic tribes after the Arab conquest that created malarial swamps and denuded the ancient terrace system eroding the soil, was coupled by a tyrannous regime, a crippling tax system and absentee landowners that further decimated the population. Much of the indigenous population had long since migrated or disappeared. Very few Jews or Arabs lived in the region before the arrival of the first Zionists in the 1880s and most of those that did lived in abject poverty.

Most Arabs living west of the Jordan River in Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza are newcomers who came from surrounding Arab lands after the turn of the 20^th century because they were attracted to the relative economic prosperity brought about by the Zionist Movement and the British in the 1920s and 1930s.

This is substantiated by eyewitness reports of a deserted country – including 18^th-century reports from the British archaeologist Thomas Shaw, French author and historian Count Constantine Volney (Travels through Syria and Egypt, 1798); the mid-19th-century writings of Alphonse de Lamartine (Recollections of the East, 1835); Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad, 1867); and reports from the British Consul in Jerusalem (1857) that were sent back to London.

The Ottoman Turks’ census (1882) recorded only 141,000 Muslims in the Land of Israel. The real number is probably closer to 350,000 to 425,000, since many hid to avoid taxes. The British census in 1922 reported 650,000 Muslims.

Aerial photographs taken by German aviators during World War I show an underdeveloped country composed mainly of primitive hamlets. Ashdod, for instance, was a cluster of mud dwellings, Haifa a fishing village. In 1934 alone, 30,000 Syrian Arabs from the Hauran moved across the northern frontier into Mandate Palestine, attracted by work in and around the newly built British port and the construction of other infrastructure projects. They even dubbed Haifa Um el-Amal (‘the city of work’).

The fallacy of Arab claims that most Palestinians were indigenous to Palestine – not newcomers - is also bolstered by a 1909 vintage photograph of Nablus, today an Arab city on the West Bank with over 121,000 residents. Based on the number of buildings in the photo taken from the base of Mount Gerizim, the population in 1909 – Muslim Arabs and Jewish Samaritans – could not have been greater than 2,000 residents.

Family names of many Palestinians attest to their non-Palestinian origins. Just as Jews bear names like Berliner, Warsaw and Toledano, modern phone books in the Territories are filled with families named Elmisri (Egyptian), Chalabi (Syrian), Mugrabi (North Africa). Even George Habash – the arch-terrorist and head of Black September – bears a name with origins in Abyssinia or Ethiopia, Habash in both Arabic and Hebrew.

Palestinian nationality is an entity defined by its opposition to Zionism, and not its national aspirations.

What unites Palestinians has been their opposition to Jewish nationalism and the desire to stamp it out, not aspirations for their own state. Local patriotic feelings are generated only when a non-Islamic entity takes charge – such as Israel did after the 1967 Six-Day War. It dissipates under Arab rule, no matter how distant or despotic.

A Palestinian identity did not exist until an opposing force created it – primarily anti-Zionism. Opposition to a non-Muslim nationalism on what local Arabs, and the entire Arab world, view as their own turf, was the only expression of ‘Palestinian peoplehood.’

The Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, a charismatic religious leader and radical anti-Zionist was the moving force behind opposition to Jewish immigration in the 1920s and 1930s. The two-pronged approach of the “Diplomacy of Rejection” (of Zionism) and the violence the Mufti incited occurred at the same time Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq became countries in the post-Ottoman reshuffling of territories established by the British and the French under the League of Nation’s mandate system.

The tiny educated class among the Arabs of Palestine was more politically aware than the rest of Arab society, with the inklings of a separate national identity. However, for decades, the primary frame of reference for most local Arabs was the clan or tribe, religion and sect, and village of origin. If Arabs in Palestine defined themselves politically, it was as “southern Syrians.” Under Ottoman rule, Syria referred to a region much larger than the Syrian Arab Republic of today, with borders established by France and England in 1920.

In his book Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, Daniel Pipes explains:
 “Syria was a region that stretched from the borders of Anatolia to those of Egypt, from the edge of Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea. In terms of today’s states, the Syria of old comprised Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, plus the Gaza Strip and Alexandria.”

Syrian maps in the 21^st century still co-opt most of Greater Syria, including Israel.

The Grand Mufti Al-Husseini’s aspirations slowly shifted from pan-Arabism – the dream of uniting all Arabs into one polity, whereby Arabs in Palestine would unite with their brethren in Syria - to winning a separate Palestinian entity, with himself at the helm. Al-Husseini was the moving force behind the 1929 riots against the Jews and the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt against two non-Muslim entities in Palestine – the British and the Jews. He gathered a large following by playing on fears that the Jews had come to dispossess, or at least dominate the Arabs.  

Much like Yasser Arafat, the Grand Mufti’s ingrained all-or-nothing extremism, fanaticism and even an inability to cooperate with his own compatriots made him totally ineffective. He led the Palestinian Arabs nowhere.

The ‘Palestinian’ cause became a key rallying point for Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East, according to Oxford historian Avi Shlaim. The countries the British and French created in 1918-1922 were based largely on meridians on the map, as is evident in the borders that delineate the Arab states today. Because these states lack ethnic logic or a sense of community, their opposition to the national aspirations of the Jews has come to fuel that fires Arab nationalism as the ‘glue’ of national identity. (see details on the ramifications of British and French policy, which plague the Middle East to this day in the chapter “The European Union.”)

From the 1920s, rejection of Jewish nationalism, attempts to prevent the establishment of a Jewish homeland by violence, and rejection of any form of Jewish political power, including any plans to share stewardship with Arabs, crystallized into the expression of Palestinianism. No other positive definition of an Arab-Palestinian people has surfaced. This point is admirably illustrated in the following historic incident:

    “In 1926, Lord Plumer was appointed as the second High Commissioner of Palestine. The Arabs within the Mandate were infuriated when Plumer stood up for the Zionists’ national anthem Hatikva during ceremonies held in his honor when Plumer first visited Tel Aviv. When a delegation of Palestinian Arabs protested Plumer’s ‘Zionist bias,’ the High Commissioner asked the Arabs if he remained seated when their national anthem was played, ‘wouldn’t you regard my behavior as most unmannerly?’ Met by silence, Plumer asked: ‘By the way, have you got a national anthem?’ When the delegation replied with chagrin that they did not, he snapped back, “I think you had better get one as soon as possible.”

But it took the Palestinians more than 60 years to heed Plumer’s advice, adopting Anthem of the Intifada two decades after Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 – at the beginning of the 1987 Intifada.

Under the Mandate, local Arabs also refused to establish an ‘Arab Agency’ to develop the Arab sector, parallel to the Jewish Agency that directed development of the Jewish sector (see the Chapter “Rejectionism”).

In fact, the so-called patriotism of indigenous Muslims has flourished only when non-Muslim entities (the Crusaders, the British, the Jews) have taken charge of the Holy Land. When political control returns to Muslim hands, the ardent patriotism of the Arabs of Palestine magically wanes, no matter how distant or how despotic the government. One Turkish pasha who ruled Acco (Acre) between 1775 and 1804 was labeled Al Jazzar, The Butcher, by locals.

Why hasn’t Arab representative government ever been established in Palestine, either in 1948 or during the next 19 years of Arab rule? Because other Arabs co-opted the Palestinian cause as a rallying point that would advance the concept that the territory was up for grabs. “The Arab invasion of Palestine was not a means for achieving an independent Palestine, but rather the result of a lack of consensus on the part of the Arab states regarding such independence,” summed up one historian.
Adherents to a separate Palestinian identity were a mute minority on the West Bank and Gaza during the 19 years of Jordanian and Egyptian rule - until Israel took control from the Jordanians and the Egyptians in 1967. Suddenly a separate Palestinian peoplehood appeared and claimed it deserved nationhood - and 21 other Arab states went along with it.

Palestinianism in and of itself lacks any substance of its own. Arab society on the West Bank and Gaza suffers from deep social cleavages created by a host of rivalries based on divergent geographic, historical, geographical, sociological and familial allegiances. What glues Palestinians together is a carefully nurtured hatred of Israel and the rejection of Jewish nationhood.

ADL Lists ‘Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups’ in the U.S.

From Algemeiner, 21 Oct 2013:

The Anti-Defamation League on Monday issued a “Top 10″ list of the most influential and most active anti-Israel groups in the United States.
In a statement, ADL National Director Abe Foxman said each of the groups is “fixated with delegitimizing Israel.”
“The Top 10 anti-Israel groups are the most significant players in the domestic anti-Israel movement today,” Foxman said. “The groups are fixated on delegitimizing Israel and convincing the American public that Israel is an international villain that deserves to be ostracized and isolated.”
“The list represents the worst of the worst anti-Israel groups,” Foxman said. “They lob any and every accusation against Israel, including charges of Nazi-like crimes, ‘apartheid’ policies, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide. Their accusations are rarely, if ever, balanced with an acknowledgement of Israel’s repeated efforts to make peace with the Palestinians, or the legitimate terrorism concerns faced by Israeli citizens.”
Jewish anti-Israel group “Jewish Voice for Peace” is included on the ADL’s list. The group’s leaders and members of its Rabbinical Council are regularly invited to major anti-Israel events and conferences, and the group claims that its Jewish nature gives it a “particular legitimacy in voicing an alternative view,” the ADL said, adding that JVP “intentionally exploits Jewish culture and rituals” in an effort to convince other Jews that opposition to Israel does not contradict, but is consistent with, Jewish values.
The ADL’s Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in the U.S. are listed below:

1. ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)

2. American Muslims for Palestine

3. CODEPINK

4. Friends of Sabeel-North America

5. If Americans Knew/Council for the National Interest

6. Jewish Voice for Peace

7. Muslim Public Affairs Council

8. Neturei Karta

9. Students for Justice in Palestine

10. U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Muslim Russia?

From The Washington Times,  October 21, 2013, by Daniel Pipes:

The stabbing murder on Oct. 10 of an ethnic Russian, Yegor Shcherbakov, 25, apparently by a Muslim from Azerbaijan, led to anti-migrant disturbances in Moscow, vandalism and assaults, the arrest of 1,200, and brought a major tension in Russian life to the fore.

Not only do ethnic Muslims account for 21-23 million of Russia's total population of 144 million, or 15 percent, but their proportion is fast growing. Alcoholism-plagued ethnic Russians are said to have European birth rates and African death rates, with the former just 1.4 per woman and the latter 60 years for men. In Moscow, ethnic Christian women have 1.1 child.

Eid al-Fitr prayers in Moscow on Oct. 15, demonstrating the Muslim numbers and solidarity in that city.

In contrast, Muslim women bear 2.3 children on average and have fewer abortions than their Russian counterparts. In Moscow, Tatar women have 6 children and Chechen and Ingush women have 10. In addition, some 3-4 million Muslims have moved to Russia from ex-republics of the U.S.S.R., mainly from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan; and some ethnic Russians are converting to Islam.
These trends point to Christians declining in numbers by 0.6 percent a year and Muslims increasing by that same amount, which will have dramatic effects over time. Some analysts foresee Muslims becoming a majority in the twenty-first century – a demographic revolution that would fundamentally change the country's character.
Paul Goble, an expert on Russian minorities, concludes that "Russia is going through a religious transformation that will be of even greater consequence for the international community than the collapse of the Soviet Union." A Russian commentator he quotes envisions a mosque on Red Square in Moscow. The facile assumption that Moscow is and will remain Western-oriented "is no longer valid," he argues. In particular, he predicts that the Muslim demographic surge "will have a profound impact on Russian foreign policy."
Within a few years, Muslims will make up half the conscripts in the Russian army. Joseph A. D'Agostino of the Population Research Institute asks: "Will such a military operate effectively given the fury that many domestic Muslims feel toward the Russian military's tactics in the Muslim region of Chechnya? What if other Muslim regions of Russia—some of which contain huge oil reserves—rebel against Moscow? Will Muslim soldiers fight and kill to keep them part of the Russian motherland?"
Russia's increasingly confident Muslims, who constitute a majority of 57 out of the country's 182 ethnic groups, have started to use the term Muslim Russia to signal their ambitions. According to Muslim analyst Daniyal Isayev, this term affirms that Islam is "an inalienable part of Russia" and that "Russia as a state and civilization could not exist without Islam and the Muslims." He notes that Muslims preceded ethnic Russians in much of the territory that is now Russia. His sweeping claims for Muslims include the exaggerations that they made critical contributions to Russia's culture and its military victories.
Such talk causes ethnic Russians to shudder about the country's population loss of at least 700,000 people a year, return to their faith, and turn against Muslims. The results include biased media portrayals, attacks on mosques and other crimes, efforts to block Muslim immigration, and the rise of extreme Russian nationalist groups such as Alexander Belov's "Movement against Illegal Immigration."

Ethnic Russians yelling "Russia for the Russians" at an anti-migrant riot following the murder of Yegor Shcherbakov.

The Kremlin has responded to the issue in contradictory ways. Then-president Dmitry Medvedev in 2009 tried appeasement by stressing the importance of Islam to Russia, noting that "Muslim foundations are making an important contribution to promoting peace in society, providing spiritual and moral education for many people, as well as fighting extremism and xenophobia." He also announced that, due to its large Muslim population, "Russia does not need to seek friendship with the Muslim world: Our country is an organic part of this world."

Illustration by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times.

But, as Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council points out, "the Kremlin has discriminated against its Muslim minority and ignored (even abetted) the rise of corrosive xenophobia among its citizens. This has bred resentment and alienation among Russia's Muslims – sentiments that radical Islamic groups have been all too eager to exploit." Added to existing Islamic supremacist attitudes, this results in an increasingly restive Muslim minority.
Discussions of Islam in Europe tend to focus on places like Britain and Sweden but Russia, the country with the largest Muslim community in both relative and absolute terms, is above all the place to watch. The anti-migrant violence this week will surely be followed by much worse problems.

Nicholas Winton: saved 669 children from the Nazis

In December 1938, Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old London stockbroker, was about to leave for a skiing holiday in Switzerland, when he received a phone call from his friend Martin Blake asking him to cancel his holiday and immediately come to Prague: "I have a most interesting assignment and I need your help. Don't bother bringing your skis." When Winton arrived, he was asked to help in the camps, in which thousands of refugees were living in appalling conditions.

In October 1938, after the ill-fated Munich Agreement between Germany and the Western European powers, the Nazis annexed a large part of western Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. Winton was convinced that the German occupation of the rest of the country would soon follow. To him and many others, the outbreak of war seemed inevitable. The news of Kristallnacht, the bloody pogrom (violent attack) against German and Austrian Jews on the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, had reached Prague. Winton decided to take steps.

"I found out that the children of refugees and other groups of people who were enemies of Hitler weren't being looked after. I decided to try to get permits to Britain for them. I found out that the conditions which were laid down for bringing in a child were chiefly that you had a family that was willing and able to look after the child, and £50, which was quite a large sum of money in those days, that was to be deposited at the Home Office. The situation was heartbreaking. Many of the refugees hadn't the price of a meal. Some of the mothers tried desperately to get money to buy food for themselves and their children. The parents desperately wanted at least to get their children to safety when they couldn't manage to get visas for the whole family. I began to realize what suffering there is when armies start to march."

In terms of his mission, Winton was not thinking in small numbers, but of thousands of children. He was ready to start a mass evacuation.

"Everybody in Prague said, 'Look, there is no organization in Prague to deal with refugee children, nobody will let the children go on their own, but if you want to have a go, have a go.' And I think there is nothing that can't be done if it is fundamentally reasonable."

... Nicholas Winton set up his own rescue operation. At first, Winton's office was a dining room table at his hotel in Wenceslas Square in Prague. Anxious parents, who gradually came to understand the danger they and their children were in, came to Winton and placed the future of their children into his hands. Soon, an office was set up on Vorsilska Street, under the charge of Trevor Chadwick. Thousands of parents heard about this unique endeavor and hundreds of them lined up in front of the new office, drawing the attention of the Gestapo. Winton's office distributed questionnaires and registered the children. Winton appointed Trevor Chadwick and Bill Barazetti to look after the Prague end when he returned to England. Many further requests for help came from Slovakia, a region east of Prague.Winton contacted the governments of nations he thought could take in the children. Only Sweden and his own government said yes. Great Britain promised to accept children under the age of 18 as long as he found homes and guarantors who could deposit £50 for each child to pay for their return home.
Because he wanted to save the lives of as many of the endangered children as possible, Winton returned to London and planned the transport of children to Great Britain. He worked at his regular job on the Stock Exchange by day, and then devoted late afternoons and evenings to his rescue efforts, often working far into the night. He made up an organization, calling it "The British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, Children's Section." The committee consisted of himself, his mother, his secretary and a few volunteers.
Winton had to find funds to use for repatriation costs, and a foster home for each child. He also had to raise money to pay for the transports when the children's parents could not cover the costs. He advertised in British newspapers, and in churches and synagogues. He printed groups of children's photographs all over Britain. He felt certain that seeing the children's photos would convince potential sponsors and foster families to offer assistance. Finding sponsors was only one of the endless problems in obtaining the necessary documents from German and British authorities.

"Officials at the Home Office worked very slowly with the entry visas. We went to them urgently asking for permits, only to be told languidly, 'Why rush, old boy? Nothing will happen in Europe.' This was a few months before the war broke out. So we forged the Home Office entry permits."

On March 14, 1939, Winton had his first success: the first transport of children left Prague for Britain by airplane. Winton managed to organize seven more transports that departed from Prague's Wilson Railway Station. The groups then crossed the English Channel by boat and finally ended their journey at London's Liverpool Street station. At the station, British foster parents waited to collect their charges. Winton, who organized their rescue, was set on matching the right child to the right foster parents.
The last trainload of children left on August 2, 1939, bringing the total of rescued children to 669.
It is impossible to imagine the emotions of parents sending their children to safety, knowing they may never be reunited, and impossible to imagine the fears of the children leaving the lives they knew and their loved ones for the unknown.
On September 1, 1939 the biggest transport of children was to take place, but on that day Hitler invaded Poland, and all borders controlled by Germany were closed. This put an end to Winton's rescue efforts. Winton has said many times that the vision that haunts him most to this day is the picture of hundreds of children waiting eagerly at Wilson Station in Prague for that last aborted transport.

"Within hours of the announcement, the train disappeared. None of the 250 children aboard was seen again. We had 250 families waiting at Liverpool Street that day in vain. If the train had been a day earlier, it would have come through. Not a single one of those children was heard of again, which is an awful feeling."

The significance of Winton's mission is verified by the fate of that last trainload of children. Moreover, most of the parents and siblings of the children Winton saved perished in the Holocaust.
After the war, Nicholas Winton didn't tell anyone, not even his wife Grete about his wartime rescue efforts. In 1988, a half century later, Grete found a scrapbook from 1939 in their attic, with all the children's photos, a complete list of names, a few letters from parents of the children to Winton and other documents. She finally learned the whole story. Today the scrapbooks and other papers are held at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, in Israel.
Grete shared the story with Dr. Elisabeth Maxwell, a Holocaust historian and the wife of newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. Robert Maxwell arranged for his newspaper to publish articles on Winton's amazing deeds. Winton's extraordinary story led to his appearance on Esther Rantzen's BBC television program, That's Life. In the studio, emotions ran high as Winton's "children" introduced themselves and expressed their gratitude to him for saving their lives. Because the program was aired nationwide, many of the rescued children also wrote to him and thanked him. Letters came from all over the world, and new faces still appear at his door, introducing themselves by names that match the documents from 1939.
The rescued children, many now grandparents, still refer to themselves as "Winton's children." Among those saved are

• the British film director Karel Reisz (The French Lieutenant's Woman, Isadora, and Sweet Dreams),
• Canadian journalist and news correspondent for CBC, Joe Schlesinger (originally from Slovakia),
• Lord Alfred Dubs (a former Minister in the Blair Cabinet),
• Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines (a patron of the arts whose father, Rudolf Fleischmann, saved Thomas Mann from the Nazis),
• Dagmar Símová (a cousin of the former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright),
• Tom Schrecker, (a Reader's Digest manager),
• Hugo Marom (a famous aviation consultant, and one of the founders of the Israeli Air Force), and
• Vera Gissing (author of Pearls of Childhood) and coauthor of Nicholas Winton and the Rescued Generation.

Winton has received many acknowledgements for his humanitarian pre-war deeds. He received a letter of thanks from the late Ezer Weizman, a former president of the State of Israel. He was made an Honorary Citizen of Prague. In 1993, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, awarded him the MBE (Member of the British Empire), and on October 28, 1998, Václav Havel, then president of the Czech Republic, awarded him the Order of T.G. Masaryk at Hradcany Castle for his heroic achievement. On December 31, 2002, Winton received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to humanity. Winton's story is also the subject of two films by Czech filmmaker Matej Mináč: All My Loved Ones and the award-winning Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good.

Sir Nicholas Winton celebrated his 100th birthday on May 19th 2009. A ring given to him by some of the children he savedis inscribed with a line from the Talmud, the book of Jewish law. It reads:

"Save one life, save the world."  

Book Review: "Like Dreamers", by Yossi Klein Halevi

A book review, 18 Oct 2013, by Daniel Gordis:

In Like Dreamers, we have a history. We have great yarn, brilliantly told. And we are exposed to Yossi Klein Halevi as a teacher of great moral weight, begging us to realize that if we truly wish to preserve this little state of ours, there is nothing we can do more important than beginning to hear those whose views are most challenging to our own.

This is the sort of region that periodically forces us to ask ourselves probing questions about our condition and how things got to be the way that they did. Did we intend to get where we are? In what direction would we now head if we were wise? Is change necessary? Is it still possible?

It is those sorts of questions that lie at the heart of Yossi Klein Halevi's new book, Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who United Jerusalem and Divided a Nation. Klein Halevi, long among Israel's most thoughtful, penetrating, honest and compassionate writers, has now written his magnum opus. Many books in one, Like Dreamers is, on the surface, the story of seven paratroopers who liberated the Old City of Jerusalem in June 1967. But as told through the lives and eyes of these seven men - before the war, during the battles and long after the guns have been silenced - Like Dreamers is also a social history and, no less, the story of the internal Israeli conflict about the settlement project, from its very inception and for decades following.

Like Dreamers is, of course, not the first book to cover the issue of the settlements. Gershom Gorenberg's Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements 1967-1977 is a very thorough and largely accurate history of the origins of the settler movement. The differences between the books, though, are legion. Gorenberg's is a story of a blundering national policy, "crafted" almost by accident, while Klein Halevi's book is the story of people. The men who fought to liberate Jerusalem had come to that battle from very different social and political backgrounds; they went on, in some cases, to found Gush Emunim and in other cases, to become the mainstays of the peace camp. Seeing the two sides through the loves and losses, the triumphs and failures of those who were at the core of these movements affords us a three dimensional understanding of what has unfolded here in a way that no other book, of which I'm aware, ever has before.

An infinitely more important difference, however, is that books like Gorenberg's (and like Peter Beinart's The Crisis of Zionism, among others) drip with venom and anger. To people like Gorenberg, Beinart and Jeremy Ben-Ami, the settlement project is so foolishly immoral, so callously disregarding of the Palestinians and so corrosive of Israel's international standing that their books are at the end of the day just broadside attacks on both the policy of settlement building and on the men and women who were at its core.

Klein Halevi is by no means oblivious to the problems of the settlements. When Arik Achmon (a central character in Like Dreamers) is exposed to the worldview of Rabbi Moshe Levinger, Klein Halevi writes for Achmon, "A foreign spirit, antithetical to Zionism, was stirring."

Throughout its 500+ pages, Like Dreamers shows time and again some of the dangerous impulses at the heart of the settlement movement.

But - and here is where Klein Halevi's genius truly shines - the book shows equally compellingly the powerful moral and Zionist commitments of both the settlers and the peace camp. On the most divisive issue faced by a highly divided state, Yossi Klein Halevi gets us to admire, perhaps even to love, the leaders of both. In prose so compelling that it reads like a novel, Like Dreamers makes clear that the real settlement story is not good guys versus bad, Zionists versus non-Zionists, or colonialists versus territorial minimalists. It's something much more complex and infinitely more nuanced.

  Like Dreamers is almost talmudic in its holding up of conflicting positions for each side to critique and defend. On the one hand, profound Israeli leaders, committed Zionists - from Ben-Gurion to Yeshayahu Leibowitz - said almost the minute the war was over that Israel ought to give most of the territory back; Israel would callous its soul by ruling over so many Palestinians (though interestingly, none of Klein Halevi's characters ever really speak for the Palestinians, so their positions remain only assumed, their voices the ones we end up wishing we'd heard more of).

But other Jews - motivated not by hatred or disregard of Arabs, but by love of Israel - disagreed. The Jewish state had always been a story of acquiring land and then building on it. That was the story of Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva. It was the story of Karmiel, built on land captured in the War of Independence. Why then should the land taken in 1967 be any different, especially in places that Jews had lived in as late as the 1930s and 1940s until rabid Arab violence forced them to flee?

Could Israel have stymied the impulse to return to those places in 1968 without smothering the most passionate Zionist impulses still remaining? Can it do so now?

What Israel should do now is a question that Like Dreamers wisely never addresses directly. But there are hints. Of the seven paratroopers Klein Halevi follows, he seems most spiritually connected to Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun. And in an article in Nekudah, the settler's publication, Bin-Nun had advocated a policy of "no annexation and no withdrawal," and instead, dividing the West Bank into Jewish and Arab cantons. The Jewish areas would vote in Israeli elections, and the Arab cantons in Jordanian. Even Bin-Nun acknowledged that this was a far from perfect solution, but as Klein Halevi then writes for Bin-Nun, "there [is] no perfect justice in this world."

Does Klein Halevi mean to endorse something along the canton approach? He never says. His purpose in this book is entirely other: He aims to teach us a complex and fascinating history, and to introduce us to seven fascinating, frustrating, passionate men who reflect the wide diversity of Israel's complex society.

But there is one lesson he definitely does want to teach. In May 1996, with the peace process seemingly marching forward and the future of the settlements very much in doubt, a young man asks Bin-Nun "What went wrong?" The rabbi's response was chilling: "We didn't listen to the moral arguments of the Left," he replied.

If there is any line in the book in which a character speaks for Klein Halevi, that is the one. More important to him than the position we take is his hope that we might come to realize that there are powerful moral, Zionist and strategic insights on both sides of this painful divide. If Bin-Nun believes that the settlers' greatest failure was not hearing the moral insights of the left, Klein Halevi insists that what ails our entire country is our inability to listen to the other and to learn.

In Like Dreamers, we have a history. We have great yarn, brilliantly told. And we are exposed to Klein Halevi as a teacher of great moral weight, begging us to realize that if we truly wish to preserve this little state of ours, there is nothing we can do more important than beginning to hear and to grow from those whose views are most challenging to our own.

Iran’s commitment to disarmament must be tested before sanctions are lifted

From The Washington Post Editorial, 14 October 2013:

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION says it expects Iran’s new leadership to show its seriousness about striking a deal on its nuclear program by offering a response in Geneva this week to a proposal that the United States and its partners put forward this year. That confidence-building plan calls for Iran to

• freeze its higher-level enrichment of uranium and
• accept more inspections

in exchange for the easing of several second-order sanctions, including a ban on trading in gold. ...that would signal a major change in position by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly rejected both interim and comprehensive offers to end the standoff over the nuclear program.
But the Obama administration should not necessarily be prepared to accept an Iranian “yes” for an answer, even if it is unqualified. That is because Iran’s continued development of its nuclear infrastructure during the course of this year has torn some big holes in what was intended to be a temporary safety net.

A year ago, Iran’s growing stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent appeared to be the most dangerous piece of its nuclear infrastructure, because that material could be quickly converted to bomb-grade. The enrichment takes place in an underground facility that has little plausible use other than for weapons production. A freeze or shutdown of that plant and the securing of the material already produced, if accepted by Tehran even six months ago, would have eased the threat that Iran could race to produce a bomb sometime soon.

Since then, however, Iran has begun installing a new generation of centrifuges at its largest enrichment plant, in Natanz. Because they can process uranium far more quickly, these new machines create a threat of an Iranian nuclear breakout beyond that posed by the 20 percent stockpile.
Meanwhile, a new reactor based on heavy-water technology, in Arak, is due for completion next year and would allow Iran to produce plutonium that could be used in bombs.
Any accord with Iran, even an interim arrangement, must take these new facts into account. No sanctions relief should be granted unless Iran takes steps that decisively push back its potential time frame for producing the core of a nuclear warhead. That means that the advanced centrifuges and the Arak reactor must now be part of any deal.
Even such a broadened interim arrangement would draw strong objections from Israel, which says that no sanctions should be eased unless Iran gives up all uranium enrichment. Israeli officials argue that even a slight easing of sanctions would cause the system to quickly crumble, as Russia, China, Turkey, India and other nations that have only reluctantly honored the sanctions rush to resume normal trade. Iran might then win sufficient relief to succor its economy while retaining a robust nuclear capacity.
All the difficulties with a preliminary accord might be addressed if it were folded into a larger framework that spells out how much of its nuclear program Iran is prepared to give up in exchange for full sanctions relief. That, in turn, invites the ultimate test of the new government: Is it willing to definitely abandon its drive for a nuclear weapon or only temporize?

Iran continues to play for time and easing of sanctions

From The Australian, 16 Oct 2013, by AFP:

IRAN has said it had presented a potentially "breakthrough" proposal to end a decade-long [make that "15-year"] standoff with world powers over its nuclear drive...
Iran's team said it received a good reception to its new plan ...[at its] two-day meeting with the European Union-chaired P5+1 group - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, plus Germany ...
 "The proposal that we have introduced has the capacity to make a breakthrough," senior Iranian negotiator Abbas Araqchi said, telling reporters it was "very comprehensive" but that all parties had agreed to keep it under wraps.
... [Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif said Tehran's plan contained three steps that could settle the long-running nuclear standoff "within a year"...
EU spokesman Michael Mann said discussions had been "very detailed" and technical, and underlined the "very different" atmosphere compared to previous talks. A senior US State Department official added: "For the first time, we had very detailed technical discussions, which carried on this afternoon. We will continue these discussions tomorrow."
.... Despite the upbeat tone, Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted Araqchi as saying that snap inspections of the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities were not part of the new proposal. "It does not exist in the offer," Mr Araqchi told IRNA. Iran has drawn other red lines, saying it will not accept any demand to suspend uranium enrichment or ship out stockpiles of purified material.

Israel ...warned against accepting "cosmetic concessions" that would not impede Iran's weapons quest. It has not ruled out a military strike on archfoe Iran to halt the nuclear drive, and has warned the world not to fall for Mr Rowhani's "sweet talk".
Western negotiators insist they are cautiously hopeful but not naive. "We have come here with a sense of cautious optimism and a great sense of determination because we believe it's really time now for tangible results," Mr Mann said. "There are signals from Tehran that they want to engage in these negotiations, that they want to be more transparent. The proof would be if they made real progress," he said. "We are on our side ambitious to move forward quickly... The ball remains in their court."
A senior US administration official said earlier in Geneva that any easing of sanctions would be "targeted, proportional to what Iran puts on the table". "We are hopeful, but that has to be tested with concrete, verifiable actions," the official said. A first meeting between Mr Zarif and his counterparts from the six powers took place last month during the UN General Assembly, accompanied by a landmark two-way meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr Kerry underlined on Sunday that while the diplomatic window was "cracking open", Washington was serious about never allowing room for a nuclear-armed Iran.

£1.95bn EU aid to Palestine has gone missing

From The Sunday Times, 13 October 2013, by Bojan Pancevski, Brussels: 

Hamas terrorists in Gaza - funded by the EU?

EU investigators found ‘shortcomings’ in the management of funds   
 

BILLIONS of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption, according to a damning report by the European Court of Auditors, the Luxembourg-based watchdog.

Brussels transferred more than £1.95bn to the occupied territories between 2008 and 2012 but had little control over how it was spent, the auditors say in an unpublished report seen by The Sunday Times.

EU investigators who visited sites in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank noted “significant shortcomings” in the management of funds sent to Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU.

The auditors complained about the lack of measures to mitigate “high-level” risks, such as “corruption or of funds not being used for their intended purpose”.

A spokesman for the court declined to comment.

'We are not Arabs. We are Christians who speak Arabic'

From Israel Hayom, 4 Oct 2013, by Dror Eydar:

Many of Israel's Christians feel that their history, culture and heritage have been hijacked by Muslim Arabs in the region, while they feel a much stronger link to Israel's Jews • The Jewish state is the only place where we are protected, they say.

A conference titled "Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel" in Jerusalem

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Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin

A conference titled "Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel" in Jerusalem | Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin

It was not just any conference. Even the word "historic" would not do it justice. This was nothing short of the shift of an ancient paradigm.

For a long time we had grown accustomed to thinking about the Middle East as an Arab region. But this region, the vast majority of which was actually originally not Arab, was conquered in the seventh century by tribes hailing from the Arabian Peninsula. They imposed their religion, their culture and their language on the indigenous population, and to top it all off, claimed ownership of the land in the region.

But the social and diplomatic firestorms currently raging around us have begun to chip away at this monolithic point of view among various ethnic groups, whose identities are actually different than the ones we have lazily attached to them, and their voices are beginning to be heard loud and clear: "We are not Arabs," they are saying. "We are Christians who speak Arabic."

At the "Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel" conference in Jerusalem, one after another, Israeli Christian representatives took to the stage and greeted the audience with a "moadim l'simcha" ("times of joy" – a common Jewish holiday wish of good tidings). The first speaker was the Rev. Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest in Nazareth and spiritual leader of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum. Naddaf is an impressive man, who speaks in a reserved tone, but is nonetheless articulate and resolute. "I am here to open the public's eyes," he said. "If we want to refrain from lying to our own souls and to the general public, we must say clearly and unwaveringly: enough!"

"The Christian public wants to integrate into Israeli society, against the wishes of its old leadership. There are those who keep pushing us to the margins, keeping us the victims nationalism that is not our own, and of a conflict that has nothing to do with us," he said.

Naddaf spoke of the Christian roots, planted deep in this land since the dawn of Christianity. This is where Jesus Christ's doctrine first emerged. The Christian faith, he said, came out of the Jewish faith and its biblical roots. As far as Naddaf is concerned, what happened in the seventh century was an Arab invasion from which the Christians also suffered. He added that he wasn't very proud of the Christian crusades either, and distanced himself from them.

He surveyed the dire situation currently faced by Christians in Arab states, and said that the realization that Israel is the only country in the region that protects its Christian minority has prompted many Arabic-speaking Israeli Christians to develop a desire to contribute to the state of Israel. That is how the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum came to be.

Naddaf quoted the founder of the forum, Maj. Ihab Shlayan, as saying: "The Christians will not be made into hostages, or allow themselves to be controlled by those who wish to impose their nationality, religion and way of life upon us. We will not agree to hide behind the groups that control the streets. We want to live in Israel -- brothers in arms and brothers in peace. We want to stand guard and serve as the first line of defense in this Holy Land, the Land of Israel."

"We have broken through the barrier of fear," Naddaf went on to say. "The time has come to prove our loyalty, pay our dues and demand our rights." He spoke about the death threats that he and his friends face, and added that despite the hardships they continue forward "because the State of Israel is our heart. Israel is a holy state, a strong state, and its people, Jews and Christians alike, are united under one covenant."

Naddaf was followed at the podium by Lt. (ret.) Shaadi Khalloul, the spokesman of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum and an officer in the Israel Defense Forces Paratroopers Brigade. Khalloul, a scholar who studies the history of the Christian faith in the region, spoke about the eastern Christian identity that had been stripped of his people. Over the last three years, he has fought Israel's Interior Ministry over recognition of his community as Aramaic Christians.

We are "B'nei Keyama," which means allies in Aramaic, he said. He has nothing against the Arabs, but it is simply not his identity. It is especially problematic for him because being associated with the Arabs pulls him into a conflict that is not his own, entirely against his will.

Khalloul said that the way to integrate into Israeli society was through military service in the IDF, which he described as a melting pot, but also through education. It turns out that Israel's Christian population is not educated in their own history, only the history of the Arabs and of Islam.

"The typical Christian student thinks that he belongs to the Arab people and the Islamic nation, instead of speaking to the people with whom he truly shares his roots -- the Jewish people, whose origins are in the Land of Israel."

Adding to that point, Rev. Naddaf stepped in and said,
"It is unthinkable that our children will be raised on the history of the Nakba and on the hatred of Jews, and not be taught their history."

It was no coincidence that Khalloul chose the Aramaic word for allies to describe his people. In his view, Israeli Christians are not mercenaries, as they might be perceived, but in fact allies.
"We want to defend the holy land alongside the Jews," he insisted. He mentioned the Christians' support for the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in the 1947 UNSCOP Committee. In a letter to the committee at the time, the Maronites rejected any reference to the land of Israel as Arab land.

Khalloul said further that global Christianity supported them, but refrained from making the support public because of the fact that Christians in the Middle East are hostages in the hands of Islamic forces.

Remarking on the ongoing debate surrounding the issue of a Jewish-democratic state vs. a so-called state of all its citizens, Khalloul said that he preferred a Jewish state that takes care of all its citizens over a state governed by all its citizens, without a Jewish identity.

"Several decades ago, 80 percent of the Lebanese population was Christian," he recalled, "but the 20% Muslim minority imposed their Arab identity on them and many of them left. Today, only 35% of the population is Christian."

Syria, too, he added, is comprised of Christians and Kurds who are not Arab. "Where is the respect for these groups? For their history and their culture?" Only in a Jewish state, he concluded, will different groups be given the right to exist.

Naddaf then interjected and said, "That is not just [Khalloul's] opinion. The entire forum shares this view."

The last representative to take the stage was Capt. Bishara Shlayan, whose initiative to establish the Christian Israeli Party was first reported in Israel Hayom this past July. Following the report, Shlayan was bombarded with responses from all over the world.

"We were raised on Arab political parties," he said, "the communists, and then the National Democratic Assembly. In time, I realized where these Arab parties were taking us -- only against Israel."

He said that Islam was imposing itself on the Christians in the region. Thus, for example, the ancient "Miriam's Spring" evolved into the "Nazareth Spring." In his youth, he had received a red flag, he recounted. But today, he sighed, "our children are being raised on the green flag, on anti-Israeli culture."

"We need to create a different culture," he continued. "We need to hand out Israeli flags to every child. Education begins here. You enter a school in Nazareth, and you will not see a single Israeli flag. They don't recognize it. You will only see Palestinian flags."

Shlayan is well aware of the claims that Israeli Christians are not afforded all the rights to which they are entitled. "That may be," he said, but "you have to begin by pledging loyalty to your country and serving it. I believe that."

All the above is only part of what was said at the recent conference of the Liaison Committee of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel.

The Christian communities' march toward the heart of the Israeli consensus has an iconoclastic significance. It is reminiscent of Abraham's smashing the idols and thereby smashing certain thought conventions and patterns. It is important not only on the inter-faith and theological level; it is also important to Israel's efforts to prove our rights to the world. Parts of the Christian world see us as the crucifiers of the Palestinians, even though this could not be further from the truth. Therefore, when the Israeli Christians stand by the State of Israel and declare that this is the Land of Israel and not Palestine and that Jews did not steal this land but rather returned home as the Bible prophesied, it has immeasurable significance.

We, as a society and as a state, must embrace these courageous people, who spoke from the very deepest recesses of their hearts. We must help them, provide for them and integrate them into our society. And no less importantly, we must protect their lives. Our lives and our future depend on it.

UNRWA: an obstacle to peace

From Fathom, 13 Sept 2013, by Einat Wilf*:

One of the greatest obstacles to peace, and certainly the least acknowledged, is the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem and the inflation of its scale by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Whereas the actual number of Arabs who could still claim to be refugees as a result of the Arab-Israeli war of 1947-1949 is today no more than several tens of thousands, the number of those registered as refugees is reaching 5 million, with millions more claiming to have that status.

The UNRWA Problem

Since the Second World War the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been responsible for the welfare of all refugees in the world and has assisted in their resettlement and relocation – so that nearly all of them are no longer refugees – with one exception: the Arabs from Palestine. By contrast, UNRWA, the organisation created specifically to handle the Arab refugees from Palestine from the 1947-1949 Arab-Israel war, has collaborated with the Arab refusal to resettle the refugees in the areas where they reside, or to relocate them to third countries. Worse, UNRWA has ensured that the refugee issue only grows larger by automatically registering descendants of the original refugees from the war as refugees themselves in perpetuity, For Palestinians, uniquely, refugeeness is an hereditary trait.

For several decades UNRWA has been engaging in an act of bureaucratic self-aggrandisement, inflating the numbers of those in its care, thus ensuring the growth of its budget.

 If the descendants of the Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war were treated like all other refugees, including the Jewish ones, they would not quality for refugee status because almost all of them (upward of 80 per cent) are either citizens of a third country, such as Jordan, or they live in the places where they were born and expect to have a future such as Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians born in the West Bank and Gaza are not fleeing war and are not seeking refuge. They are considered citizens of Palestine by the Palestinian Authority itself, just like all other Palestinians born in these territories. No other people in the world are registered as refugees while being citizens of another country or territory. Moreover, if the European Union has adopted the policy that Gaza and the West Bank are territories to be allocated to Palestine – and some EU countries already recognise Palestine as a state – then it makes no sense for it to argue that people who were born and are living in Palestine are refugees from… Palestine.
The remaining 20 per cent of the descendants who are not Jordanian citizens or citizens of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank, are inhabitants of Syria and Lebanon who are by law denied the right to citizenship granted to all other Syrians and Lebanese. Yet, UNRWA does nothing to fight for the right of these Lebanese and Syrian-born Arabs to citizenship, collaborating in their discrimination and the perpetuation of their refugee status.
Why does this matter for peace? Because if millions of Arabs who are citizens of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, or inhabitants of Syria and Lebanon, claim to be refugees from what is today Israel, even though they were never born there and never lived there, and demand that as a result of this refugee status they be given the right to relocate to Israel (‘the right of return’), then the whole basis for peace by means of two states for two people crumbles. If Israel with its 6 million Jews and more than 1.5 million Arabs has to absorb between 5 and 8 million Palestinians then the Jews will be relegated again to living as a minority among those who do not view them as equals; the only country in which the Jews are a majority and can exercise their right to self-determination would be no more.

A large banner depicting UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon hangs outside the UNRWA school in Gaza on 2 February 2012 Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash 90

Western Complicity

Even more absurd is that UNRWA is funded by countries who support two states for two peoples. The United States, the EU, Canada, Japan and Australia fund 99 per cent of UNRWA’s annual budget of over $1 billion, whereas the 56 Islamic countries who supposedly grieve for their Palestinian brethren supply only a few million dollars.
...As it stands right now the policy of Western countries towards UNRWA is ...telling the Arab world: ‘Go ahead and keep inflating the numbers of refugees in perpetuity by registering descendants of refugees as refugees themselves. Register them as refugees from Palestine even though they were born and are living in the Palestinian Authority. Allow them to maintain both a refugee status and citizenship from a third country. Keep telling them that even though they were born in Gaza and Ramallah, they are actually from Ashdod and Ashkelon and can realistically expect to live there soon. Keep them in a discriminated-against state in Syria and Lebanon, where their basic human rights are denied, just so they can keep the conflict alive. We trust that when the day comes to negotiate a final settlement with Israel, you will do so in good faith in a way that guarantees the coherence and existence of a Jewish state.’

Alternatives

Banner of UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Geneva, Switzerland Adam Jones, Global Photo Archive

If the West truly wants to promote a coherent policy that supports a two-state solution and does not favour one side over another, it should use its power as the financial supporter of UNRWA to steer its practices along a more constructive path. The welfare, education and health services provided by UNRWA could continue and even be expanded, but their provision should be based on need, not refugee status.
In Gaza, where there is no Israeli presence and which is clearly part of Palestine, the continued registration of Palestinians living in Palestine as refugees should be discontinued. In the West Bank, in the areas under Palestinian Authority control, the funds currently going to UNRWA should go to the Palestinian Authority for the provision of services, while the designation of the citizens of the Palestinian Authority as refugees should also be discontinued. Finally, outside the West Bank and Gaza, UNRWA’s work should be merged with that of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and operate on the same basis as all other refugees in the world, with efforts directed at securing the equal rights of the descendants in Lebanon and Syria where they were born and have lived their entire lives.
A first effort in this direction was taken in 2012 when the US Senate, acting on the initiative of Senator Mark Kirk, introduced an amendment to the budget bill, requesting that UNRWA report ‘on the number of refugees that it services separate from their descendants.’ The US Senate Appropriations Committee asked for nothing more than information and transparency in reporting in return for the 250 million dollars of US taxpayers money that it supplies UNRWA annually. It did not ask for aid to be cut. It did not call for cessation of services to the millions of descendants; it only asked for transparency in numbers. Even though the amendment did not go through, given that the budget bill as a whole did not move forward, the US Senate sent out a powerful message for peace in that the attainment of a two-state solution cannot be congruent with UNRWA’s practice of inflating the number of refugees...

*Dr. Einat Wilf is a Senior Fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute. She served as a member of the Knesset for the Labour Party and Independence from 2010 to 2013.