Peace doesn’t pay
Regarding “If not for UNRWA, there would be no Palestinian refugee problem” (October 15), whereas I agree with Zalman Shoval's premise, I think that he has missed a simpler explanation of that problem.
Think what would happen to UNRWA the day after the last Palestinian refugee has been “saved.” It would be redundant. Its 30,000 employees would find themselves out of work. As a result of this, there is a genuine conflict of interest in the UNRWA. If it fulfills its mission, it will cease to exist.
Unless the 30,000 employees are independently wealthy and/or extremely altruistic, they would be foolish to “solve” the Palestinian refugee problem – and apparently they are neither. They are avidly working in their own best interests and therefore the number of refugees grows and their conditions worsen.
Since this conflict of interest has existed since the establishment of the agency, one must presume that its existence is an expression of the will not to end the Israel-Palestine conflict and is another expression of the fact that relationship between the United Nations and peace is ephemeral at best. HAIM SHALOM SNYDER Petah Tikva
Jerry Epstein's piece on Ethiopian Jewry (“Enough promises – act now!” October 21) was far too kind to the American Jewish community. Among its many scheduled sessions at this week's Federation General Assembly, none is devoted the appalling situation of the Jews left behind in Ethiopia.
Peer-reviewed studies show that more than 50% of Ethiopian Jewish children aged five years and younger awaiting aliyah in Gondar are significantly chronically malnourished, a condition which often leads to irreversible mental and physical damage.
Nevertheless, neither JDC nor JAFI – organizations whose funding comes principally from the Jewish Federations – has been willing to provide any assistance to these children. Federation leaders have said that they cannot aid this impoverished Jewish community until Israel decides they are eligible for aliyah.
Such a government decision exists, but even if it didn't, is there any other place in the world other than Ethiopia where American Jewish humanitarian assistance is conditioned on aliyah? Why are the Federations allowing Interior Ministry bureaucrats determine who is a Jew in the Diaspora? It certainly is inconsistent with the claim that American Jews are entitled to a voice in determining who is a Jew in Israel.
If JDC and JAFI remain unwilling to aid the religiously Jewish community in Ethiopia, where prayer services are held three times daily and members observe the Sabbath and the laws of kashrut, the Federations should fund other organizations, such as SSEJ and NACOEJ, which are trying to fill the gap. JOSEPH FEIT Counsel to SSEJ