9206 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS April 15, 1969 E.XTENSIONS OF REMARKS ISRAEL TODAY dechai Gur, has also said there would be ber 113,378. There are 39,305 registered chil­ fewer acts of terrorism if the standard of dren not on the UNRWA ration list because llving was raised. Israel should invest more of lack of funds. Somehow, they get fed, HON. GEORGE E. BROWN, JR. in industry and vocational tra1n1ng, he said. though, Mr. Geaney told us. When a refu­ At the Gaza UNRWA Headquarters, Mr. gee becomes a wage earner of 1120 llras per OF CALIFORNIA Geaney the Director had gone to trouble­ month, his ration is cut. Were the rolls in­ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES shoot at the vocational training center where fiated, we asked. That has been greatly ex­ Monday, April 14, 1969 the students were out of classes and "demon­ aggerated, he said. strating in sympathy to the political situa­ There is no vocational training for girls, Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Speak­ tion," a phrase used by most Palestinians but there are two six-month sewing courses er, I have been calling the attention of we talked to about the strikes. Mr. Filfil, a a year that women can take, and embroidery my colleagues to a series of articles writ­ translator at UNRWA, drove us over to see ls encouraged. UNRWA provides for up to ten by Miss Carol Stevens Kovner, writ­ the center, which was what we had come for. the 9th grade in separate girls and boys ten in Israel and giving a vivid firsthand Mr. Geaney was trying to persuade the st"Q­ schools. dents to return to class. He said later they What about the anti-semitic textbooks account of the feelings in that nation. would probably return by the end of the that were used by UNRWA schools and found Miss Kovner is managing editor and for­ week. by the Israelis when they took over the Gaza eign correspondent of Kovner Publica­ The students, who 11ve on the premises in Strip, we asked. Many were objectionable, tions, a newspaper chain in the East Los new dormitories were well dressed and well he said, and are not being used now. UNES­ Angeles area. Following are four more in behaved. Most were young men in their CO has taken over that responsibility. In or­ this series of articles. twenties. They were sitting in groups on the der for a student to graduate in a host coun­ [From the Eastside Sun, Feb. 27, 1969) lawn. The large airy well lighted rooms stood try, it was necessary for UNRWA to follow empty, the new equipment imported from that country's curriculum, it was felt. A THE Vmw FaoM GAZA: Mosr DENSELY Europe lying idle. The teachers waited to see strong position was not taken because the POPULATED AREA ON EARTH what the students would do. students would not be accepted in the Arab (By Carol Kovner) They were meeting in delegations with the universities unless they studied these text­ The road into Gaza town from Beersheba principal, Mr. H. Hammad, a harried Pales­ books. Only a few students leave for Am­ is through a large Moslem cemetery, where tinian who had studied in Haifa, then gone man or Beirut at present. Higher education little girls play in the dust between the on scholarship to England. The students were is at a standstill now in Gaza, he summed up. monuments and young men loll against them striking in sympathy to the pol1t1cal situa­ The stumbl1ng block may be the Arab uni­ watching tra.fil.c pass. tion, he told us. There were 513 at present, versity examinations, but we still feel that The unrest rippling through the Gaza Strip but only 1 in 6 were accepted who applied. distributing hate textbooks was a peculiar these past weeks was not evident among the Since 1954 when it began there have been thing for a humanitarian organization 11ke townspeople who were conducting business, 1496 graduates all taught by refugees who UNRWA to do. An Israeli told us that Jewish what there was, as usual. The bus depot is were given scholarships abroad in England, children are not taught to hate the ·Arabs also a market place, the most uninviting Switzerland, Sweden, and returned to teach. because first it is your enemy you kill with imaginable. Israeli passengers on the bus, What was the employment situation for hatred, later it can be your brother.... which runs every half hour from Beersheba, graduates? There were 380 graduates not able Why can't Israel annex Gaza and work were for the most part Jews originally from to work in Gaza and not being accepted by with American Jews and the international Arab countries who had come for produce the Arab COUllltries, as before the war. Only community to settle the refugees, we had bargains to be wrangled over in their native local residents, not refugees, are taken for la­ asked the Israeli official in Beersheba the day Arabic. Getting into a rickety cab we bor by the Israelis, untrained labor mostly. before. No, he said, it is a political problem careened through the town to the UNRWA Mr. Ha.mm.ad said there was enough money and we can't. In Gaza it would not be the compound. and equipment for vocational tralning; in same as Jerusalem where there is daily con­ Gaza town 1s very ugly. Aside from its two fact, too much attention was being paid to tact and the reality of the united city. refugee camps, it is poor and rundown, bul­ the vocational training school. It 1s under­ In Newsweek Magazine, in answer to Nas­ letholes unrepaired in its buildings and the standable that he felt this way with his grad­ ser's interview in the same magazine, Prime majority of the population in worn clothing. uates not working and the school being ex­ Minlster Eshkol has said, "any refugees re­ The reason 1s because the Gaza Strip 1s the panded to 556 in September. turning now to Israel would be a time bomb. most densely populated area on earth, with Back at UNRWA Headquarters, which was We cannot take them back but we are ready three times more population than the Neth­ as poor and rundown as the rest of Gaza to pay compensation." erlands, most populated of the European town, we talked with Mr. Geaney. He has The only solution the Israelis feel 1s for countries. What money there is goes for food been in Gaza. since July, 1967 and with the Arab countries to take them in, because and medicine and education. UNRWA since 1952 when he had also served for one thing, Israel hasn't the water to sup­ The Strip has 70 per cent refugees on the 1n Gaza. The students can't do less than port them. Then almost 50 per cent of the UNRWA registration and the rest local popu­ their colleagues he sa.ld, because there 1s Israelis are of Oriental background. This lation. The huge labor pool has forced the great cohesion among them. If tbey act any means they came from the Arab countries, wages of nearly all down to a subsistance differently, they are looked down upon. so most Israelis feel it was an exchange of level. The only sources of work available, as This checked with what an Israeli official populations. An exchange, Arab politicians there is no industry to speak of, are in other had told us in Beersheba, that the people in like Nasser, have turned into a convenient Arab countries for the graduates of UNRWA Gaza are afraid to cooperate remembering political football which 1s not a life or death schools and for local labor in the citrus fields, 1956 when Gaza was returned to Egypt and issue to them, says Eshkol. fishing, or handicrafts for the women, main­ "collaborators" were kllled. Now they create So the 880 graduates of the Gaza Voca­ ly embroidery sold through an UNRWA shop disturbances so that they can have a piece tional Tralning Center run by UNRWA, in town. Practically the sole employer of Gaza of paper to show they have been in prison ready for careers in radio, TV, mechanics, refugees on a meaningful scale remains for making trouble for the Israelis. It is what the Arab world needs most, vegetate. UNRWA. not llke e. school demonstration in Los An­ As !dle as the ships in the Bitter Lakes and UNEF also provided some jobs, the secre­ geles where the students are demanding im­ as caught. tary of the UNRWA Director told us at the provements long overdue. compound, openly resentful of the moveout. The Jerusalem Post said, "It is widely be- [From the Eastside Sun, Mar. 6, 1969) Her attitude reminded us of the Poverty War 11eved that the demonstrations are instigated Two STUDENTS KILLED IN TERRORIST BOMBING organizations, many of which were also tem­ by local political activists with the aim of OF JERUSALEM SUPER MARKET porary in nature. When they are discontinued emphasizing the Palestinian element, es­ there is great resentment because employees pecially in view of the Four-Power negotia­ (By Carol Stevens Kovner) have lost good jobs they may not be able to tions on the Middle East. They have concen­ While the Friday morning dynamite took replace. The UNEF troops departure ordered trated on school chlldren to evade counter­ the lives of two lmmlgrant students and in­ by Nasser left many refugees dependent again measures." jured nine other shoppers in the terrorist only on the UNRWA dole, a 1600 dally calorie Besides the economic situation and the explosion at the Jerusalem SuperSol market, diet-a reducing diet 1n the U.S.