This has created the unique reality that Palestinian refugee status is hereditary. Thus, the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of those Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 and 1967 are defined by UNRWA as in a state of perpetual flight from persecution. Furthermore, the majority of their registered refugees have already been re-settled in host countries, or - to use UNRWA's argot - ‘reintegrated'.

An authoritative report published last year, written by the former general-counsel at UNRWA, James G. Lindsay, argues for the need to address this situation. Lindsay describes the scenario in Jordan: ‘Specifically, most of the nearly 2 million registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan are citizens of that country, and the rest have residency and travel documents.'

Furthermore, according to the report, ‘only about 18 percent of [Palestinians in Jordan] live in refugee camps (which in many cases are urban neighborhoods rather than the traditional refugee accommodations of tentfilled fields).'

Another lexical irony of the situation is that even those Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948-1949 from one part of Palestine and culminated in another fit the current classification as refugees. Camps such as Balata in the West Bank maintain a sort of shadow population of Palestinians with full citizenship rights, including suffrage, but are yet deemed among the homeless diaspora.

Lindsay's report identifies this incongruous situation as most in need of change, saying that such persons should be removed from UNRWA's jurisdiction altogether. Instead, there needs to be a shift towards a needs-based and not a status-based model whereby only those who are unsettled and unable to support themselves remain registered with UNRWA as refugees.

It is deeply revealing that something as intuitive as removing the label ‘refugee' from someone who has been objectively resettled - or indeed from the great grandchild of that same someone - is still lacking in the bubble-like operation that is UNRWA.