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> The unrwa has a policy of always expanding the number of refugees That's a very specific claim. Where can we find support for it?

ars 3y ago
"UNRWA re-opened its new inscription process in 1992. Palestine refugees who were not registered in the early fifties can now apply for registration, provided that they approach any UNRWA registration office in person and are able to produce valid documentation proving their 1948 refugee status. Since 2006, husbands and descendants of registered refugee women, known as ‘married to non-refugee’ (MNR) family members, have also become eligible to be registered to receive UNRWA services." https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/eligibility-registration https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/eligibility-registration And this nice graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_number_of_Palestinian_refugees_as_defined_by_UNRWA_(1950_-_2008).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_number_of_Palestini... There is actually no mechanism to take someone off of UNRWA membership roles! Once a member, always a member, and so are all their kids. Forever.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > There is actually no mechanism to take someone off of UNRWA membership roles! Once a member, always a member, and so are all their kids. Forever. This is silly. It's just registration to receive services. You don't need to "take someone off of UNRWA membership roles" -- just stop using the services. You make it sound like an organization that's trying to sinisterly enroll everyone it can find for nefarious purposes, even their children, with no escape! It's a humanitarian aid organization for goodness sakes. If you don't want to use its services, then just don't. I mean, if a humanitarian aid organization provided services to people but not to their children, that seems like it would be a pretty big problem, no? I'm baffled how you can think that providing services to children is a bad thing.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    It's so much more than that. It's a political affiliation; it's a status; it's a stigma in some circles. We can all easily imagine wanting to distance ourselves from certain organizations. To find you cannot disentangle yourself, that anyone can look you up and draw conclusions from your affiliation, is an problem. Not 'silly'.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      Can you provide a reputable source for those claims? I can't find anything in the (extremely long) Wikipedia article that suggests anything like that, or anything from a quick Google search. It's not a political party. It's an institution -- a UN agency -- that provides education, social services, and health care, that someone may or may not be eligible for. If you attended a school run by them as a child, or received health care from them, I'm having an extremely difficult time trying to imagine how that becomes a "stigma" that you need to "disentangle" yourself from, or why anyone would ever describe that as an "affiliation". It's just where you went to school and got medical care. (Which, you know, is usually better than not going to school or not getting medical care.)
      - ars 3y ago
        The so called, and very badly named, "Right of return" is what you want to look up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return UNRWA registration puts people into that status.
        crazygringo 3y ago
        That has nothing to do with anything I wrote in my comment, as far as I can tell. Unless you can explain further how the right of return is somehow a political party, or a "stigma" that people are trying to "disentangle" themselves from?
        ars 3y ago
        > Unless you can explain further how the right of return is somehow a political party, or a "stigma" that people are trying to "disentangle" themselves from? I guess I assumed you had some basic knowledge of the situation there. Explaining properly would take too long, but in short part of the reason there is no political solution to the conflict, is that the Palestinians insist on the right of return to decedents of former Palestinians into Israel proper. Israel would obviously never agree to that. (They could return to the newly created Palestine, but apparently that's not an option for them - they only want Israel.) So that's your political party connection. And as for stigma anyone who is listed on that register is basically permanently excluded from citizenship in their country of birth. Former Palestinians who were born in Lebanon would prefer to be Lebanese citizens and work there, but they can't, because of that registry. etc, etc, etc, for all the other Arab countries in the area (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, etc). No one wants Palestinians, so I'm sure a ton of them would prefer to shed that label and live like other Arabs in those states, but they can't.
  - ars 3y ago
    That's not true though, the UNRWA is the organization that holds the list of people that Palestinians demand to be allowed into Israel. Despite that those people have little connection to Israel, they were not born there, and have never been there. All they have is some ancestor who lived there a long time ago. > I mean, if a humanitarian aid organization provided services to people but not to their children, that seems like it would be a pretty big problem, no? I'm baffled how you can think that providing services to children is a bad thing. At the very minimum they should hold two lists: Actual refugees and poor people who might need help. But worse, they are perpetuating permanent refugees - because it's against the UNRWA policy to pressure host countries to give citizenship to people who were born there, if those people are registered with the UNRWA. The country in turn is quite happy to let the UNRWA pay for services for them. The easiest way to understand this is to compare to the policies of the UNHCR. There are no permanent refugees with the UNHCR.

ars 3y ago

"UNRWA re-opened its new inscription process in 1992. Palestine refugees who were not registered in the early fifties can now apply for registration, provided that they approach any UNRWA registration office in person and are able to produce valid documentation proving their 1948 refugee status. Since 2006, husbands and descendants of registered refugee women, known as ‘married to non-refugee’ (MNR) family members, have also become eligible to be registered to receive UNRWA services." https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/eligibility-registration https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/eligibility-registration And this nice graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_number_of_Palestinian_refugees_as_defined_by_UNRWA_(1950_-_2008).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_number_of_Palestini... There is actually no mechanism to take someone off of UNRWA membership roles! Once a member, always a member, and so are all their kids. Forever.

crazygringo 3y ago
> There is actually no mechanism to take someone off of UNRWA membership roles! Once a member, always a member, and so are all their kids. Forever. This is silly. It's just registration to receive services. You don't need to "take someone off of UNRWA membership roles" -- just stop using the services. You make it sound like an organization that's trying to sinisterly enroll everyone it can find for nefarious purposes, even their children, with no escape! It's a humanitarian aid organization for goodness sakes. If you don't want to use its services, then just don't. I mean, if a humanitarian aid organization provided services to people but not to their children, that seems like it would be a pretty big problem, no? I'm baffled how you can think that providing services to children is a bad thing.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  It's so much more than that. It's a political affiliation; it's a status; it's a stigma in some circles. We can all easily imagine wanting to distance ourselves from certain organizations. To find you cannot disentangle yourself, that anyone can look you up and draw conclusions from your affiliation, is an problem. Not 'silly'.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Can you provide a reputable source for those claims? I can't find anything in the (extremely long) Wikipedia article that suggests anything like that, or anything from a quick Google search. It's not a political party. It's an institution -- a UN agency -- that provides education, social services, and health care, that someone may or may not be eligible for. If you attended a school run by them as a child, or received health care from them, I'm having an extremely difficult time trying to imagine how that becomes a "stigma" that you need to "disentangle" yourself from, or why anyone would ever describe that as an "affiliation". It's just where you went to school and got medical care. (Which, you know, is usually better than not going to school or not getting medical care.)
    - ars 3y ago
      The so called, and very badly named, "Right of return" is what you want to look up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return UNRWA registration puts people into that status.
      - crazygringo 3y ago
        That has nothing to do with anything I wrote in my comment, as far as I can tell. Unless you can explain further how the right of return is somehow a political party, or a "stigma" that people are trying to "disentangle" themselves from?
        ars 3y ago
        > Unless you can explain further how the right of return is somehow a political party, or a "stigma" that people are trying to "disentangle" themselves from? I guess I assumed you had some basic knowledge of the situation there. Explaining properly would take too long, but in short part of the reason there is no political solution to the conflict, is that the Palestinians insist on the right of return to decedents of former Palestinians into Israel proper. Israel would obviously never agree to that. (They could return to the newly created Palestine, but apparently that's not an option for them - they only want Israel.) So that's your political party connection. And as for stigma anyone who is listed on that register is basically permanently excluded from citizenship in their country of birth. Former Palestinians who were born in Lebanon would prefer to be Lebanese citizens and work there, but they can't, because of that registry. etc, etc, etc, for all the other Arab countries in the area (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, etc). No one wants Palestinians, so I'm sure a ton of them would prefer to shed that label and live like other Arabs in those states, but they can't.
- ars 3y ago
  That's not true though, the UNRWA is the organization that holds the list of people that Palestinians demand to be allowed into Israel. Despite that those people have little connection to Israel, they were not born there, and have never been there. All they have is some ancestor who lived there a long time ago. > I mean, if a humanitarian aid organization provided services to people but not to their children, that seems like it would be a pretty big problem, no? I'm baffled how you can think that providing services to children is a bad thing. At the very minimum they should hold two lists: Actual refugees and poor people who might need help. But worse, they are perpetuating permanent refugees - because it's against the UNRWA policy to pressure host countries to give citizenship to people who were born there, if those people are registered with the UNRWA. The country in turn is quite happy to let the UNRWA pay for services for them. The easiest way to understand this is to compare to the policies of the UNHCR. There are no permanent refugees with the UNHCR.