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06/05/2012 04:36 Legislation would force State Department to differentiate between Palestinian refugees and descendants of refugees. WASHINGTON – Palestinian advocates are warning that a new US Senate amendment dictating a reporting requirement on the issue of Palestinian refugees could set back efforts to reach a peace deal. The amendment to a bill, recently approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, mandates that the secretary of state must report how many of the Palestinians serviced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency fled or left homes in Israel during the War of Independence and how many are only their descendants. Related:...

Israel announced Tuesday it will launch an international awareness campaign highlighting the historic injustice done to Jews from Arab countries. Following the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 numerous Arab countries expelled their Jewish citizens and seized their assets - forcing them to become refugees in Israel. Foreign ministry officials note that 850,000 Jewish refugees lost billions of dollars in assets and were forced to begin anew in Israel with only what they could carry on their backs. The officials added that while Arabs nations have perpetuated the status of "Palestinian refugees" in their nations for generations in...

The Arab League has instructed its members to deny citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees (or their descendants) “to... protect their right to return to their homeland”. Read how they are treated by their brothers.

In case you thought the title was referring to the Palestinians living in Gaza, or even Judea and Samaria, you’d be wrong. From my vantage point, these Palestinians have it pretty good, whether in relation to Palestinians living elsewhere, even in Jordan, or to Arabs generally, living in Egypt or Turkey. “Palestinian” is a name given to Arabs after the ’67 War, who lived or did live in the area known as Palestine during the Palestine Mandate and afterwards right up to the present and includes their descendants even if such descendants never set foot in the area known as...

There was a time when the lands now known as Israel, (including Judea and Samaria and Gaza), and most of Jordan were called “Palestine”. In fact, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 declared “His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. There followed considerable cooperation between the Jews, represented by Chaim Weizmann and the Arabs living in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, and Jordan, represented by Emir Feisal. As a result, the Feisal-Weizmann Agreement was signed in January 1919, in which it was agreed that the Jews would get the lands lying west...

Holland is reviewing its policy of funding the UNRWA agency for Arab ”refugees," which treats them differently from other refugees. In reply to a question from Speaker of the legislature Hans Ten Broke, Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said the government will “thoroughly review” its annual contribution of approximately $30 million, according to the European Jewish Press. Holland is the sixth largest contributor to the United Nations agency, which was set up to deal with Arabs, most of whom were encouraged to flee Israel by Arab countries who promised they would quickly return after the anticipated annihilation of Israel in the...

A heated argument is going on via Arutz Sheva between Christopher Gunness, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency created especially for the Arab "refugees") spokesman in Israel, and David Bedein, head of the Israel Resource News Agency, Center for Near East Policy Research in Jerusalem, about whether UNRWA bears responsibility for programs that promote destroying Israel at UNRWA-aided schools. The story: David Bedein wrote an op-ed for Arutz Sheva claiming UNRWA sponsored programs were based on implementing the "Law of Return", even through violence. UNRWA's spokesman vehemently denied it. ..... .....

Researchers at the Center for Near East Policy Research have produced a new documentary film entitled “Palestinian Refugee Policy: From Despair to Hope.” The film shows just how deeply Hamas has penetrated UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), the UN agency specializing in providing aid to PA Arabs. The film does this by using school posters and interviews with UNRWA teachers to highlight how the ideal of killing Israelis—rather than working for peace—has come to dominate a UN agency. “The system of indoctrination in the Palestinian schools and summer camps run by UNRWA is contrasted with what goes on...

UNRWA could use its resources to create a better future instead of relegating the descendants of the 1948 war to another generation in limbo. Talkbacks (7) There are 1.6 million people in the Gaza Strip, most of them in UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) “refugee” camps. With support from more than 35 major Western democracies, UNRWA could be dealing with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from a strictly humanitarian point of view, and not as a political organization that maintains refugees in “temporary”camps for 63 years under the promise of return to villages from 1948 that no longer...

... Arab people would be a lot better off were they to concentrate on utilizing the expertise, the business connections, the great educational opportunities, the friendship and the scientific knowledge of their neighbours in Israel. Is this possible in a world where they are taught to hate Jews? No. Does UNRWA think that isolating Palestinians, keeping them as poster children of oppression, and teaching them to hate their neighbours represent a sound strategy? Yes. ...

An UNRWA director has apologized after his comments on the “right of return” led to a backlash. Andrew Whitley, the outgoing head of UNRWA's New York office, had said that the Arab world's focus on “return” to Israel was a “cruel illusion.” On Wednesday, Whitley said he had realized his previous statements were “inappropriate and wrong.” The statements do not reflect UNRWA's views, he said. He sent a written apology to UNRWA headquarters, saying, “I wish to put this letter on the public record out of concern that what I said in Washington could be interpreted in ways that negatively...

The outgoing director of the New York office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has angered Jordan after stating it is time for Arab nations to absorb their brethren who are “refugees” from the 1948 war. Andrew Whitley stated that Palestinian refugees must not live in the illusion of achieving the “right to return” and that the Arab countries must search for a place for them in their lands to resettle there. When UNRWA began its operations providing aid and services to the Arabs living in Israel in 1949, there were approximately 700,000 who qualified as “refugees.” Today,...

In January 2010, the Canadian government announced that its aid would be redirected from UNRWA to "specific projects in the Palestinian Authority that will ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." The total amount of money was the same, but the president of Canada's Treasury Board said, "It is now being redirected in accordance with Canadian values." In the U.S., House Resolution 5065, known as the UNRWA Humanitarian Accountability Act, was introduced in Congress in April 2010 (it has 26 co-sponsors) to help ensure that the $267 million American tax dollars spent on UNRWA is spent in accordance with...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-press-secretary-israel-s-announcement-gaza Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 20, 2010 Statement by the Press Secretary on Israel’s announcement on Gaza The President has described the situation in Gaza as unsustainable and has made clear that it demands fundamental change. On June 9, he announced that the United States was moving forward with $400 million in initiatives and commitments for the West Bank and Gaza. The President described these projects as a down payment on the U.S. commitment to the people...

NOTE The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-abbas-palestinian-authority-after-meeting Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 09, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority after Meeting Oval Office 11:58 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hello, everybody. Be careful, careful. Before I begin, I know that there was just a vote in the United Nations Security Council. I'm going to comment on that separately. I don't want to detract from the topic at hand here. So for reporters who are interested in that issue, I...

From the fury with which Turkey's leaders are demanding carte blanche access for aid to Gaza, you might suppose the Turkish government had exhausted every available route for pouring its own bounty into the Palestinian enclave. Think again. While Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan whips up passions about Israel stopping a blockade-busting "aid" flotilla, his own government has racked up a record as one of the cheapskates of Gaza relief. United Nations records show that if Gaza has been lean on aid from Turkey in recent years, it's not because Turkish relief donations have been blocked by the Israelis....

(IsraelNN.com) Prof. Nitza Nachmias of the Jewish-Arab Center in Haifa University says that if it wasn’t for UNRWA and its half-billion dollar annual budget, the Palestinian refugee problem would have been solved long ago. “In essence,” she told Arutz Sheva’s Shimon Cohen on Sunday, “there’s no such thing as Palestinian refugees. If people would stop calling the places in which they live ‘refugee camps,’ then they would see that these places are just like villages and towns anywhere else, and the inhabitants are totally rehabilitated… Refugee camps are like the maabarot [in which Israel housed its hundreds of thousands of...

<p>The American funding comes despite a report commissioned by the European parliament, which showed that Hamas terrorists have been chosen by the agency's labor union to oversee its Gaza facilities, which was part of a Canadian decision last month to stop its UNRWA funding.</p>

“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That’s one firearm for every 12 people on the planet. The only question is: how do we arm the other 11?” said the gun-running protagonist in the 2005 Nicolas Cage film Lord of War.  The filmmakers based that character in part on real-life weapons dealer Viktor Bout, a former Soviet officer turned arms merchant on the black market. But was he just a businessman seeking a quick profit, or is there more to the story? The New American has previously reported on Bout’s ties to Russian intelligence, as well as his...

The Rogers Plan of 1969, like all subsequent and ill-fated efforts to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, tabled the issue of the Palestinian "refugees," leaving it for "final status" negotiations. "It is our hope," said the Rogers Plan, "that agreement on the key issues of peace, security, withdrawal and territory will create a climate in which these questions of refugees...can be resolved as part of the overall settlement."   But this is to put first things last. As the passage of time has made abundantly clear, the issue of "refugees" remains the defining obstacle to any reconciliation in the region. Pretending...