Under UNWRA's definition of a "Palestinian refugee" anyone claiming to be Palestinian, like Rashida Tlaib with her cushy job in the Congress can be a refugee.
The refugee issue is easily solvable if we return to the original definition that applied only to people who lived in Palestine in 1948-1949, not their descendants. This is the true number of refugees.
When the United Nations created UNRWA to assist the Palestinians, a refugee was defined as “a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood.”
Initially, UNRWA had a list of 950,000 names, but the agency knew that this number was inaccurate. UNRWA accepted most claims while acknowledging that, for example, many Palestinians did not report deaths in their families so they could continue to collect rations for the deceased. The agency admitted that many fraudulent cases were discovered but was unable to remove undeserving individuals from the relief rolls.
In 1951, UNRWA lamented the inability to conduct an accurate census. “It is still not possible to give an absolute figure of the true number of refugees as understood by the working definition of ‘a person normally resident in Palestine who has lost his home and his livelihood as a result of the hostilities, and who is in need.’ ”
Even accepting the exaggerated figures adopted by UNRWA, how did the number of refugees grow from 750,000 to 5.7 million?
We know one reason is ongoing fraud, such as was discovered from the early days of the agency. The principal explanation, however, is that UNRWA changed the definition of a refugee. Instead of providing for “a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood,” UNRWA expanded the definition to include “the descendants of Palestine refugee males, including adopted children” (emphasis added).