Well then today it sure seems that since Lebanon doesn't want them that they should be relocated to the West Bank, wouldn't you say? They are the product of the Israel-Pal conflict, not a Lebanese conflict.
They are the product of the Israeli-Arab conflict of 1948, which involved Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And Israel and the local Arabs, of course.
During the course of 1947 - 1951 over a million people moved/ became refugees - about 600,000 - 700,000 Arabs of Palestine (the term "Palestinian" at the time referred to the Zionists) and about 700,000 - 800,000 Jews of the Arab lands. The Brits tried to negotiate a transfer of populations, which had been done in the same period on a much larger scale in India and Pakistan.
But the Arabs wouldn't recgonize Israel. So they just turfed their own Jews out, and refused to take the Palestinian refugees. Instead they got the UN to invent a special new division for them, UNWRA, whose mission was not to resettle them, but to feed and house them forever. The other refugee populations of the world are seen to by the UN High Commission on Refugees, whose mission is to repatriate or resettle, so they don't get the same treatment. |
