Highest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.
The real amount of per capita aid is even higher than recorded because: a) there are lots of instances of Palestinians registering multiple times for aid cards (surplus cards and rations are sold on the black market); and b) when people die their family doesn't turn in their card. The amount of aid money is distributed over much fewer people than they think.
Another reason that the numbers of "Palestinians" receiving aid are even higher than they should be is because the UN used to encourage non-refugee Arabs living near the camps they setup in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan to register for aid because they saw how impoverished the local populations were.
It was because of the labour deficit created by Jewish development in the early part of the last century that the Arab population had swelled. Many Arab villages started as labour camps that sprouted beside Jewish villages and farming communities as they were being built. During the day the Arabs would work for the Jews, at night they'd return to their camps. In order to designate someone a Palestinian Refugee UNRWA only required that they be living in what was the "Palestine Mandate" since June 1, 1946. Meaning that they could have lived anywhere else in the world up until the middle of 1946 and for whatever reason that they were living inside the Mandate on 15 May 1948 and had lost their means of income (even if that income was working for Jews), they were now Palestinians and eligible for refugee status. They didn't have to own land or have any historic connection to the area.
It's because of all this that no one really knows just how many Palestinians became refugees because of Israel's War of Independence (which was started by the Arabs) and to this day no one really knows how many Palestinians there really are. The concept of the Palestinian is made up anyway. There was never a distinct culture or national or regional consciousness that considered itself uniquely Palestinian. Before this last century the area, then controlled by the Ottomans, was called greater Syria and Arabs enjoyed free migration throughout, often moving to where ever there was work to be had. Before Israel existed the term "Palestinian" generally meant Jew. When referring to an Arab the term "Palestinian Arab" was generally used. Further, it's only been since the late 60s (at the very earliest) and really the mid-70s that the refugee Arabs took up the mantle of "Palestinian Nationalism" because they saw it as a tactic for demanding land back from Israel without having to fight for it (because when they did fight for it they lost). Before then their agenda was just about destroying Israel. When Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank controlled by Jordan there was absolutely no movement toward creating a Palestinian state in that land.
The word "Palestine" comes from the word Philistia, which originally referred to what is now nominally the Gaza Strip. The people living there were called Philistines. They have no historic connection to the Arabs living there now (modern archaeology suggests that they were connected to the Mycenean Greeks). The Romans renamed the land comprising the Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judah to Philistia in an attempt to completely obliterate any Jewish connection to the land after they exiled the Jews.
The real amount of per capita aid is even higher than recorded because: a) there are lots of instances of Palestinians registering multiple times for aid cards (surplus cards and rations are sold on the black market); and b) when people die their family doesn't turn in their card. The amount of aid money is distributed over much fewer people than they think.
Another reason that the numbers of "Palestinians" receiving aid are even higher than they should be is because the UN used to encourage non-refugee Arabs living near the camps they setup in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan to register for aid because they saw how impoverished the local populations were.
It was because of the labour deficit created by Jewish development in the early part of the last century that the Arab population had swelled. Many Arab villages started as labour camps that sprouted beside Jewish villages and farming communities as they were being built. During the day the Arabs would work for the Jews, at night they'd return to their camps. In order to designate someone a Palestinian Refugee UNRWA only required that they be living in what was the "Palestine Mandate" since June 1, 1946. Meaning that they could have lived anywhere else in the world up until the middle of 1946 and for whatever reason that they were living inside the Mandate on 15 May 1948 and had lost their means of income (even if that income was working for Jews), they were now Palestinians and eligible for refugee status. They didn't have to own land or have any historic connection to the area.
It's because of all this that no one really knows just how many Palestinians became refugees because of Israel's War of Independence (which was started by the Arabs) and to this day no one really knows how many Palestinians there really are. The concept of the Palestinian is made up anyway. There was never a distinct culture or national or regional consciousness that considered itself uniquely Palestinian. Before this last century the area, then controlled by the Ottomans, was called greater Syria and Arabs enjoyed free migration throughout, often moving to where ever there was work to be had. Before Israel existed the term "Palestinian" generally meant Jew. When referring to an Arab the term "Palestinian Arab" was generally used. Further, it's only been since the late 60s (at the very earliest) and really the mid-70s that the refugee Arabs took up the mantle of "Palestinian Nationalism" because they saw it as a tactic for demanding land back from Israel without having to fight for it (because when they did fight for it they lost). Before then their agenda was just about destroying Israel. When Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank controlled by Jordan there was absolutely no movement toward creating a Palestinian state in that land.
The word "Palestine" comes from the word Philistia, which originally referred to what is now nominally the Gaza Strip. The people living there were called Philistines. They have no historic connection to the Arabs living there now (modern archaeology suggests that they were connected to the Mycenean Greeks). The Romans renamed the land comprising the Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judah to Philistia in an attempt to completely obliterate any Jewish connection to the land after they exiled the Jews.
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