Why is UNWRA a problem in East Jerusalem?
Let’s explore why UNWRA are in East Jerusalem.
After the six day war Israel effectively annexed East Jerusalem and its surroundings, applying law and administration to these areas. Among the annexed Palestinian villages was Shuafat refugee camp. As a result, Shuafat’s residents effectively fulfilled their demand of return.
Now as legal residents of Israel they have the right to settle anywhere they want in the country, including the town they or their ancestors came from. Furthermore, they can apply for citizenship on the grounds of proving their desire “to live at peace with their neighbours” the complete fulfilment of the Palestinians own extreme interpretation of Resolution 194.
The refugees who have become residents of Israel have acquired in practice the ability to return. Given this, UNWRA could have announced that it had no more business within the boundaries of Jerusalem and refused to register the refugees in East Jerusalem and their tens of thousands of descendants as refugees.
Yet UNWRA made no such announcement and the inhabitants of Shuafat refugee camp, who for the most part were born after 1948 and after 1967 annexation of Jerusalem, remain registered Palestinian refugees.
So…
UNRWA registers residents of Israel as refugees
UNWRA registers 2.2 million Jordanian citizens as refugees
UNWRA registers Palestinians who live in the area they call Palestine and seek recognition of, as refugees
UNWRA has recently been in the news for allegedly selling aid in Gaza. All ‘lies’ of course. Shush…🤫
UNWRA has recently advised that Palestinians in Gaza can’t afford to buy the free aid that is in Gaza. Again, shush… 🤫
UNWRA needs to be defunded/dismantled, not because UNWRA employees may have been stealing aid to sell on to their fellow Gazans, not because some UNWRA employees may have participated in the massacre on October 7th, but because UNWRA has registered millions of people as refugees, over the decades, who do not meet the basic criteria applied to EVERY other group of refugees in the world.
Had the rest of the world been recognised as refugees in the same way as UNWRA does for the Palestinians the (relative) peace that has marked much of the world since WW2 would have been replaced by constant war.