UN General Assembly
1962

85. It is useful to note, however, that the Palestine refugees are citizens of a country in which, before the aggression to which it fell victim, they enjoyed a standard of living and a national income that were particularly high for the region as a whole. According to the most moderate estimates, the income from Arab property in occupied Palestine amounts to more than £47,500,000 a year, or several times the amount of the annual budget of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The total income from the property, for the period 1948-1961, amounts to some £750 million, not counting a 35 per cent increase that has taken place since 1948. 86. In order to finance most reliably any programme of assistance to the refugees, pending an equitable solution to the problem as a whole, it is therefore the duty of the United Nations to set up appropriate machinery for safeguarding and protecting the private property of the Palestine refugees and collecting the very large income from it.