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20 Tex. Int'l L. J. 247 (1985)
Rethinking Refugee Aid: A Path to Middle East Peace

handle is hein.journals/tilj20 and id is 257 raw text is: ESSAY Rethinking Refugee Aid: A Path to Middle East Peace JACK I. GARVE4y When Palestinian refugees were murdered in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon, the international community was again forced to take a close look at the camps. The camps had long receded from sight, becoming one of those aspects of the international landscape barely acknowledged as an unfortunate and intractable consequence of a major and ongoing conflict. But for a time at least, the Palestinian refugee camps re- emerged as an international problem. International concern was expressed about the lack of international protection for the refugees. The expression of concern, however, did not address the general problem that the camps have existed for as long as thirty-five years-not only in Lebanon, but also in Israel, Jordan, and Syria-and contain altogether about one-half million human beings existing in a state of perpetual dependency. That the camps have existed for so long under an international aid arrangement that could not even assure essential security of life should have resulted in some reassessment of that arrangement. However, neither the massacres in Lebanon nor the other crises throughout the many years of international aid to the refugees has had much impact either on basic assumptions of international aid policy or on the related United States foreign policy. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Near East (UNRWA), established in December 1949, continues to be the vehicle for providing aid to Palestinian refugees in and out of the camps. UNRWA suffers from a continuing and ever-worsening financial crisis and from political limitations that severely impair its humanitarian function. Nevertheless, UNRWA continues as an unfavored stepchild of the United Nations and as a victim of manipulations of Middle East politics. t Professor of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law; A.B. 1964, Harvard College; J.D. 1968, Harvard Law School. The author wishes to thank Commissioner-General Rydbeck, Chief of Secretariat Ghanem, and the Department Directors and Field Officers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Near East (UNRWA) for their consistently forthright and generous provision of information and access to UNRWA facilities.

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