UNWRA confidential, new threat to Israel

The spotlight is on UNWRA and its collusion with the terrorist organization Hamas. This notorious complicity was not front-page news until October 7. It had to be pointed out that even beyond the collusion and infiltration of terrorist organizations of various persuasions, UNWRA turned a blind eye to the participation of some of its employees in one or other of terrorist organizations.

At the same time. Little publicity has been given to the work in progress since 2020 to formalize and legalize REFUGEE status for the first people concerned (1948), but also for their descendants and even more. While we know that some who have never been refugees, or whose members have never been refugees, claim this title in order to benefit from aid provided by international funding. Yes, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) wants to make public several million documents on the 1948 displaced persons and their descendants. According to its authors, “the project is intended to contribute to the “treatment of trauma.” It seems that this project conceals a completely different goal. It is eminently political and threatening to Israel. The Abraham Accords have reshuffled the cards in the Middle East, and the refugee issue is not a priority. At a time when the conflict is raging and attacks are multiplying in Israel, this issue has suddenly come to the fore. But the organization is overwhelmed by its size and insufficient budget. In 1948, the organization’s mission was to take care of the 750,000 refugees on its lists. By 2021, the number had risen to nearly 6 million.

The true goal

Its Director for Social Affairs and Welfare, Dorothée Klaus, stated that “the aim is to enable all refugees to find out about their background by putting all these archives online.” These documents are the result of a census carried out between 1950 and 1951, which aimed to verify who was really “a displaced person.” These family files include handwritten assessments of respective situations, information on family composition and social and economic status prior to 1948. UNRWA inherited lists from humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross and the Quakers (AFSC), with all the inaccuracies and errors one can imagine.

This question became a burning issue when we saw the inflation in the number of beneficiaries and staff hired. The organization has become a hiring machine, not to say a “money pump” for terrorist organizations.  Many members of organizations that have nothing to do with helping “historical refugees” have infiltrated the organization, due to its porous nature. As a result, the organization has direct or indirect links with militant, and some say terrorist, organizations.

What we know: 30 million documents have already been digitized, but around 10 million remain to be digitized. The indexing and classification of historical files has never taken place. Ms. Klaus believes that there is currently a political climate in which the refugee issue is being sidelined. This makes it all the more important for UNRWA to secure the documents appropriately; for in her view, efforts are also underway to dissolve UNRWA, on the assumption that this would solve the refugee problem. She hopes that these archives will contribute to “raising awareness of the situation of the descendants of the 1948 displaced persons.”

UNRWA is accused of fueling the conflict by granting refugee status to as many people as possible. We can therefore imagine that the launch of this project, which doesn’t go by its real name, will be seen more as a legal and political tool. The aim will be to create a status with rights for all those registered, even if we are now in the third or even fourth generation. This project will undoubtedly add fuel to the fire, provoking a number of disputes within the camps population.

UNRWA, which is constantly accused of inflating the number of refugees, claims that the figures will be based on historical documents that can be verified. One also wonders why UNWRA has waited until now to make its project known. As UNRWA has not bothered to open its historical archives for decades, this announcement is provoking an outcry among “refugees,” some of whom have self-identified as “displaced persons.” It will raise real problems among the various military-political organizations under the guise of charitable or religious associations, which have managed over the years to infiltrate the organization and derive substantial benefits from it, which could suddenly be called into question.

“All figures will be based on historical documents,” it says.

If we read between the lines, we understand that all data will be based on UNWRA documents. So what is really expected of this right to information for refugees and their descendants?

For the organization, it is expected that any discussion at political level on “a just and lasting solution” for refugees will inevitably be based on this data. This clarification clearly confirms that the aim is to impose UNWRA as a political interlocutor legitimized by its own archives. Which is questionable, because the very fact of making this statement is open to challenge. Israel could just as easily produce its own archives. We would then enter into a pseudo-historical debate, archives versus archives, a debate that could last a few decades longer.

The right of return in question

This project updates in a different form the question of the “right of return,” which has already been raised a thousand times. The country can under no circumstances accept the imposition of this solution, which we know to be totally unrealistic. It could be resolved by a comprehensive plan involving all the countries in the region. The Abraham Accords could be the tool that eventually leads to a solution. The fact remains, however, that it is pointless and counter-productive to continue to cement refugee status, to teach in schools that the enemy is Israel, that the Jews are the cause of their misfortune. Contrary to this thesis, Israel is not the cause of their trauma and suffering, which has been passed on to current generations. The danger lies in changing the narrative of history. This approach is tantamount to negationism.

It was the Arab leaders of the time who were responsible for the exodus of 750,000 people, even though the UN had proposed a partition, which the Arabs refused. We want to erase the cause of the exodus to retain only the situation thus created.

For Ms. Klaus, access to the archives will enable them to better deal with “the trauma” in question, transmitted since the 1948 exodus.

As with the October 7 massacre, the 800,000 Jews expelled as refugees from Arab countries have been completely forgotten. We also learn that a small team of 15 people in Beirut is working to complete family trees and merge the records of displaced persons and their descendants for one village at a time. The project is well underway.

Israel must pay close attention to this initiative, which could quite easily lead to a broad conflagration of the camps, while fires have already been lit here and there.