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   Bilal Barakat 🍉 (bifouba@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-Jan-2024 19:27:04 JST Bilal Barakat 🍉

   The current #UNRWA crisis is a good opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings.

   Chief among them is that Palestinians are somehow getting beneficial special treatment by having their own agency in UNRWA rather than being included in UNHCR's mandate.

   This is nonsense to start with, because the origin of that setup is not special treatment but the simple fact that *UNRWA predates the establishment of UNHCR*.

   For the longest time, this suited Israel just fine, because *UNRWA's mandate is actually WEAKER than UNHCR’s*.

   #Palestine @palestine

   A short🧵 1/4

   • AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     Bilal Barakat 🍉 (bifouba@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-Jan-2024 19:29:54 JST Bilal Barakat 🍉

     in reply to

     Secondly, unlike UNHCR, UNRWA’s mandate does not include protection and advocacy, severely WEAKENING the Palestinian refugees’ position in their host countries and vis-à-vis Israel. Whereas UNHCR’s priority approach in other refugee crises has moved steadily towards negotiating voluntary REPATRIATION if preferred by the refugees concerned, UNRWA’s mandate prevents it from lobbying for such a solution. 🧵 3/4

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     pettter (pettter@mastodon.acc.umu.se)'s status on Wednesday, 31-Jan-2024 19:29:54 JST pettter

     in reply to

     @bifouba My impression is that the lack of a repatriation mandate is largely because UNRWA was formed specifically to host palestinian refugees temporarily while their status and right of return more exactly was being negotiated with the newly formed Israeli state?

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     Bilal Barakat 🍉 (bifouba@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 31-Jan-2024 19:29:56 JST Bilal Barakat 🍉

     in reply to

     First of all, UNRWA *excluded* groups of displaced Palestinians at the time that UNHCR's criteria then and now would have included. Unlike UNHCR which later established the category of ‘refugee’ as a question of political and legal status, the registration of Palestinian refugees was originally performed according to their eligibility for relief services. It therefore automatically excluded Palestinians who still had an independent income or property, or those who dropped from the record because they no longer received assistance due to the agency's budget limitations, for instance. Nowadays, the UNHCR criteria are recognised as more meaningful. ‘Refugee status is a legal concept; it is not obligatory for a refugee to live in squalor or poverty to retain his or her rights’ (Weighill, 1995, p. 167). Apart from those who were excluded or deemed ineligible, as many as 12 percent of those satisfying UNRWA’s criteria never registered with the agency (Schiff, 1995).

     Schiff, Benjamin N. (1995). Refugees unto the third generation: UN aid to Palestinians. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

     Weighill, Louise (1995). ‘The future of assistance to Palestinian refugees’. In: Asian Affairs 26.3, pp. 259–69.

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     Bilal Barakat 🍉 (bifouba@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 06:01:21 JST Bilal Barakat 🍉

     in reply to

     Another myth is that UNRWA is unique in granting refugee status to the descendants of refugees. A moment's thought exposes this as obvious nonsense: *of course* babies born in UNHCR settings also inherit their parents' refugee status. How could it be otherwise? The actual difference in determination is that UNRWA refugees keep their status even if they gain the *citizenship* of another country.

     However, this difference matters less than Israel likes to pretend. As an aside, note that the Israeli propaganda “they gambled on returning after an Arab victory but lost” is a legally irrelevant non-argument because whether you leave voluntarily or are expelled has no bearing on the Right to Return under The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Consequently, the Right to Return is a general principle in international law that also applies to voluntary departures, *the Right to Return is not tied to refugee status*. In other words, Palestinian refugees don't have a Right to Return "because" they are registered with UNRWA. Having those with citizenship elsewhere lose their refugee status under UNHCR's criteria would not, by itself, diminish their claim, which rather rests on their "genuine and effective link" with Palestine as the relevant standard under international law. 🧵 4/4