- FACTS AND LOGIC ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST - James Sinkinson, Publisher - MAY 9, 2023 -
Palestinians are one of the most downtrodden ethnic groups in the Middle East, suffering from political and economic hardship—overwhelmingly at the hands of their fellow Arabs.
Palestinians living in most Arab countries are treated as second-class citizens often restricted to living in squalid refugee camps . . . and most are simply not granted citizenship at all.
For example, some half a million Palestinians have been consigned to refugee status in Syria since they emigrated there upon Israel’s independence. Another nearly half a million Palestinians live as refugees in Lebanon. Both groups are denied citizenship, both are restricted from professional employment, and neither receives government benefits.
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In Jordan, about two million Palestinian residents are registered as refugees, more than 600,000 do not hold citizenship, and about 370,000 live in Jordanian refugee camps.
Of course, Palestinians living in any Arab nation are subject to severe limitations on civil rights, low standards of living and diminished economic opportunity that are endemic to the region.
Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip don’t fare better—they endure the same political abuses and economic depression found in other Middle East dictatorships.
Ironically, despite regular press attacks on Israel for its treatment of Palestinians, the best place in the Middle East to be an Arab of Palestinian descent is Israel. Indeed, Arab Israelis are first-class citizens who enjoy broad civil rights equal to those in Western countries. Likewise, Arab Israelis can take full advantage of one of the world’s strongest economies and highest standards of living.
The shame is that Western media coverage obsessively focuses on alleged offenses of the Jewish state, while ignoring the cruel, inequitable treatment almost universally suffered by Palestinians in Arab countries. Similarly, Western media show almost no interest in the impressive economic and professional accomplishments of Israel’s Arab citizens.
Palestinians have been disenfranchised or banished in many Arab nations. Arab countries, with the exception of Jordan, have refused to give Palestinians citizenship, depriving them of many rights and privileges that nationals enjoy. They are instead treated as foreigners who can be expelled at will.
Accordingly, Arab states have orchestrated mass expulsions of Palestinians. The largest of these took place following the 1991 Gulf War, when Kuwait expelled some 200,000 Palestinians because PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of their country.
Both Jordan and Lebanon have expelled Palestinian guerrillas for bad behavior at various times.
Despite such deportations, no protest movements ever arose to defend these Palestinians.
In Jordan, where Palestinians comprise the majority of the population, the Jordanian parliament is rigged to deny them democratic power. The Hashemite rulers—installed by the British—also slaughtered an estimated 15,000 Palestinians during the 1970-71 Black September rebellion.
As a justification for excluding Palestinians from participation in Arab societies, leaders of Arab nations have disingenuously claimed they want the Palestinians living among them someday to return to their “homes in Israel.”
Again, no international outcry has ever been mounted to condemn this refusal to resettle their Arab Palestinian brethren.
Perhaps the worst treatment of the Palestinian people occurs where they are ruled by Palestinian masters—namely leaders of the PA in Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Both ruling groups are dictatorships, which have cancelled elections since 2006. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is now in the 18th year of his four-year term. Both dictatorships have full administrative and civil control over their citizens, yet both deny them civil liberties, such as free speech, freedom of assembly, rule of law and the right to vote.
In addition, the Palestinians face severe economic inequality. In Lebanon, Palestinians like 25-year-old Nirmeen Hazineh live in slumlike refugee camps surrounded by segregation walls and barbed wire. Hazineh is a sociology graduate, but is not allowed to practice in that field.