Senator Kirk, a former prosecutor, has worked tirelessly for years to force the State Department to quantify U.S. assistance to the Palestinians through UNRWA. He has been thwarted at every turn. An aide to the Senator said, “This amendment simply demands basic transparency with regard to who receives U.S. taxpayer assistance.” The Palestinians have been entirely transparent about their goals; we should expect nothing less from the Department of State.
Originally published by Gatestone Institute http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/
[1] It would be interesting to compare the first number to the number of Jews of the Middle East made refugees by Arab governments; they would be similar. The second number could be compared to the number of Jews who remain refugees today, which would be 0.
[2] The position of Palestinians in Jordan is also largely unremarked upon. Jordan’s illegal annexation of the West Bank in 1949 made Jordanian citizens of West Bankers. But in 1988, King Hussein renounced Jordan’s claim to the West Bank territory and withdrew Jordanian nationality/citizenship from the Palestinian residents there. In later years, thousands of West Bank-origin Palestinians residing in Jordan had their citizenship revoked as well. According to Human Rights Watch, “Jordanian officials have defended the practice, as a means to counter any future Israeli plans to transfer the Palestinian population of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Jordan.” And to limit as much as possible the percentage of Palestinians who are citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom.