Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] PALESTINIAN RIGHTS AND ISRAELI WRONGS 117
they are not nationals. 4 That is not the case for UNRWA, which has no such
exclusion clause. There are approximately half a million Palestinian refugees
in Syria, who, according to the UNRWA Web site. “enjoy many of the
rights of Syrian citizens.”
Fourth, other refugees are considered to have local integration as a
durable solution. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR), “there is no formal hierarchy among the
durable solutions.” Resettlement and local integration have the same status
as durable solutions, as does voluntary repatriation. 5 The UNHCR states:
“Particularly in post-conflict situations, it may take quite some time before
peace and order are fully re-established . . . In such situations, refugees . . .
may be better served by local integration or resettlement.”
Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza are locally integrated.
In principle, then, because of that local integration, they should no longer
need the aid of the international community to seek a durable solution.
There are 1.1 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza and about 900,000 in the
West Bank for whom UNRWA provides assistance, protection, and
advocacy.
The only population of refugees under the mandate of UNRWA who
arguably do not have a durable solution where they now live is Palestinian
refugees in Lebanon. UNRWA, in fact, reports that “Palestine refugees in
Lebanon do not enjoy several basic human rights.”
In spite of that finding, the position of the government of Canada is
that Palestinian refugees have a durable solution in Lebanon. In the case of
El Biqai, a Palestinian refugee applied to come to Canada but was refused
by the local Canadian visa office on the grounds that he was receiving protection
and assistance from UNRWA. The Refugee Convention excludes
from its ambit refugees who receive the protection or assistance of another
UN agency. 6 The Canadian Federal Court, in October 2005, set aside this
decision by consent, which was given on the basis that this Refugee Convention
exclusion had not been legislated in Canada. 7
4. Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 United Nations Treaty
Series 150, Article 1E.
5. UNHCR “Resettlement Handbook,” chap. 1, “Resettlement within
UNHCR’s Mandate,” sec. 1.3.2, “Complementarities of the three durable
solutions.”
6. Refugee Convention Article 1D.
7. El-Biqai v. M.C.I. IMM-1906-05, October 4, 2005, Mr. Justice Blanchard.