Speech #920070350

The scattered. rusting halfmillion Jewish citizens of Arab hulks of cars. buses. and trucks are an countries. Israel was able to absorb the eyesore. They are dangerous. if not Jewish refugees from North Africa. the deadly. eyesore. attracting small children Fertile Crescent and Yemen. primarily looking for places to play. because she has had the desire. the The abandoned car problem is not money. and the capacity to train them. small-.000 cars a week are abandoned However. for political. financial. and in New York City. and in Chicago. the manpower reasons. the poorer countries rate is double2.000 every week. There around IsraelEgypt. Lebanon. Syria. are presently over 100 million motor vehi- and Jordanhave had little success in cles in use in the United States. About helping the Palestinian refugees. The 9 million are retired each year. approxi- refugees have not been allowed to return mately 85 percent of them entering junk- home. and they have not received comyards. with the remaining 15 percent pensation for the property they lost. As abandoned on either public or private part of any settlement in the Middle property. Thus we are accumulating East. efforts must be made to deal with 1.300.000 abandoned motor vehicles every the 1948 claims of both Arab and Jewish year. adding to the present inventory of refugees. somewhere between 15 and 20 million After 1948. an educated minority and rusting hulks already cluttering the a few Palestinians who had funds availlandscape. able found work in other Arab countries. Why are they not hauled to salvage They were. for the most part. hardyards? Salvage operators make most of working and intelligent people who have their money selling parts from cars that played an important role. for example. are from 1 to 4 years old. After a car is in the development of Kuwait and the 7 years old it virtually has no parts value tiny states of the Persian Gulf. at all. its only value is derived from the Unfortunately. the overwhelming masale of the scrap metals it contains. The jority of Palestiniansthe aged. the very profit margins in the scrap operation are young. and the unskilledbecame desmall. forcing scrap dealers to pay little pendent refugees. For them. life was hard or nothing for any wornout autos over and uncertain. and many became bitter 5 years of age. and resentful refugees hovering in overThus. when confronted with the alter- crowded camps near Israels borders. native of paying someone $10 to $25 to Since 1948. these refugees have become haul your wornout car to the scrap yard increasingly embittered and frustrated or abandoning it along some street or by the failure of their Arab neighbors. road. the choice is very often to aban- the United Nations and the big powers to don it. help them regain the land they claimed My bill would reverse the present in- was theirs. In the 1960s many refugees centive. it would simply make it more found solace in the extreme. radical. naprofitable in virtually all cases for a car tional movements manifested in the owner to have his car hauled to the junk- plethora of commando organizations that yard in order to get his $50 deposit back. sprang up before and after the June 1967 rather than abandon it on a public road. war. In addition. the bill provides the cities The political frustrations of these and States reimbursement for collecting refugees have been matched by the huthe already existing stock of abandoned man trials of a large number of people autos. I hope my colleagues will give this living on the borderline of destitution. legislation their careful consideration. rampant disease and undernourishment. Ten cents a day for each refugee in a camp provides just enough basic medical PALESTINIAN REFUGEES services. education. food and lodging fa-