The Arab Refugees

on the World Today

THE Arab refugee problem vitally affects the health and the peace of the free world. It is critical from three aspects: the human, because the civilized world does not like to see people starve; the economic, because without aid from abroad the presence of such large numbers will break their hosts; the political, because it illustrates vividly the ArabIsraeli rift and presents to the Kremlin a sitting target for subversive propaganda.

Following the United Nations Partition Plan of November, 1947, Great Britain relinquished her mandate, and the state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948. The fighting continued for another year, by which time over 900,000 Arabs had fled. The Arabs say that these civilians left in war in fear of their lives and should now, in peace, be allowed to return to their homes. The Jews say that the problem cannot be regulated except as part of a general peace settlement between the two sides. Unfortunately, neither side wants peace except on its own terms; so the situation continues to embitter both Arabs and Jews, who had lived in friendly and fruitful coexistence for generations.

For the first time for many centuries there are no Jews in Old Jerusalem; no edict excludes them — only the acts and facts of a state of war suspended by a thin six-year-old truce guaranteed by the big powers. Beyond this the Jews have got their national home, and the barbarities of World War II pinpoint the need for its preservation.

“The policy of this Government,” said Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, “. . .is founded on the ingathering of the exiles.” Their nationalism is aggressive: it belongs to a people who have been regarded as inferior and are now, by force of arms and money, in a position of power. Added to this is a. “fortress psychology,” the squeeze of economic blockade. Far from being willing to retreat into the Partition boundaries, the Jews seek Lebensraum,

But, say the Arabs, we have lived in Palestine for thirteen centuries; we have preserved the physical, mental, and linguistic characteristics of the Southern Semitic race; to the Arabs the Jews are intruders. King Hussein I of Jordan and his cousin King Faisal II of Iraq are princes of the House of Hashim, the world’s oldest reigning dynasty, and are lineal descendants of the Prophet Mahomet. King Hussein is also Guardian of the Haram esh Sherif, the sanctuary venerated by millions for its association with the Prophet. Under his protection and that of his government are the Holy Places of Christendom, and Islam has ruled longer over them than any other faith or nation.

Therefore the Arabs are disillusioned and bitter — against the United States and Great Britain for supporting the Jews; against themselves for their failure to unite against a common enemy; and against the Jews, whom they have always regarded as an inferior race, for defeating them in battle.

Too little to go round

Some of the skilled and professional Arab Palestinians have by now found employment — in the oil lands of the Persian Gulf, in government, in contracting firms and local enterprises, in the professions — but they arc a trickle; the flood remains. At the headquarters in Beirut of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency hang maps showing the disposition of 899,827 Arab refugee dependents and their percentage of the host populations: —

Syria. 80,730 (2.5%)

Lebanon.103,588 (7.7%)

Gaza.212,581 (265%)

Jordan.496,928 (56.4%)

To care for them, UNRWA has a staff of 135 international and 8597 area personnel, of whom 2566 are teachers and 2991 are medical staff. To support the refugees, UNRWA has the tightest relief budget in the world ($27 a head a year to cover a basic ration averaging 1515 calories per person per day, special rations for children and the undernourished, housing, blankets, soap, kerosene, transport, welfare, medical care, etc.). To rehabilitate them, UNRWA has been given a further term of five years and $35 million more per year.

The ration card is the refugee’s most precious possession, his passport to security. In February, 1955, 841,237 full rations were issued, but the hardest of the Agency’s many hard tasks is to establish who are the bona fide recipients. Far greater cooperation is needed from the host governments and from the beneficiaries themselves if improper and false registrations are to be checked and the available budget for relief stretched to increase the half-rations of those in frontier villages, whose lot is a particularly unhappy one, and to include some 25,000 children who fulfill the requirements but for whom so far there has not been enough to go round.

The Arab shows vigor and initiative when confronted with disaster, and somehow has managed to supplement his basic ration with fresh meat, fruit, vegetables, shoes, and clothing, which are not part of the relief supplies. But the ration is meager at best, and no amount of contrivance will make up for the fact that the majority want to work and that the work they want is the work they best know how to do: to cultivate the land.

Resources have never covered the provision of clothing, and now that the exiles have largely used up what they were able to bring with them from their homes, the need is steadily and urgently increasing. The patched — though nearly always clean — condition of the children is particularly sad. Voluntary agencies have been generous, but Western-type garments and high-heeled shoes are not the most suitable, and there are hopes that shortly a distribution of cotton cloth will be available which could be made up to requirements and ensure that at least the children will be decently dressed. The extremes of heat and cold aggravate the problem.

As to shelter, 63 per cent of the refugees are in houses and 27 per cent in hutted camps of mud, concrete, or wattle, which are spread like mushrooms on the wind-swept hills around Amman, in the green valleys of Lebanon and Syria, and in the barren folds of the Jordan Valley. It is hoped that in two years the remaining 10 per cent will have been cleared from tents into more hospitable accommodation.

Miracle in medicine

UNRWA and the many voluntary and local government agencies are slowly raising the standard of relief. In medicine a miracle is happening as each year some 7 million people attend outpatient clinics and other welfare centers, the condit ion of hospitals is improved, and the number of beds at UNRWA disposal has increased (from 1373 in 1950 to 2188 in 1955). Insect-borne diseases are kept under control, and health teams comprising representatives of various social services are being trained for work in the camps.

There is gradual acceptance of the principle that to educate is to rehabilitate— an argument that makes sense when it is realized that half the refugees are under fifteen years of age. This year UNRWA is supporting 168,129 keenly enthusiastic pupils either in government and private schools or in the 301 UNRWAUNESCO schools; 300 university scholarships are offered to refugees, and 950 students are doing vocational training.

The Agency proposes to expand as rapidly as possible a system of vocational training centers like the two already operating near Jerusalem and in the Gaza strip, in the belief that the economic expansion that should take place in the Near Eastern regions during the next twenty years will require instructors, experts, skilled workmen, and artisans.

The work being done is a lively example of the meaning of the United Nations Charter but it is of necessity a holding operation. There is incongruity in having the United Nations administer a rehabilitation program in countries which are critical of UNRWA but which at the same time would be unwilling to take over the program if UNRWA disappeared.

Even if the Arab states were willing, their economic position would forbid it. The worst case is in the Gaza strip, where 200,000 refugees are crowded on 3 per cent of the land they formerly owned, living on charity and surrounded by the pastures which, so far as they are concerned, are still theirs. Ho they raid, sometimes genuinely in search of grazing ground or food. Israel retaliates, and the bad relations existing between Arab and Jew grow worse.

With the increase in tension the tacit understandings which have grown up over the years, whereby some of the hardships of living on the line were relieved and access was allowed to wells, fields, gardens, and schools, are now being jeopardized by military affrays which help no one and only serve to push peace further away. There are extremists on both sides who believe that these incidents serve their cause; and any attempt to redefine the ludicrous line would be fruitless.

Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon have started many projects to give employment to refugees. But however useful the smaller projects may be, they do not have a great effect on the overall problem. Cost and other factors indicate that large projects are needed and that availability of land and water must be definitely assured if in the next decade work is going to be found for the majority.

The need for green land

About 5000 refugees went to Iraq during and immediately after the Palestine conflict, and the Agency, in seeking employment opportunities for those who continue to migrate there (some 600 a month), has sponsored a loan program to establish new enterprises or expand existing ones. If Iraq’s development goes according to plan, it will by 1975 bring a very big area of land into cultivation and need a great many workers, but Iraq has many problems and must not risk political instability by accepting many more refugees.

The Arabs are good farmers and well accustomed to coaxing yields from barren lands. For the present, the best hope is the successful inception of two great schemes for turning the wilderness into green land. These are the Yarmuk-Jordan Valley development scheme, the political complications of which are in the capable hands of Eric Johnston, and the Sinai Desert project, which is now the subject of discussion between Egypt, the Sudan, and UNRWA.

In the former it is planned to use the waters of the Yarmuk and Jordan rivers to irrigate parts of the Jordan Valley and provide a livelihood for some 100,000 to 150,000 refugees. The construction of dams, canals, and other works would give direct employment to up to 12,000 persons for several years.

The idea of the Sinai Desert project is to siphon water from the Nile underneath the Suez Canal and make arable a large area of desert land on the eastern side. It is estimated that the land thus irrigated could support some 50,000 refugees from the unhappy community which festers at Gaza, that water could be delivered in the second year after beginning construction, and that the first workers could be settled in the following year. One engineer drew a comparison with the Imperial Valley in California, in which conditions were not more favorable than in Sinai but which is now supporting a dense agricultural community.

By 1975, chiefly by irrigation, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan hope they will have increased their total area of crop land by 58 per cent over the 1953 level. For this, dams, canals, roads, and electric power plants will be needed, and also farmers to cultivate the land, and skilled workers for the new industries which will utilize the agricultural production. One solution lies in training the young.

Facing the facts

For the middle-aged and the old, the refugee problem cannot be solved outside the context of the general problem that gave rise to it — the stabilization of relations between the Arabs and Israel —and there will be no political or economic stability in the Middle East until the countries concerned use their political wisdom to recognize the nature, the magnitude, and the gravity of the problem which confronts them.

The West also has to face the facts. No Middle Eastern country, with the possible exception of Iraq, can absorb additional refugees without causing severe economic dislocation with consequent political instability which the Kremlin would do its best to aggravate. Without aid, insolvent Israel cannot pay compensation or allow full repatriation. Without the security of various guarantees and pacts between Israel, the Arab countries, and the West, the Western objective of protecting vital oil supplies and of promoting political and economic stability in strategic areas on the Soviet periphery would be a pipe dream.

The eventual solution of the refugee problem lies in a continual strengthening of t he economies of the Arab countries concerned, and in a determined effort on the part of both Arabs and Jews to reach a compromise.