Finally, President Trump has the opportunity to expose to the world the fraudulent creation of a millions-strong group of phony “Palestinian refugees” being kept for use as a weapon to overrun Israel’s democracy via the “right of return” to a land most of them have never set foot in.  

Unlike every other refugee group in world history, the 800,000 or so Arabs who fled Israel upon its founding 70 years ago have claimed the right to have “refugee” status inheritable for multiple generations. Arabs born in Jordan, Lebanon, or other countries – grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who left Israel, somehow are still considered “refugees by UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency), the UN Agency specially established and funded to keep them semi-comfortable in "camps" (that look like cities) while being used as tools to agitate for the destruction of Israel. UNRWA has been supported by lavish subsidies – a billion dollars from US taxpayers in the last 4 years alone – in order to keep the descendants as a political tool for agitation against, and the eventual destruction of, Israel.

Oddly enough, the roughly 800,000 Jews who at the same time were expelled from the Muslim countries, where their families had lived for centuries, have no such rights.  They were welcomed and quickly assimilated into Israeli society --  exactly as the Arabs who left Israel could have been in their new countries, instead of being kept in “camps” for generations.  Nor do the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Germans who were expelled from Eastern Europe at the end of WW2 have the right to be considered “refugees.” They are just “Germans,” of course, getting on with their lives after a personal tragedy befell their ancestors long, long ago.

Now, President Trump is being asked by 51 members of Congress to declassify and publish a 2015 State Department report that investigated and determined how many genuine “Palestinian refugees” – people who were born or lived in Israel and fled – exist. The Middle East Forum reports:

The letter, sent by Rep. Doug Lamborn (Republican of Colorado) asks to declassify a State Department report on how many individuals currently considered “Palestine refugees” by the United Nations fit the U.S. government definition of refugee.

The United States has provided over $1 billion to these “refugees” via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over the past four years.

The Forum has long sought the end of U.S. recognition of fake Palestinian refugees who did not live in 1946-48 in what is today Israel.

The letter reads in part: “Just like your courageous action in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving our embassy there, it is time to end the fiction of the ‘right of return’ and bring the conflict one step closer to conclusion.”

The State Department report in question came in reply to the Kirk Amendment to the 2012 Appropriations bill which, inspired by the Forum, directed the State Department to figure out the number of real refugees. The 2014 and 2015 Appropriations bills reaffirmed this requirement. Finally, in 2015, the State Department delivered the report to Congress, but classified it, hoping thereby to conceal its contents from U.S. taxpayers.

The letter is a prelude to the soon-to-be introduced UNRWA Recipients Act, which will (i) re-define “Palestine refugee” to exclude descendants, those with passports, and those living in the West Bank and Gaza. This will reduce the number of refugees from the current 6 million and growing to about 20,000 and dwindling; and it will (ii) require Palestinians who do not fit the USG definition but who wish to receive U.S. assistance to acknowledge that they are not “Palestine refugees.”

The letter can be read in its entirety here.

I am very optimistic that President Trump will respond positively to this request. The best part about it would be that the more cries of outrage that are voiced, the more attention is paid to the issue of phony refugees, bred as political tools by those in the Arab Muslim world who cannot tolerate a “Zionist entity” on land that was conquered by force and must, in their mind, forever remain Islamic lands, The Dar al Islam. The inclusion of a willingness to keep the subsidy spigot open so long as people acknowledge the reality that having been born outside of Israel, they cannot be “refugees” forecloses the possibility of claiming cruelty toward poor unfortunate victims. They just have to be honest to keep the money flowing.

Now that Israel has become useful to Sunni Arab rulers in fear of Iranian and Shiite domination, actual resolution of the multi-generational “refugee” situation can be imagined. Those of “Palestinian” descent living in Jordan can become the majority in that land, making it a de facto “Palestinian state” – which is the stated goal: a “homeland” for the Palestinians.

Hat tip: Mike Nadler