Letter: Palestinian Refugees or State?

Dear Letter to the Editor:

If only the Palestinians were building a state willing to co-exist with the nation-state of the Jews, what a wonderful world it would be. But they aren’t and wishing won’t make it so.

In the 1940’s Arab states went to war, trying to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in the Jews’ ancestral homeland. They failed in their mission but managed to create two refugee groups. The two groups were treated very differently.

Israel absorbed and uplifted 800,000 Mizrachi Jews who’d been driven from their homes in the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Their descendants comprise the majority of Israel’s current Jewish population. Every position in Israeli governance, except Prime Minister, has been held at one time or another by someone with roots in the Mizrachi communities.

But Arab countries refused to take in the Arabs who’d fled Palestine or their descendants, leaving their care to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestine Refugees which has not resettled a single refugee nor found jobs for them. A full 99.5% of the 6,000,000 Palestine refugees on UNRWA’s rolls were born into refugee status, in UNRWA camps which are now essentially cities that are breeding grounds for terrorist activity. The “refugees” have been told that they will remain under UNRWA’s aegis until Israel agrees to give them the homes they claim their families lost in Israel seventy-five years ago. But the “refugees” have also been fed a constant diet of anti-Jewish hatred and are highly unlikely to live in peace with Jewish neighbors.  In fact, they are being groomed to be a demographic force in building the Palestinian vision of the “Two State Solution” – a Palestinian State from which all Jews have been banned and a Muslim-majority Israel in which Jews would be second class citizens if they were tolerated at all.

Expose the Palestinian ‘Refugee’ Scam – WSJ

Anyone who is serious about the Israeli view of “Two States for Two Peoples” (a Palestinians state coexisting with the Jewish state, with members of minority groups having full civil rights in their country of residence) should be supporting PM Netanyahu’s call for demilitarizing Gaza and deradicalizing the Palestinians.

Benjamin Netanyahu: Our Three Prerequisites for Peace – WSJ

Of course, nobody lives forever. Unlike the Palestinian leaders, Israeli leaders face the possibility of being voted out of office when elections are called. I cannot say if Benjamin Netanyahu is the best person to be serving as Prime Minister right now. However, this is not the right time to call for elections. Israel needs to remain focused on dismantling Hamas and bringing the hostages home. (Column: Schumer’s Critics Ignore His Most Consequential Concerns Boulder Jewish News March 21, 2024)

Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA