Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief.Pdf

Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief This page intentionally left blank Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander H. Joffe RELIGION, POLITICS, AND THE ORIGINS OF PALESTINE REFUGEE RELIEF Copyright © Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander H. Joffe, 2013. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-37816-3 All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-47820-0 ISBN 978-1-137-37817-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137378170 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Romirowsky, Asaf. Religion, politics, and the origins of Palestine refugee relief / Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander H. Joffe. pages cm 1. Refugees, Palestinian Arab—Gaza Strip—History—20th century. 2. Palestinian Arabs—Gaza Strip—History—20th century. 3. American Friends Service Committee. 4. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. I. Joffe, Alexander H. II. Title. HV640.5.P34R66 2013 362.87Ј809531—dc23 2013026220 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December 2013 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 C o n t e n t s List of Figures vii Acknowledgments i x Introduction: The Palestine Arab Problem and the International Community 1 1. Studying the Palestine Arab Refugee Problem 7 Early Scholarship on the Refugee Crisis 8 1970s and 1980s 10 T h e “ N e w H i s t o r i a n s ” 1 2 S c h o l a r s h i p - A d v o c a c y 1 5 Studying the AFSC and Relief Organizations 17 2. The Quakers and the American Friends Service Committee: Origins of the Quakers and Quaker Ideology 19 Friends and the AFSC from the Civil War to World War I 20 Quakers and the Theology and Politics of American Protestant Missions in the Middle East 23 World War II and European Refugee Relief 1945–1948 28 THE AFSC and the Politics of Pacifism 30 3. The AFSC in the Middle East: The Official Origins of AFSC Involvement in the Middle East 35 Religious Diplomacy and the Origins of AFSC Involvement i n t h e M i d d l e E a s t 3 7 AFSC and Palestine Arab Refugee Relief, Summer 1948 42 I n s t i t u t i o n a l i z i n g P a l e s t i n e A r a b R e l i e f 5 5 H o w M a n y R e f u g e e s ? 5 8 vi Contents 4. AFSC in the Field: December 1948–December 1949 63 Early Operations and Growing Concerns 70 Pickett Goes to the Middle East and Changing Perceptions i n E a r l y 1 9 4 9 7 3 5. AFSC and the Politics of Regional Development 81 AFSC, UNRPR, and Local Economies, Spring and S u m m e r 1 9 4 9 9 0 6. AFSC, the Economic Survey Mission, and Regional Development 97 Internal Tensions and International Solutions, Fall 1949 107 7. The AFSC and UNRWA: The End of UNRPR 121 The Last Gasp of American Voluntary Organizations 128 AFSC as an UNRWA Contractor 136 8. International Security and the Question of Reintegration 145 AFSC Retrospectives on the UNRPR and UNRWA 152 AFSC and the Middle East after 1953 155 9. Assessing the AFSC as an Early NGO 161 AFSC, NGOs, UNRWA, and Moral Hazard 171 AFSC, UNRWA, and the Question of Anti-Semitism 173 10. Conclusions 179 Notes 181 Bibliography 221 Index 249 Figures 2.1 Clarence Pickett 23 3.1 Signing the agreement to create UNRPR 53 4.1 Food distribution 68 4.2 Teachers at AFSC sponsored school in Deir el-Balah 69 4.3 UNRPR director Ambassador Stanton Grifﬁ s visiting a refugee camp in Andjar, Lebanon 71 4.4 Clarence Pickett visiting the Middle East 74 4.5 Don Peretz 76 5.1 Original AFSC caption, “Dealing with a riot!” 94 7.1 AFSC sponsored carpentry shop 130 This page intentionally left blank A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s e gratefully acknowledge Donald Davis, archivist of the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia, W Pennsylvania, for his exceptional help with this project and for permission to cite the materials used here. We also thank our families for their love and support throughout this project. This page intentionally left blank Introduction: The Palestine Arab Problem and the International Community he Palestine Arab refugee problem has been at the forefront of the Arab-Israeli conflict and international affairs since 1948. T In the twenty-first century the refugee issue looms as one of, if not, the most intractable issues in the conflict. The political role of widely dispersed Palestinians, including those defined as refugees who remain in camps in Lebanon, Syria, and in the West Bank, and even more dramatically, the concept of a “right of return” to their previous residences now in Israel, remain constant challenges to any negotiated peace proposals. In the meantime, the international community, through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East or UNRWA, created by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1949, 1 and through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), provide for the health, education, and welfare of those it defines as refugees. Though UNRWA has now existed for some sixty years, it was not the first international program addressing the Palestine Arab refugees. This book examines UNRWA’s lesser-known predecessors and the role of NGOs in shaping the international response to the refugees. International involvement came in stages. From September through December 1948, limited relief efforts were undertaken for Palestine Arab refugees by the small and overwhelmed United Nations Disaster Relief Program, which like many observers at the time, warned of looming disaster. On November 19, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly created a larger-scale, but still a temporary relief mechanism. Resolution 212 (III) stated “the alleviation of conditions of starvation and distress among the Palestine refugees is one of the minimum conditions for the success of the efforts of the United Nations to bring peace to that land.” The resolution 2 Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief then directed the establishment of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees (UNRPR), “to relieve the desperate plight of Palestine refugees of all communities.”2 It is this organization, and specifically its most suc- cessful NGO, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which are the subjects of this book. The UNRPR was a coordinating and funding body for temporary relief provided by autonomous voluntary organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the League of Red Cross Societies and the AFSC. Each group, with separate regions of responsibility, staff and bureaucracies, delivered food, shelter, and other rudiments in a chaotic wartime and postwar environment. Other United Nations organs were deeply involved during this period, notably the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which provided limited food relief, and the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine that facilitated negotia- tions and acted as the UN’s primary reporting and as analytical entity on the conflict. The UNRPR program marked the beginning of the international community’s permanent involvement in the refugee issue. Before the United Nations developed any meaningful capacity to administer itself or deliver food, health, education or other forms of relief and aid, private aid organizations, the precursors of modern NGOs, were vital and indeed indispensible. The AFSC was long established as an international relief organization and was invited by the United Nations to play a central role in the early years of the Palestinian refugee relief. But the path to this role was not straight, and was built on a deep foundation of Quaker involvement in the Middle East, the unique postwar politics of the American Protestant community, and the failure of the AFSC’s own efforts at religious diplomacy. Despite uncertain beginnings, and countless difficulties and constraints along the way, this early NGO executed its mission in the Gaza Strip with great effectiveness and economy throughout 1949 and early 1950. The AFSC attempted to shape UNRWA’s policy towards the refugees, but the Quaker group’s involvement was fated to be short-lived, and its influence on UNRWA was minimal. The AFSC’s sense of failure and retreat from future refugee projects in the Middle East and elsewhere is a key to the story of international efforts to help Palestine Arab refugees. AFSC’s approach to the Palestine Arab refugees was the road not taken. Despite long experience in European refugee relief, the AFSC had never experienced anything like the Palestinian situation. The steadfast refusal of the Arab host countries to accept Palestinian refugees as anything other Introduction 3 than the segregated wards of the international community was unique.

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