Shadow Of 1947
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
On December 8, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East — UNRWA — will mark its 58th anniversary. That is quite a record for an agency created in 1949 as a temporary relief organization.
One of the FAQS on the UNRWA Web site asks, “If UNRWA was set up as a temporary Agency, why is it still working after over 50 years?” The question is worth considering, not only because the Web site does not answer it — the explanation simply cites the Palestinians’ “continuing needs” — but because the answer bears directly on the Annapolis Conference that America initiated. Originally, UNRWA was established to serve 652,000 Arabs after the 1948 war against Israel. On its Web site, UNRWA says it now has “over 28,000 staff,” provides aid to “over 4.4 million refugees” in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and is “by far the largest U.N. operation” in the Middle East.
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