Man, I really hate to agree with anything this horrible administration is doing, but I kind of think us continuing to fund them is pretty silly. I would tend to agree with this. You can't have a...
Man, I really hate to agree with anything this horrible administration is doing, but I kind of think us continuing to fund them is pretty silly.
But many Israel supporters in the United States today see UNRWA as part of an international infrastructure that has artificially kept the refugee issue alive and kindled hopes among the exiled Palestinians that they might someday return home—a possibility Israel flatly rules out.
I would tend to agree with this. You can't have a solution to any of the instability in the area if one side is being propped up artificially. Political arguments aside, the US sides with Israel on the overall issue, so why are we essentially being the financial backer for both sides?
Critics of the agency point in particular to its policy of granting refugee status not just to those who fled Mandatory Palestine 70 years ago but to their descendants as well—accounting that puts the refugee population at around 5 million, nearly one-third of whom live in camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza.
My great grandmother was a refugee fleeing Ireland during the potato famine in the mid 1800s. She came to Canada and later migrated to the US. Does that mean I get to be an Irish Refugee still because 4 generations back my grandmother was? No, of course not. That would be freaking ridiculous to even claim.
It's just as ridiculous to claim refugee status because your parents left an area before you were born. You are not a refugee, you are the product of the nation you have grown up in, not the nation your family fled before you existed.
A really good example of this is how the US (and most western nations) deal with illegal immigrants born in the US. If your parents are illegal aliens (from any other nation or demographic) and you are born in the US you have a right to American citizenship under "Jus soli". A child illegally born and raised here is not a product of their parents country of origin, that child is American. America is all it has ever known and it would be wrong to force it to go back to a nation it neither knows or claims.
Previous U.S. administrations have maintained that the vast majority of Palestinian refugees will ultimately have to be absorbed in a new Palestinian state or naturalized in the countries that have hosted them for generations.
I mean, are those really two things that people think are not going to happen?
You are aware that the Jewish population was already a majority population in the region prior to WWII right? That seems to be something a lot of people are ignorant of, the Brits didn't just...
You are aware that the Jewish population was already a majority population in the region prior to WWII right? That seems to be something a lot of people are ignorant of, the Brits didn't just round all the Jews up and put them in Israel. The people making up the first nation where Jews (and Arabs) that had been fighting against colonial rule for decades.
Claiming Israel is an apartheid state just shows an misunderstanding for the socio political situation in the country. There is no forced racial separation, arabs make up 20% of the Israeli population (not including the Palestinian population) and are active in its society and government. Just because Jews are a majority of the population doesn't make it an apartheid. We don't claim the US is apartheid because caucasian is the majority.
They did not move of their own volition. You do not get to steal land in some misguided attempt to create an ethnostate and then say that the people you forcibly ripped the nationality from no longer get to claim it.
I am going to ignore the instigating remarks you are making and try and stay on topic.
No, I do not think second generation refugees should have the ability to claim refugee status and collect aid. If you were born in another nation, raised in that nation, you are a product of that nation and have never even known the previous one.
I get what you're saying, but isn't that the basis of Israel's claim to the area in the first place?
My great grandmother was a refugee fleeing Ireland during the potato famine in the mid 1800s. She came to Canada and later migrated to the US. Does that mean I get to be an Irish Refugee still because 4 generations back my grandmother was? No, of course not. That would be freaking ridiculous to even claim.
It's just as ridiculous to claim refugee status because your parents left an area before you were born. You are not a refugee, you are the product of the nation you have grown up in, not the nation your family fled before you existed.
I get what you're saying, but isn't that the basis of Israel's claim to the area in the first place?
Yes and no. A common misconception is that Israel was formed and the Jewish population moved to the area after WWII. While yes, this is partially true, it's not the whole timeline. While the...
but isn't that the basis of Israel's claim to the area in the first place?
Yes and no.
A common misconception is that Israel was formed and the Jewish population moved to the area after WWII. While yes, this is partially true, it's not the whole timeline.
While the Jewish population was displaced from the area by several invasions over the centuries the concept of Zionism started in the 1500s. By the time British Palestine was formed (post Ottoman Empire fall), the Jewish population in the region was again a majority (and at odds with the Arab population). So they existed as a majority population in the region long before european Jewish refugees came to the area.
Also, the Jewish population had been fighting the colonial rule the entire time, Britain likes to make seem like they just gave the nation back for humanitarian reasons, but the reality is even before the onset of WWII the Jewish (and Arab for that matter) population was fighting a guerilla war to get the colonial government out of the nation. They had been fighting for independence for a long time.
Man, I really hate to agree with anything this horrible administration is doing, but I kind of think us continuing to fund them is pretty silly.
I would tend to agree with this. You can't have a solution to any of the instability in the area if one side is being propped up artificially. Political arguments aside, the US sides with Israel on the overall issue, so why are we essentially being the financial backer for both sides?
My great grandmother was a refugee fleeing Ireland during the potato famine in the mid 1800s. She came to Canada and later migrated to the US. Does that mean I get to be an Irish Refugee still because 4 generations back my grandmother was? No, of course not. That would be freaking ridiculous to even claim.
It's just as ridiculous to claim refugee status because your parents left an area before you were born. You are not a refugee, you are the product of the nation you have grown up in, not the nation your family fled before you existed.
A really good example of this is how the US (and most western nations) deal with illegal immigrants born in the US. If your parents are illegal aliens (from any other nation or demographic) and you are born in the US you have a right to American citizenship under "Jus soli". A child illegally born and raised here is not a product of their parents country of origin, that child is American. America is all it has ever known and it would be wrong to force it to go back to a nation it neither knows or claims.
I mean, are those really two things that people think are not going to happen?
You are aware that the Jewish population was already a majority population in the region prior to WWII right? That seems to be something a lot of people are ignorant of, the Brits didn't just round all the Jews up and put them in Israel. The people making up the first nation where Jews (and Arabs) that had been fighting against colonial rule for decades.
Claiming Israel is an apartheid state just shows an misunderstanding for the socio political situation in the country. There is no forced racial separation, arabs make up 20% of the Israeli population (not including the Palestinian population) and are active in its society and government. Just because Jews are a majority of the population doesn't make it an apartheid. We don't claim the US is apartheid because caucasian is the majority.
I am going to ignore the instigating remarks you are making and try and stay on topic.
No, I do not think second generation refugees should have the ability to claim refugee status and collect aid. If you were born in another nation, raised in that nation, you are a product of that nation and have never even known the previous one.
I get what you're saying, but isn't that the basis of Israel's claim to the area in the first place?
Yes and no.
A common misconception is that Israel was formed and the Jewish population moved to the area after WWII. While yes, this is partially true, it's not the whole timeline.
While the Jewish population was displaced from the area by several invasions over the centuries the concept of Zionism started in the 1500s. By the time British Palestine was formed (post Ottoman Empire fall), the Jewish population in the region was again a majority (and at odds with the Arab population). So they existed as a majority population in the region long before european Jewish refugees came to the area.
Also, the Jewish population had been fighting the colonial rule the entire time, Britain likes to make seem like they just gave the nation back for humanitarian reasons, but the reality is even before the onset of WWII the Jewish (and Arab for that matter) population was fighting a guerilla war to get the colonial government out of the nation. They had been fighting for independence for a long time.