This past week. in a dispatch from Beirut. the New York Times revealed that the Arab heads of state have named Lt. Col. Wajih elMadan. a Palestinian now serving in the Kuwait Army. to head a 30.000man refugee force. The new Palestinian army will be based in the Gaza strip and the Sinai Desert. on Egypts frontiers with Israel. Palestinians presently in the Jordanian Army and a group of Algerian officers will train the refugees. Mr. Speaker. the U.S. taxpayer has contributed some $332 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency since 1949 to care for the Arab refugees. Do the Arabs expect us to continue to pay about 70 percent of the annual $35 million bill to feed the refugees. educate and train them. house them. and preserve their health while their leaders organize them into an army? Can anything be more cynical than the use of the refugees as pawns in the struggle to eliminate Israel by the Arabs while the United States and other nations are asked to pay for their upkeep? Mr. Speaker. the problem of the Arab refugees must be resolved. The refugees. who regularly insist on repatriation to the Israel they have announced they will destroy. should be settled in the Arab lands where they now reside. UNRWA should make every effort to eliminate from the relief rolls the thousands of names of persons who are dead or who have found employment outside the U.N. camps as has been strongly recommended by UNRWAs Secretary General. Dr.
Keywords matched
refugee refugees