US embassy cable - 03AMMAN8312

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 008312 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, KPAL, IZ, IS, JO 
SUBJECT: IRAQI-PALESTINIANS FACE HARDSHIP IN JORDAN 
 
REF: AMMAN 5550 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (U)  The 386 Iraqi-Palestinians who were permitted to 
leave Ruweished refugee camp in August and reside in Jordan 
are seeking U.S. help.  They want to regularize their status 
in Jordan or leave for a third country.  The families have 
only limited access to humanitarian assistance and are unable 
to obtain work permits, so none have a steady income and most 
depend on charity and even begging.  345 Iraqi-Palestinians 
without ties to Jordan remain in Ruweished camp, which the 
GOJ has pledged to close by the end of the year.  End Summary. 
 
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IRAQI-PALESTINIAN REFUGEES STRUGGLE WITHOUT STATUS 
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2.  (U)  Representatives of the 386 Iraqi-Palestinians (86 
families) who left Ruweished refugee camp on the Iraq-Jordan 
border and entered Jordan (ref) met with poloff and refasst 
on December 16 to request U.S. help in regularizing their 
status.  They said that since their arrival in Jordan on 
August 26, neither UNHCR nor UNRWA has registered them 
officially as refugees, and none have a regular source of 
income.  According to the GOJ's Department of Palestinian 
Affairs (DPA), the Palestinian Authority (PA) has agreed to 
issue Palestinian passports to the refugees.  While the women 
in this group hold Jordanian citizenship and therefore are 
entitled to certain GOJ-provided services, their husbands and 
children are ineligible.  The DPA says that once these 
Iraqi-Palestinians are issued PA passports, the GOJ can then 
grant them residency passports, and possibly a two-year 
temporary Jordanian passport (a standard procedure for Gaza 
Palestinians) that entitle them to live in Jordan.  However, 
the temporary passport does not give them access to 
government services or the right to work in the public 
sector.  In addition, their children cannot study in public 
universities. 
 
3.  (SBU)  The Iraqi-Palestinians told poloff and refasst 
that, according to the Palestinian embassy in Amman, their 
new PA passports would not have a national Palestinian number 
required for Palestinian citizenship.  For this reason, the 
refugees believe the passport "would not be better than an 
Iraqi travel document."  Consequently, many of the refugees 
did not apply for it, and even those who had applied are 
still waiting to receive the passports.  Obtaining a national 
number requires Israeli approval, but the Director of Refugee 
Affairs in the Palestinian embassy told refasss that the PA 
has not approached the Israelis to obtain national numbers 
for the refugees.  He said UNHCR, with PA approval, had 
requested Israeli permission to repatriate the refugees to 
the West Bank, but they are not optimistic it would be 
granted.  The GOJ has also asked the GOI to permit their 
repatriation to the West Bank, but the Israeli Embassy told 
us the GOI is unlikely to provide any formal response to this 
request. 
 
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LIMITED ACCESS TO SERVICES, NO STEADY INCOME 
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4.  (U)  While their legal issues are being sorted out, the 
386 Iraqi-Palestinians have only limited access to 
humanitarian assistance.  UNRWA has issued one-year 
registration cards that entitle the refugees and their 
families to receive UNRWA education and health services only, 
but the refugees have only limited access to GOJ services. 
The refugees' representative confirm that all school age 
children are attending school.  DPA is able to provide 
services only to those refugees who settled in or near the 
camps.  Those who live far away from the camps have to depend 
on their Jordanian wives to access government services. 
 
5.  (U)  Most of the families lived temporarily with 
relatives upon arrival in Jordan, but now most are on their 
own, renting rooms in Amman, Zarqa and Irbid and are mainly 
dependent on handouts and the earnings from random odd jobs 
with low pay.  They say that initial cash donations of 500 
USD per family from the PA have been spent, and without a 
regular source of income, they are dependent on charity to 
get by.  The representatives noted that not all the families 
received this amount, which was authorized by Yassir Arafat 
after the group sent him a letter requesting help, because 
the embassy apparently ran out of money.  They said that 
similar letters to King Abdullah and President Bush went 
unanswered. 
 
6.  (U)  Lacking status in Jordan means the refugees cannot 
find steady work, and according to the refugees, is the major 
source of their frustration.  Many of the refugees were 
successful businessmen and professionals in Iraq before the 
war, but left everything behind to enter Jordan.  One 
representative of the group said he worked for the Swedish 
embassy in Baghdad for 12 years before opening his own 
businesses after the Gulf war.  Job prospects for 
undocumented workers in Jordan are bleak:  one refugee 
reported that he managed to secure a hauling job for a week 
during Ramadan at an olive oil factory earning 9JD per day, 
but the hours were long (5 am to 8 pm). 
 
7.  (U)  Representatives of the refugees say the families are 
approaching different charitable societies (including 
al-Hashimiyyat Charitable Foundation) for food and cash 
assistance, but financial assistance has been hard to come 
by.  Consequently, some families are sending their children 
to the streets and to the mosques to beg.  The refugees say 
they hesitate to complain about the meager rations in the 
handouts they receive, knowing that their countrymen still 
stuck at Ruweished are suffering even more, particularly now 
that cold rainy weather has set in. 
 
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SOME LOOKING TO RETURN TO IRAQ, BUT MOST SAY NO WAY 
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8.  (U)  Representatives of the group say that five families 
(20 individuals) are so frustrated with their situation in 
Jordan that they are seeking to return to Iraq.  The 
financial hardships -- given their inability to work legally 
and regularly due to their lack of status -- appears to be 
the main concern.  These families believe they will find 
better work opportunities and more support from their 
immediate family members who stayed in Baghdad versus their 
current situation in Jordan. 
 
9.  (U)  However, the representatives are counseling the five 
families -- who they say are mainly headed by young impatient 
males or widows -- against this option.  Contacts in Iraq are 
advising the refugees against returning to Iraq given the 
dismal security situation.  They are particularly concerned 
about revenge attacks from Iraqi Shi'a who have long-resented 
the perceived favored status of the Palestinian community in 
Iraq.  They said that many Shi'a erroneously believed that 
the regime gave the Palestinians special privileges under the 
guise of supporting the Palestinian national cause.  However, 
the representatives say that before 2002, Palestinians had 
few of the rights enjoyed by ordinary Iraqi citizens, 
including the right to obtain an Iraqi passport, work in the 
public sector, or buy a house. 
 
10.  (U)  The majority of the refugees say they would like to 
obtain Jordanian passports or be resettled in a third country 
or the West Bank.  One of the refugees' representatives said 
that the war has provided Palestinians in Iraq -- most of 
whom trace their roots to Haifa -- the first opportunity in 
more than 50 years to leave Iraq, and they do not wish to 
return.  "I would accept citizenship anywhere else, even 
Mars," declared one, "but not in Iraq.  This is our 
opportunity to end our life as a refugee, and give our 
children something better."  He said that in the initial 
discussions with the UNHCR, they had offered to give up their 
children if it meant the children could get citizenship in a 
third country and they could not. 
 
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COMMENT 
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11.  (SBU)  While difficult, the conditions of these 
Iraqi-Palestinians who have Jordanian spouses is better than 
those of the 345 Iraqi-Palestinians who remain at Ruweished 
Camp -- which the GOJ has publicly pledged to close at the 
end of this year -- and who have few resettlement options, 
other than return to Iraq. 
 
Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ or access the site 
through the State Department's SIPRNET home page. 
GNEHM