Since 1948, both the Palestine Arab refugee problem and the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestine Arab Refugees (UNRWA) have been studied comprehensively.
The Formulation of Policy, 1948-1956
by Jacob Tovy
Routledge, 2014. 324 pp. $102.99
Reviewed by Asaf Romirowsky
Since 1948, both the Palestine Arab refugee problem and the United Nations Works and Relief Agency for Palestine Arab Refugees (UNRWA) have been studied comprehensively.
Almost since its inception, UNRWA, the international agency charged with aiding the refugees, has worked against their resettlement in Arab countries where Palestinians are located. One way UNRWA has done this has been by shifting its mission from refugee relief to education, devising its own expanded definitions of who is a refugee, and expanding its legal mandates to “protect” and represent refugees.
As a result, the Palestinian clients of UNRWA have gradually taken over the organization and have undermined an international relief effort, created in naïve good faith, but with the complicity of the UN General Assembly.
In his book “Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Issue,” Jacob Tovy, a research fellow at the Herzl Institute at Haifa University, tackles the origins of Israel’s policy towards the refugees from 1948 to 1956 and brings to light many of the Israeli sources regarding this topic showing the decision-making process that has gone into Israel’s policies towards the Arabs of Palestine.
One of the interesting parts of Tovy’s book is his treatment of Israel reaction to the Economic Survey Mission (ESM) in the winter of 1949. The ESM’s mission was to assess what could be done regarding the refugees. It was anticipated that this US-led regional development program would help raise the overall economic level of the region and thereby facilitate resettlement of Palestine Arab refugees, something the author shows the Israelis favored.
The orientation of the commission, particularly under former TVA chairman Gordon Clapp, signaled to all parties that Washington would back a large-scale regional development orientation that could benefit both the major states and the refugees.
For the Israeli team led by Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan, the solution was clear and rested only within the framework of resettlement; repatriation was not part of the equation. Even today the Israeli perspective has been consistent, that is that UNRWA has prolonged and exacerbated the problem rather than working towards real solutions that would have resettled the Arab-Palestinian population.
The ESM does not always get enough attention in the Israeli literature and Tovy is able to underscore this for the Israeli student of the conflict. It would have been useful to include other relief programs such as the one conducted in Gaza by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and their relationship with Israel in order to highlight the layers of relief initiatives.
As by 1948, the AFSC was at the height of its international prominence. Further, the AFSC’s 18 months operation in the Gaza Strip was exemplary. The organization provided food, set up schools and clinics, and faced down the Egyptian military.
Unlike any other relief organization at the time or since, the AFSC conducted an accurate census and reduced its rolls of Palestinian refugees. Moreover, the AFSC understood that even if the refugees did accept resettlement, no Arab state would accept them. The only possible solution would be political, not economic. And such a solution did not seem likely in the near future.
To its credit, the AFSC could not countenance participating in an open-ended relief program, which it believed would intensify the “moral degeneration” of the refugees and the degradation of their skills, self-reliance, and self-respect.
As a result, the AFSC withdrew from Gaza in early 1950, turning its responsibilities over to the United Nations organization UNRWA. By the 60s, the AFSC began to take a more explicit and fervent pro-Palestinian stance, applying its growing radicalism and willingness to accommodate the use of violence to the Middle East conflict.
Tovy’s extensive research is a welcome addition to the corpus of materials on the Arab-Palestinian refugee problem, opening a door to the Israeli decision making process, which at times has avoided tackling the problem, allowing it to fester and grow. However, understanding the relationship between Israel and other religious and non-religious NGOs is an angle of great importance.
Finally, the author is right to underscore the centrality of the Arab-Palestinian refugees and their ongoing role in the Arab-Israeli conflict at large. To that end, Israeli students would greatly benefit from understanding the nature and origins of the variety of refugee relief operations that were deeply involved on the ground from Israel’s earliest days.
Stable No More:
http://www.romirowsky.com/17699/stable-no-more
Traditionally, American Presidents and policymakers have strived to create and maintain stability with their Middle East allies. Yet now with the Iran deal we have estranged our traditional allies while at the same time trying to appease them. Multilateralism and diplomacy to a fault is the legacy of the Obama White House, under the guise of wishful thinking for reform and an embrace that will bring Iran back into the community of nations. Moreover, it highlights the incredible naïveté regarding Islamist forces and their acceptance by liberal democracies.
One of the main political-psychological barriers this White House has failed to internalize is Iran’s terror proxies; Islamic Republic has bankrolled them for decades. Instances, like the ship Karine A, captured January 3, 2002 which was carrying fifty or more tons of arms, its predecessor the Santorini, captured in May 2001, and the Calypso, apprehended during an attempt to smuggle arms in January 2001. All three of these shipments were linked to Hizballah illustrate the ongoing threat Iran presents to Israel and its Arab-Sunni neighbors. The continued flow of arms ships to Yemen also underscores how long a reach Iran has by supporting many of the Islamist groups in the Middle East.
At one of his many Iran news conferences President Obama claimed that “[E]ven with this deal, we will continue to have profound differences with Iran: its support of terrorism, its use of proxies to destabilize parts of the Middle East.” In tandem, he has a set a sunset time to the arms and missile embargoes.
But John Kerry diminishes Iran’s ties to Hizbollah dismissing one of Israel’s ongoing consistent threats. Kerry stated “the notion that the $100 billion which Iran will obtain ‘is going to make all the difference in the world is just – it’s not true.'” Both statements are problematic to Israel on and illustrate the Administration’s shift from dismantling Iran’s nuclear program to containing it. Moreover, as the ties to Hizbullah were not seen within the prism of a nuclear threat the regime’s arming, financing and training were not included in the larger deal another sign that business will continue as usual.
One of the main catalysts for Israel’s Second Lebanon War in 2006 with Hezbollah – the Iranian proxy in the region – the first Gulf War of 1991. After the gulf War Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah perceived a weaker Israel which was losing its deterrence. The mighty Israel of 1967 was, in their view, no longer. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (of all Israeli PM’s) who allowed Iraqi rockets to land in Israel, and in the process surrendering its security to the US and promising not to intervene militarily. While the US under President George Bush Sr. and Secretary of State James Baker vowed to protect Israel this decision signaled to Hezbollah clear Israel weakness and an opening for destroying the Jewish State.
The 2015 Iran Deal’s stakes are much higher than 1991. There is little question that conventional threats to Israel are being overshadowed by non-conventional and existential threats. These are also detrimental to the region at large. Israeli deterrence is more important than ever, created by the Israeli qualitative military edge, provided both can withstand US political pressure. Tellingly, Israelis across the board, from the Left, Right and Center, understand what is at stake. There is little disagreement within Israel about the implications of a nuclear Iran. The stakes are much higher for Israel and its new Sunni allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt regarding a course of action.
Beyond Israel’s military strength, there is its global standing. This has suffered repeated blows as it has opposed the US and Europe in order to underscore the flaws of the nuclear deal. It is remarkable that a terror state and terror financier like Iran has been able to endear itself to the current US administration over a longstanding ally such as Israel. Positively, there is more agreement between Israel and its Sunni Arab neighbors than with the White House, something that seems to have escaped the keen observers in the Obama administration. This alliance is not only a political marriage but one that inherently understands the great evil rooted in Iran and its tentacles in the region as well as the deep divide between Sunnis and Shias.
The time when we could point to the fact the Arab-Israeli conflict remained conventional is long gone; we are now on the heels of a conventional and non-conventional arms race, a prospect that should act as a wakeup call to all those who believe in the “merits” of the Iran deal.
