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One possible line of approach is a quiet program of individual grants to refugees who would accept resettlement in Arab lands. In the past, the refugees themselves refused to move from their tents to concrete barracks for fear the move might compromise their eventual repatriation; most refused even vocational training to equip them for new jobs. Now. more and more are applying for vocational training. A resettlement program was tried by UNRWA in the Jordan valley. In the first year, only two refugees volunteered to turn in their ration cards and accept resettlement grants. But in 1956 the number rose to 210, and when UNRWA ran out of resettlement funds last June, 502 refugees had accepted resettlement and another 1,600 were on the waiting list. If this program could be revived and broadened, there is a possibility that such Arab nations as Iraq and Saudi Arabia might quietly start letting the refugees in for resettlement.
Depressing Solicitude. Last week, UNRWA Director Henry Richardson Labouisse went before the U.N. to plead for funds. Labouisse needs $25.7 million for relief, and another $15 million for his rehabilitation program. Many nations have failed to make good their pledges of UNRWA aid. Among them: India, France, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Brazil. One reason for UNRWA's imminent shortage of operating funds is that the U.S. (which together with the United Kingdom has supplied 90% of the agency's money) is holding back in the hope that other nations pledged to contribute will ante up.
Said Labouisse: "It is indeed depressing to witness the growing interest and solicitude manifested by almost all countries of the world for the situation in the Near East, and. at one and the same time, to observe their reluctance to face squarely a problem which is at the root of instability in the area—the absence of an equitable solution for the Palestine refugees."