UNRWA Has Changed the Definition of Refugee

"Last week, Foreign Policy published a story about Palestinian refugees that claimed I am among the 'activists trying to strip Palestinians of their status.'...I feel compelled to correct the record on both points.
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In 1965, UNRWA changed the eligibility requirements to be a Palestinian refugee to include third-generation descendants, and in 1982, it extended it again, to include all descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they had been granted citizenship elsewhere. This classification process is inconsistent with how all other refugees in the world are classified, including the definition used by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the laws concerning refugees in the United States.

Under Article I(c)(3) of the 1951 U.N. Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, a person is no longer a refugee if, for example, he or she has 'acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.' UNRWA's definition of a Palestinian refugee, which is not anchored in treaty, includes no such provision.
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The 1951 refugee convention has a lengthy definition of refugee that is personal: A refugee is a person who 'owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.' In registering refugees on this basis, the UNHCR interprets the convention as requiring 'family unity,' and it implements the principle by extending benefits to a refugee's accompanying family, calling such people 'derivative refugees.' Derivative refugees do not have refugee status on their own; it depends on the principal refugee. UNRWA's definition is also personal: Palestinian refugees are 'persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict,' but it also registers 'descendants of Palestine refugee males, including adopted children.' The status for descendants is not dependent upon accompanying the principal refugee.

Here is where the sleight of hand comes in: Of course it is possible for there to be multiple generations of refugees, if the multiple generations all fit the primary 1951 definition of a refugee. For example, if the granddaughter of a refugee is also outside the country of her nationality due to a well-founded fear of being persecuted, she too is a primary refugee. But she is not a refugee due to descent, because there is no provision for refugee status based on descent in the 1951 refugee convention or in internationally accepted practices for refugees who are not Palestinian refugees..."