Speech #910117782

I would like to make a short statement in connection with one item in the bill. This deals with the question of the United Nations Relief. Rehabilitation. and Works Agency for the expansion of vocational and educational training for Arab refugees. This year I notice that the bill calls for an additional appropriation of $1 million and another $1 million for 1971. Now. there were originally about 700.000 refugees in the camps in the Middle East following the war in 1948 that took place between the Arab States and Israel. This number has since increased to about 1.4 million. That is besides those who have left the refugee camps and gone to work in various countries of the area. This has become a way of life. evidently. but if this is what they want. I do not suppose that there is very much I or anybody else can do about it. It seems to me that this is not an appropriate time. though. to increase the moneys that we are appropriating here for the refugees simply because those refugee camps now in the main have been taken over by the terrorists in the Middle East. Not only have the camps or most of them been taken over by the terrorists there. but thov!e camps are being used for training purposes and the young children for whom the schools are being built and who are being fed and clothed are being trained as terrorists in these refugee camps. In previous years. recognizing that the entire subject of the Arab refugees was a very delicate one but was nevertheless being taken advantage of unduly by the kings of the host countries in which the camps were locatedthe kings were using the refugees as a whip with which to beat Israel over the headI felt it was time something should be done to make them realize that we know what is going on. So there was adopted at my behest and the behest of one of the gentlemen on the other side of the aisle an amendment to the foreign aid bill cutting down the appropriation of the United States to UNRRA. We contribute 70 percent of it. incidentally. We cut down 5 percent of the appropriation that we gave to UNRRA one year. It passed. I thought perhaps the host countries would come to the realization that something should be done and the refugees should be taught various kinds of work to hold jobs and sent to school and educated. However. multiplication goes on. I think this is being done intentionally by the kings in the hcst countries. becauoe they know now how they can use these additional children. Incidentally. maybe 60 percent or even more of the inhabitants of the refugee camps are children. They are being used as a weapon against Israel. Incidentally. they are also being used as a weapon against Lebanon now. I do not propose at this time to offer any amendment to cut the sum which we contribute to UNRRA for the benefit of the refugees. because that area today is a tinder box as is. I do not believe anyone should throw a match that might perhaps light up that tinder box and cause it to explode. Nevertheless. I would like the RECORD to show that if I am here next year and if this same situation continues I will then not hesitate at all to offer an amendment reducing our appropriations to UNRRA which is used for the purpose of assisting the Arab refugees and trust that it will pass. Mr. Chairman.