Life Lived in Relief by Feldman Ilana

Author:Feldman, Ilana [Feldman, Ilana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-520-29962-7
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2018-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

I would not like to appear too enthusiastic about the whole scheme, but now, after three years of experience with the Arab refugees here and in Jordan, I must confess that it is the first time I see these wretched people changed and coming back to normal life. It is amazing to see how Baqqarah peasants, now busy with all the hard problems of agricultural life, are different from the refugees in camps, waiting for relief. 28

During this time, settlement projects were part of UNRWA’s mission, and it seemed that the seed project might be a successful one. As the harvest approached, it became clear that it would be difficult to sell the extra wheat because “neither the Israeli nor the Syrian Authorities would permit sale to [the] other side. There is, furthermore, the difficulty of exporting the surplus out of the Demilitarized Zone.” 29 This project was thus an early instance of the foundering of development efforts because of political restrictions. Nonetheless, with UNRWA operations in Israel set to wind down (effective July 1, 1952) and with an agreement having been reached with the mukhtars to end flour rations after a successful harvest, UNRWA headquarters instructed the Israel field office to exchange surplus crops for a year’s supply of other commodities (such as sugar and cooking oil) and, in any event, to make it clear to the inhabitants that they should not expect “any further assistance from the Agency.” 30

These Palestinians were displaced again just a few years later, when, during the 1956 Suez war, Israel pushed them across the border into Syria. 31 The refugees were thereby removed from a problem of geography (whether UNRWA had access to and responsibility for the territory where they resided) and placed into a problem of category (did they meet UNRWA’s criteria for refugee status?). As a category matter, their later displacement superseded their earlier one. In response to a Syrian government request that the DMZ displaced population be registered, the director of relief programs in Syria indicated in 1962 that they “are not under the Agency’s mandate” because they were “expelled from Israel in October/November 1956” 32 and not in 1948. They would remain the responsibility of the Syrian government and unrecognized as refugees.

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