Israel’s UN mission supports new attack on UNRWA

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  • Redéfinissons la notion de « réfugié » (palestinien, tu penses bien) : après 5 générations, hein, ça suffit. UN to discuss UNRWA’s definition of Palestinian refugees
    http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=17579

    The United Nations is scheduled on Monday to discuss revisions to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The discussion will focus, among other things, on an initiative by the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists which calls for reforming the manner in which a Palestinian refugee is defined.

    The association’s goal is to fundamentally change the objectives of UNRWA’s activities. It argues that while other relief organizations seek to resettle refugees, UNRWA dedicates itself to preventing the resettlement of Palestinians. Additionally, while in other organizations the number of refugees is limited to those who fled their countries, UNRWA inflates its numbers by including all the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees from the War of Independence in 1948.

    Former Knesset member Dr. Einat Wilf held meetings in the past year with ambassadors from countries that donate to UNRWA in efforts to shed light on the organization’s practices.

    “There is no reason for a fifth-generation descendant, living in Gaza, to be considered by an organization supported by Western countries as a refugee from Palestine,” said Wilf.

    Irit Kohn, the president of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, said: ["UNRWA] prolongs the refugee problem and does not facilitate any solution. Had the considerable funds that have been transferred [to it] been utilized properly, the situation could be totally different."

    Vous avez trouvé des articles en français ? (Et même en anglais, des trucs qui ne soient pas strictement des médias über-pro-israéliens ?)

    • Le Akhbar évidemment :
      http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/206764

      كشفت صحيفة «إسرائيل اليوم» عن أن الأمم المتحدة ستناقش اليوم في مقرها في نيويورك مشروعاً إسرائيلياً يطالب بإجراء إصلاحات في تعريف دور وكالة غوث وتشغيل اللاجئين الفلسطينيين «الأونروا»، بعدما بادرت إلى هذا النقاش جمعية المحامين الأميركيين ورجال قانون يهود، في مسعى إلى تغيير تعريف اللاجئ الفلسطيني.

    • Ben White sur le sujet : Israel’s UN mission supports new attack on UNRWA
      https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/blogs/politics/11581-israels-un-mission-supports-new-attack-on-unrwa

      The organisers’ agenda is made plain in two recently-published articles, including one by conference speaker Asaf Romirowsky, an IDF veteran and formerly of Campus Watch, brainchild of Daniel Pipes. Writing in The Tower, Romirowsky says that UNRWA “has made Israeli-Palestinian peace all but impossible”, language echoed by Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin in a piece published this weekend (where he upgrades the event to a “UN panel”).

      Tobin, however, like conference organiser Kahn herself, recognises that the drive to undermine or even totally abolish UNRWA is unlikely to make much headway within the UN itself – a possibility he calls “virtually non-existent”. Instead, Israel and its lobbyists are concentrating their efforts on more friendly terrain, the US Congress, where according to Romirowsky, they hope to advance efforts conditioning US aid to UNRWA on a redefinition on who is a Palestinian refugee.

      Last summer, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed an amendment authored by Senator Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.), requiring the State Department to report to Congress on the number of Palestinians served by UNRWA who actually lived in Palestine 1946-’48 (as opposed to their descendants). One of today’s panels is dedicated to an “overview of US legislative efforts and suggestions for practical steps that can be taken to accomplish reform [of UNRWA]”.