Around 800,000 Palestinian refugees fled during the 1948 Al Nakba Israeli media reports have suggested the Jewish state has made attempts to change the legal status of Palestinian refugees at the United Nations. Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted Israeli representative at the UN Ron Prosor as claiming Palestinian refugees’ right to return was the “main obstacle to the peace process, not settlements.”
“No one will admit it...but the real obstacle [to a two-state solution] is the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees,” Prosor said. “Refugees are the main obstacle to peace, not settlements.”
Prosor also claimed returning Palestinian refugees to their pre-1948 homes would “lead to the destruction of Israel.”
Prosor demanded the UN deprive children of 1948 refugees the right to return during a small conference at the Harvard Club in New York City on Thursday.
The meeting aimed at drafting new US legislation which would stop the automatic passing of refugee status to descendants of Palestinians who fled during Al Nakba in 1948.
Deputy Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) Filippo Grandi is due to hold a press conference on Monday, calling Palestine’s refugees a “forgotten population” amid an increasingly unstable Middle East.
Dr Daniel Pipes, a leading expert on the region, meanwhile claimed the UNRWA’s new approach “creates a narrative of victimhood and leads to extremism.”
The Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank where Pipes serves as leader, reportedly organised the conference.
Historically, refugees who become citizens of another country lose their status as refugees. A large percentage of the approximately 800,000 Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 now live in Jordan and Syria.