Roger Talbot/Guest Commentary | Posted: Saturday, July 12, 2008 12:00 am
The Palestinian refugee problem is an Arab creation.
The Arabs of Palestine were exhorted by their leaders to leave the area to make way for the slaughter of the Jews. They promised a quick victory and the Jews? property as spoils.
To help induce flight, these leaders filled the airwaves with fabricated stories of Jewish atrocities. For example, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured Arab people that BThe occupation of Palestine and Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade.C
He pointed out that Arab armies were already on the frontiers, and that Ball the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw the Jews into the Mediterranean. …C
The Arabs of Palestine were exhorted to Bleave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.C
Unfortunately for the Arabs of Palestine, their leaders did not deliver, and 60 years later they are still in refugee camps. And there are no second chances in history.
But let?s assume, for argument?s sake, that all the Arab and leftist propaganda is true, and that the Palestinians were the innocent victims of the nefarious Jews, who threw them off their land. The question still remains 8 why are they still in camps after 60 years?
It?s not like the Palestinian refugee problem was particularly unique. The 20th century saw literally millions of refugees 8 over 40 million to be exact. As refugees go, the Palestinian problem is relatively small. World War II alone created millions of refugees, and the creation of India and Pakistan resulted in more than 14 million refugees. All of them have been resettled.
And here?s a fact the Arabs and their fellow travelers don?t want you to know 8 while up to 750,000 Arabs left Palestine in 1948, in the years following the creation of Israel, an estimated 900,000 Jews living in Arab countries were thrown out, leaving behind billions in property and assets. They have all been resettled.
What essentially happened in 1948 and the following years was an exchange of populations 8 Arabs to Arab countries, and Jews from Arab countries to Israel. The story should have ended there.
So why, after 60 years, is the Palestinian the only significant refugee problem still unresolved? Given that the Palestinians spoke the same language and practiced the same religion as the inhabitants of the lands to which they fled, their resettlement should have been a relatively easy matter.
The answer, which should surprise very few, lies with the United Nations.
The U.N. has two organizations to deal with refugees 8 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which deals solely with the Palestinians, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) which deals with all the others. While UNHCR actually solves refugee problems, UNRWA?s mandate is to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee problem.
Under UNWRA, no refugee is ever resettled. In fact, the Palestinian refugee population is the only one that actually grows, because UNRWA follows the PLO Covenant dictate that refugee status is passed down from parent to child to grandchild, unlike under URHCR, where refugee status is personal to the refugee himself.
The sole purpose for this is to keep those festering sores called refugee camps as photo ops with which to bludgeon Israel and to keep alive the threat to flood Israel with what is said to be 4 million refugees under the so-called right of return.
Fact is, no one really cares about the Arab refugees. They are pawns, one more weapon in the Arab arsenal in their 60-year war of annihilation against Israel.
Roger Talbot graduated from Lompoc High School in 1969. He returned to Lompoc in 2005, after living in Israel for 16 years. He is a CPA.
July 13, 2008