By John Dunkelgrün

Following the declaration of the State of Israel, roughly the same number of Jews were forced out of Arab countries as those of the Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled during the war that Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libanon, and Saoudi Arabia started.

Whereas the Jewish refugees sought and found a future, mainly in Israel and The United States, the Palestinians had to move into camps in the surrounding countries. Leaving these camps was difficult, and obtaining a formal education or learning a trade outside was almost impossible. It resulted in dismal living conditions with no other hope than someday returning to their former homes.

To alleviate the refugees’ plight, the UN started a new aid organization, UNWRA, which provided food, medical care, and education. Its activities allowed the camps to exist within a bubble. The result was a growing and understandably resentful population of Palestinians. The ‘camps’ gradually became overcrowded villages.

Unlike refugees from anywhere else, the UN continued to regard the children, grandchildren, and further generations of these Palestinians as refugees and their villages as refugee camps. At the cost of untold millions of dollars from the international community,  these camps were allowed to continue. It is interesting to note that the contributions from Muslim states to UNWRA are minimal.

The intentions were good. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had become victims of the actions of others. However, UNWRA had to operate in a repressive environment under mainly dictatorial regimes that had no interest in improving the lives of the Palestinians. On the contrary, they rather liked the PR effect of the camps. UNWRA had to do a balancing act. To be able to operate, it had to stay on good terms with the powers that be, and gradually, it identified with them and so became part of the problem. Situated among Palestinians for decades, getting to know them, being witness to their depravations, its operatives naturally started to see things from their side. Call it a variation of the Stockholm syndrome. Also, to operate, they had to hire local staff, some of whom were members of terrorist groups like Hamas, and all were under threat from these groups.

It would not have been necessary. Palestinian Arabs, who managed to get out, built flourishing communities elsewhere, mainly in Chile, the US, and Canada. Had the UN put pressure on or offered financial incentives to the neighboring countries to allow their normal development, there is no reason why they wouldn’t have grown into equally flourishing communities and integrated into their countries of residence. The lack of pressure from the UN, the identification of UNWRA personnel with the Palestinians, and their tacit cooperation with groups like Hamas caused the continuation of the miserable conditions of the Palestinians.

But it is worse, much worse. UNWRA, which has been deeply embedded in Palestinian areas, has closed its eyes to all terrorist activities. It has known for years what Hamas was doing. The amount of sand taken out to dig the tunnels alone was proof that there was a greater effort to prepare for war than toward building a city-state with a working economy. UNWRA knew that thousands of workers were working somewhere, somehow, underground. Its employees knew that Hamas built control centers in hospitals, schools, mosques, and private apartments. Why didn’t UNWRA cry out, put pressure on Hamas, or have the UN threaten to stop aid? UNWRA is a knowing and willing accomplice of Hamas and Hezbollah.

While UNWRA, for all its faults, has good intentions, the opposite is true of Iran.  The Iranian dictatorship, by contrast, didn’t and shouldn’t have any real quarrel with Israel. Its hostility from Day One of the dictatorship of the mullahs is entirely artificial. This theocracy needs outside enemies to ‘justify’ its cruel regime. It found fertile ground in the disgruntled and desperate Palestinian populations in the camps and Gaza. It funds, trains, and supplies them. Without aid from Iran, there would have been no rockets fired at Israel, no retaliations, and no attacks on terrorists hiding in protected areas like hospitals, schools, mosques, and homes. It has carefully fostered a circle of terrorist groups around Israel. In doing so, it has effectively destroyed Libanon as a viable state. It is entirely possible that it will encourage Hezbollah to make a full-scale attack on Israel, causing a response that makes the calamity in Gaza like a children’s birthday party. We should be quite clear about it: the blame for any devastation of Libanon, like that of Gaza, lies squarely on the leadership of Iran.

While the Iranian theocrats remain in power, there will be little chance of peace in the Middle East. But unless the UN gets firm with the terrorist groups, even the hope for peace will remain a mirage.