Palestinian refugees don’t deserve special treatment

Jack O’Neill (letters, October 6) wrote that “Whether they are being supported by UNRWA or living in a mansion, these Palestinians are refugees who have a right to return to their homeland under Resolution 194”.

Why should the Palestinians be accorded such privileged treatment? No other refugees are allowed to bequeath their status to their descendants indefinitely.

Might I suggest the way to alleviate this might be for UNRWA, which looks after Palestinian refugees, to be abolished and its activities, where appropriate, be transferred to UNHCF.

While readers might think this is only a bureaucratic manoeuvre which would make minimal savings, this would be not the case if it also adopted the latter’s definition of refugee. Under it, there would be few surviving refugees from 1948 instead of the millions whose only claim is an ancestor who relocated a few miles across the armistice lines.

The West has been complicit in perpetuating the Palestinian problem by acquiescing in this situation which would otherwise have been solved over 60 years ago.

Martin D Stern

Salford

England