U.S. Congressman Offers Plan to End Arab Refugee Problem

A program to end within the next decade the deadlocked Arab refugee problem, based on turning over responsibility to the host countries for the refugee camps and on asking Israel to permit the return of aged Arab refugees, was proposed today by Rep. Leonard Farbstein, New York Democrat.

The Congressman, in a report to the Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that unless the United States initiates appropriate action, the Palestine refugee problem would become more institutionalized and more difficult to handle in the next ten years. He noted that the United States has contributed $291,000,000, or more than two-thirds of the income of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency since it was set up in 1948 to care for the refugees.

In addition to the two key proposals, Rep. Farbstein also proposed that UNRWA should stop issuing new ration cards and revamp rolls on a continuing basis to prevent fraud and abuses in the ration card system. He proposed also that financial arrangements for relief and continued vocational training of refugees should be made with the host governments through UNRWA.

More emphasis should also be placed on vocational training and education and the young refugees should be urged to seek jobs and give up their refugee status, he said. Self-supporting refugees and those who have obtained jobs should be urged to give up their ration cards and the United States should serve notice it will end its support of UNRWA, he suggested.

Finally, he proposed that Israel should compensate Arabs for property left in Israel, which Israel has agreed to do but only in the context of a general peace settlement which would take into account the losses suffered by Jews who fled from Arab countries with their properties usually confiscated.