I am cross-posting this video, with permission, from the Anne's opinions blog, as noted. I couldn't resist, because it's another of Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's delightful videos, this time explaining the Palestinian refugee situation, and it deserves as wide a circulation as possible. The fascinating aspect is that at no time does he say it's all the fault of the Palestinians. No, as we already know, the problem lies with the Palestinians' brothers, the surrounding Arab and Moslem states who won't give them citizenship or even permanent resident status. Also at fault, of course, is that wonderful humanitarian organisation, the UNWRA, who manage to define the descendants of those displaced as refugees, lo, until the nth generation.
One can't help noting the contrast, as Anne does to great effect, with the UNHCR, which defined only those actually displaced as refugees. Further, it strove and strives vigorously to ensure that refugees stop being refugees and become settled, either back in their countries of origin or where they find themselves beached. Thus, the 10 million or so (does anyone have a more accurate figure?) displaced persons (DPs) of WW2 had been undisplaced within less than a generation. Whereas the Palestinians have grown vastly in number - merely because they had children , been denied citizenship where they found themselves and maintained as political pawns. Can't think why…If only Israel had more people as articulate as Minister Ayalon and Mark Regev to explain Israel to the rest of the world. Read the whole article here (linked with permission).
By Brian Goldfarb.
8 minutes ago
6 comments:
Hmm could it be that the states that have the refugees couldn't give a damn about them except for their value as pawns and diversions?
You're right, it's an already understood story, but Ayalon presents it succinctly and well. Thanks for the link.
Dick, my pleasure. Ayalon is good at as well, isn't he?
I dare say, Jams, that your suspicion is correct.
Resolving the refugee problem is easier than imagined Israelis.
Require only the courage of the Israelis to plead guilty to these refugees and give them the right to choose to return or stay outside the State ofIsrael.
I am convinced that those who choose to return to the State of Israel will not exceed 20% of the refugees or the equivalent of one million andanother million probably will return to the WestBank.
Moshe, you may be convinced, but it is plainly unclear that anything like a majority of Israelis would agree with you. Anyway, their response might just be to demand a monetary adjustment for those survivors of the original displacement from Arab/Moslem lands and to offer a similar arrangement for those displaced and still alive. And if we count only those actually displaced (as would the UNHCR) and not the totality of their descendants (as UNWRA does), then you'd possibly be right.
Only UNWRA sees the descendants of those displaced as still defined as refugees.
And that, as Minister Ayalon notes, is the root of the problem.
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