Hotovely: After three Generations , Palestinians are ‘Fake Refugees’

Jerusalem, 17 January, 2018 (TPS) -- Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely dismissed the children and grandchildren of Palestinians who fled Israel during the 1948 War of Independence as “fake refugees” and praised the administration of US President Donald Trump for Tuesday’s announcement that he would withhold $65 million from the United States’ annual donation to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Speaking to England’s BBC, Hotovely said that after 70 years UNRWA had failed to complete its stated goal of resettling individuals who became refugees during the 1948 war and served only to perpetuate Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.

“Back in the 1950s there were 750,000 people registered as refugees. Now, almost 70 years after the war, we are talking about 5 million people registered as refugees . This is a major failure  of the organization that was supposed to resettle those people that lost a war that they started,” Hotovely said.

Hotovely quickly noted that she and the foreign ministry are “absolutely in favor of humanitarian to populations in need. But she strongly rejected the notion of a hereditary-style refugee status that passes from parents to children.

“There is no second and third generation of refugee status,” she said.