The Palestinian refugee file is being erased gradually, meaning the end of the right of return — which no one talks about anymore — while everyone, paradoxically, fears new waves of displacement instead of the return of refugees to Palestine.
اضافة اعلان
That's how the headlines have flipped: instead of talk about the right of return, the talk is now about preventing displacement, as if we're announcing our panic over new waves of refugees from Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip — and perhaps also from the Palestinians of 1948, some of whom believe they are safe simply by holding Israeli citizenship, which is not true.
There is ongoing destruction, a project to liquidate the presence of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Jerusalem, and the recent raid on the agency's Qalandia institute and the raising of the Israeli flag there is not the last such incident — it was preceded by the closure of the agency's schools in Jerusalem, the banning of its activities in the city, and the Knesset's passage of two laws criminalizing UNRWA and banning any form of cooperation with it.
Coinciding with and preceding all this was the destruction of UNRWA's institutions in the Gaza Strip, the false accusation that agency employees are members of military organizations, and Washington's incitement against the agency in order to dry up its funding, which has been cut off entirely. The goal here is to expel this international institution from all of Palestine, meaning the same will soon be repeated in the West Bank through the closure of schools, health facilities, and other institutions.
UNRWA supports 6 million Palestinian refugees in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The crisis here is not really a crisis of educational or health services so much as an attempt to erase the agency's political definition as the internationally documented witness to displacement — and, by extension, to what is tied to the right of return. This amounts to a comprehensive liquidation amid international silence that only grumbles even when UN staff are denied visas or entry into Gaza and the various Palestinian territories.
But what is even more serious is that erasing UNRWA from Jerusalem cannot be separated from attempts to erase the Arab, Islamic, and Christian identity of the city, within a broader effort to produce a new identity — meaning we should expect even worse measures inside the occupied city against the entire Arab presence and its institutions there.
The aspect no one talks about concerns the host countries — Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Destroying UNRWA means shifting full responsibility onto the host countries, in terms of caring for these refugees and securing services, with all the economic burden that entails. Politically, it also means permanent settlement (tawtin) in those countries, by stripping refugees, the refugee file, and the right of return of their international protective umbrella. We may even reach a stage in Palestine's neighboring countries, including Jordan, where they take on the administrative and financial responsibility for all of UNRWA's existing institutions — with the even greater crises that implies in terms of salaries and allocations.
This is a dangerous and sensitive file, and lamenting bad luck or issuing condemnations is not enough, because six million internationally recognized refugees are having their international status liquidated within a broader framework whose ultimate aim will reach as far as planning the displacement of even more Palestinians. Instead of refugees returning to their homes, it becomes necessary to brace for the Israeli plan to send even more refugees into all of Palestine's neighboring countries.
