Refugee Problem In Middle East

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31412, 4 July 1967, Page 2

Refugee Problem In Middle East

Until the problem of the Palestinian refugees was solved there could be no real settlement between Arabs and Israelis, Miss Grace Spacht, of Portland, Oregon, said in Christchurch yesterday.

“I shudder to think what conditions will be like now, after the recent Arab - Israeli war, or what will be the future of the new masses of Palestinian Arab refugees,” she said.

Miss Spacht was an administrator for the United Nations Relief and Workers Agency at Beirut headquarters, working among Palestinian refugees, from 1948 to 1954. She revisited the refugee camps at Beirut and other parts of the Middle East earlier this year during a world tour. “U.N.R.WJL has had the task of caring for more than a million Palestinian refugees for almost 20 years,” she said. In Jericho there were 60,000 in only one of the camps I saw recently. There were about 400.000 in Jordan, 200.000 in Syria, 100,000 in Lebanon and more in the Gaza Strip.” It was impossible to estimate how many more thousands of Arab refugees would pour into camps after the recent war.

“Festering Sore”

“Until something is done for them this situation will remain a festering sore,” she said.

Having worked with Palestinian refugees for six years. Miss Spacht has a deep sympathy for them in their wish to return to the country which was their homeland and is now Israel.

“The United Nations agency has kept the Palestinian refugees alive, providing them with food, clothing and shelter for nearly 20 years,” she said. “It has also tried to give

vocational education to some of the younger children.” Although she does not support President Nasser’s recent actions, Miss Spacht feels he was genuinely concerned about improving the welfare of the Egyptians during his early years in office, particularly in extending education to the illiterate millions in the country. “But in later years, I feel he became more concerned with his own image as a leader of the Arab world,” she said. Until her retirement a year ago, Miss Spacht was foreign student adviser at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon. This liberal arts, co-educational college has 40 overseas students from 17 countries on its roll of 1500.

On her present tour Miss Spacht visited parents of her former students in Switzer-

land, Greece, Jordan, Uganda and Tanzania. She will look up others in Samoa when she leaves New Zealand.

International Group

As a member of the Committee of Correspondents, an international women's group with headquarters in New York, she made many other contacts overseas.

This organisation, whose motto is “truth will make you free,” keeps in touch with women leaders throughout the world. It is particularly Interested in helping women in developing countries take their full part In community and national affairs. “In Kampala, Uganda, I was told that our pamphlets had been a great help to them in trying to organise the movement for giving women the vote helping them to arrange meetings and how to conduct them,” she said.

The committee, which works in association with the International Council of Women and has many other national and international affiliates, compiles the most recent information on what women are doing in other countries. It distributes monthly bulletins on community action. One of them recently included an article by Mrs Doreen Grant, of Christchurch, on consumer service In New Zealand.

Unity Of Purpose “One of the most important things the committee does is to bring women from developing countries to the United States to attend workshops and conferences. It is one of many international organisations that is giving women throughout the world a feeling of unity of purpose,” said Miss Spacht.