Since its inception, as many have pointed out, the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) has considered “refugees” not just Arabs who fled Israel during its War of Independence but also their descendants, thus deviating from the standard definition of the term used by the UN itself and international law more generally. UNRWA, which tends exclusively to Palestinian refugees while those of all other nationalities are the responsibility of the UN High Commissioner’s Office of Refugees (UNHCR), also insists on keeping its charges in a permanent state of refugeedom, often in “camps,” rather than integrating them into the countries where they have settled as is normal international practice. And these, writes Efraim Karsh, are only some of the special liberties taken when determining who is a Palestinian refugee:

The notion of refugees and displaced persons has been invariably equated with unprovoked victimhood. . . . Members of aggressing parties, including innocent civilians victimized as a result of their [own] governments’ aggression, have been viewed as culprits, undeserving of humanitarian international support.

Thus, for example, not only did the constitution of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) [the precursor to the UNHCR] deny refugee status to the millions of “persons of ethnic German origins” driven from their homes in the wake of World War II—thereby forcing West (and East) Germany to resettle them in their territories at their own expense—but it also singled out persons who had “voluntarily assisted the enemy forces since the outbreak of the [war] in their operations against the United Nations.” Moreover, it stipulated that Germany and Japan should pay, “to the extent practicable,” for repatriating the millions of people displaced as a result of their wartime aggression. . . .

In contrast, the Palestinians and the Arab states have never been penalized for their “war of extermination and momentous massacre,” to use the words of Arab League secretary-general Abdul Rahman Azzam, against the nascent state of Israel. . . . This unprovoked war of aggression should have ipso facto precluded the Palestinians from refugee status, should have obliged them to compensate their Jewish and Israeli victims, and should have made their rehabilitation incumbent upon their own leaders and the Arab regimes as with post-World War II Germany and collaborating parties. However, it did not. In addition, their designation as refugees also failed to satisfy the internationally accepted definition of this status in several other key respects. . . .

[Furthermore], 280,000 escapees in the West Bank, alongside 88,000 who had fled to Transjordan (east of the Jordan River)—i.e., a total of 368,000, more than 60 percent of those who had fled their homes during the war—became Jordanian citizens even before the area’s official annexation to the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. This, on its own, should have disqualified them for refugee status, as both the IRO constitution and the 1951 convention [on refugees] unequivocally deny this status and its attendant benefits to any refugee who “has acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.” . . . Even less deserving of refugee status are the Palestinians who moved from the West Bank of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan to its eastern bank during the June 1967 war.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.