U.S. to resettle 1,350 Palestinians

WASHINGTON, July 17 (UPI) -- The United States has agreed to resettle 1,350 Palestinians living in camps in the border region between Syria and Iraq, a State Department spokesman says.

The action would constitute the largest resettlement ever of Palestinian refugees in the United States and is likely to illicit strong reactions from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The State Department spokesman says the United Nations' refugee agency, which has been providing assistance to some 3,000 Palestinians who fled Iraq after the U.S. invasion, asked the government for help.

The move appears to signal a shift in Washington's previous position against resettling Palestinians out of concern about the potential impact it would have on U.S. relations with Israel and the Arab world, the Journal says.

"These particular Palestinians are a fallout from the Iraq War," says George Bisharat, a Middle Eastern law specialist at the University of California.