US vice-president’s visit has no clear agenda
The latest developments concerning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was the topic that dominated headlines of newspapers in the region U
States President Donald Trump’s first year in office was marked by broken promises and the application of pressure against the Palestinians, wrote Lebanon’s Daily Star. “First came his bombshell about recognising [occupied] Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in defiance of billions of Muslims and Christians around the globe, the vast majority of the world’s countries, and in contrast to policies towards the holy city by every US president that preceded him. Then, in a move clearly aimed at punishing the Palestinians more for condemning his decision, he hit them where it hurts by curtailing aid to UNRWA, thus affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of refugees mostly living in squalor around the Arab world and rarely making ends meet. And now we get a visit by US Vice-President Mike Pence to the Middle East with no clear agenda or mission, except perhaps expecting that blackmail will eventually break the Palestinians.”
True to form, Israel wants UNRWA to be ‘liquidated’ and its functions transferred to the UN
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High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), noted the Jordan Times. “What UNRWA provides to the Palestinians, numbered around five million and scattered in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank, are strictly humanitarian services covering basic refugee needs such as education, health, social assistance, rudimentary housing and emergency needs. Why does Israel want these services terminated at a time when the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains unresolved and the refugees still live in camps away from their homeland in anticipation of the time when they can be repatriated to their original towns and cities in what is now Israel or the West Bank? Relevant UN resolutions affirm that the Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their homeland or accept compensation. This right has yet to be implemented because Israel stands in the way and would rather see the refugees live permanently in neighbouring Arab countries.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be careful what he wishes for; his call for the closure of the United Nations agency specifically responsible for Palestinian refugees could lead to a disaster not only for the refugees, but also for Israel, said the Saudi Gazette. “And if UNRWA is currently dealing with the great-grandchildren of refugees, and might in the future be dealing with the great-great-grandchildren of refugees, who is to blame? These are real refugees, not, as Netanyahu claims, fictitious refugees. They were driven out of their homeland; they did not merrily waltz out of their own accord. UNRWA is not, as Netanyahu alleges, an organisation that perpetuates the problem of Palestinian refugees. What perpetuates the refugee crisis is the perpetual Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.”
The continued existence of UNRWA is a thorn in the flesh of leaders in Tel Aviv, because as long as the agency exists, so does the Palestinian refugee crisis and the right of return, said the UAE’s Al Khaleej. “This would mean that the Palestinian cause remains alive and well and remains a matter of interest to the international community. UNRWA’s existence is an aberration that thwarts US-Israeli plans to put an end to the dossier of the Palestinian issue,” the paper said.