self. They could not go to Egypt without a permit, which few got. Perched together in a tiny territory, subsisting on daily rations provided by the United Nations Relief Agency (which also provided them with adequate schools and medical services) they lived a life devoid of hope, in degenerating idleness. The fate of the refugees in the West Bank area, under Jordanian control, was somewhat better. They were considered Jordanian citizens and some of them found work; but, on the whole, they also lived idle lives, subsisting on United Nations relief, often detested by the established inhabitants of the area. Their huge refugee camps were a breeding ground for infiltrators into Israel.
On the morrow of the 1967 war, when these areas were overrun by the Israeli Army, Israel could and should have set in motion a grand operation to settle these refugees. With Israeli know-how-and international capital easily available for this purpose-it could have set up new housing schemes, and new means of production, agricultural and industrial. Starting with some model settlements on the West Bank and reunification of families in Israel itself, such an operation would have captured the imagination of the world and shown how easily these tragic remnants of former wars can become useful human beings again.
A completely new atmosphere could have been created overnight. It would have opened the doors for a reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinian people. It would have prepared the ground for the creation of a Palestinian state closely aligned with Israel. It would have been the first step toward the establishment of a Palestinian federation, one of whose first tasks would have been to settle all the refugees within the territory of Palestine; the cooperation of Israel and a Palestinian-Arab republic in the solution of the refugee problem would have cemented the federation and given it immediate meaning.
All this would have been popular even in Israel. Many Israelis who have been afraid these many years of the