All other refugees from the World War II era (including my own parents) have been long settled; the Palestine refugee status has already endured too long and needs to be narrowed down to actual refugees before it does further damage.So says Daniel Pipes, to which one might respond: indeed, but how likely is that?
UNRWA has a copper-bottomed never-ending job to do and its bureaucrats have cosy jobs for life.
Graham Hancock shows, in "Lords of Poverty", how the international aid bureaucracies have become corporatised and dedicated to their own existence and expansion as much as alleviating the poverty of their "customers”.
The same holds, a fortiori, for UNRWA. If there are no Palestinian refugees, there is no cosy job at UNRWA... So they've done a good job for themselves, if not for peace in the Middle East: in 1950: 750,000 refugees, in 2012: five million! Achieved by some pretty fancy, but dubious, footwork by UNRWA, one of the most corrupt agencies of the United Nations.
A good summary of the perverse dynamics of Palestinian refugees, who, uniquely, can pass on their status, even if they settle in other countries....
