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The Arab World's Treatment Of Palestinians
NMyTree
Posts: 2,412
http://www.themiddleeastnow.com/arabtreatmentofpalestinians.html
" Many in Lebanon blame Palestinians and the PLO for Israel's invasion in the 80's. Palestinians living in Lebanon are generally poor and regularly discriminated against by the government and the locals. Palestinians face very tough passport restrictions and many of them have been stranded outside of Lebanon for failing to comply with the complicated and freguently changing Lebanese passport rules for the Palestinians
With Palestine, Against the Palestinians
“We are against the settlement of the refugees in any country,
but the host countries should provide the refugees with
a dignified living.… The host countries should allow the
refugees to work, to live and to move in dignity until they
achieve their right of return.”—Palestinian Cabinet
member, Saeb Erekat, in December 2003.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in some of the worst conditions outside the Occupied Territories -exiled to decaying refugee camps and barred from schools, hospitals, jobs, and city halls across the country. For more than 55 years, Lebanon has systematically imposed a host of draconian restrictions on resident Palestinians to prevent their integration and to signal to the international community that it considers Palestinian refugees to be an international, not a Lebanese, problem.The government of Lebanon rules out all discussion
of refugee rights by raising objections to the permanent implantation of Palestinians into Lebanese society. It argues that an implantation-tawteen in Lebanese political jargon-will tip the political balance of religious and ethnic groups in the country. The tawteen issue, however, involves naturalization of the refugees rather than interim rights pending a durable solution. Lebanon considers the issues to be one and the same, and treats the Palestinian refugees as a security problem, rather than a humanitarian crisis. In this paper, the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) examines the systematic denial of UN Refugee Convention rights to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a population that has been warehoused since 1948.
....
"Crumbling buildings-their walls riddled with bullet holes-remain as testament to the wars of the past 50 years. Lebanon prohibits rebuilding camps damaged in war, enlarging existing camps, or building new camps. Armed soldiers monitor entrances, searching for materials the refugees might use to repair their homes."
...
An April 2001 law does notallow "anyone who is not a national of a recognized State, or anyone whose access to property is contrary to the Constitution's provisions relating to 'Tawteen' to acquire real rights of any nature." This law also prohibits Palestinian refugees from inheriting property already in their family's possession. While the government of Lebanon freely issues travel documents to Palestinian refugees, it did not always guarantee their readmission. In 1994, Lebanon created a new law requiring Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon to obtain exit and re-entry permits. Five years later, the government lifted this requirement. According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the precedent discourages both Palestinian refugees from going abroad and other states from granting them visas, for fear that a new revision may suddenly require a return visa to Lebanon.
This is a great article discussing Arab treatment of Palestinians. The article is far too long to post the whole thing on this page, but I strongly recomend everyone read it.
The whole article can be found here:
http://www.refugees.org/data/wrs/04/pdf/66-73.pdf "
This is truely fucked up.
" Many in Lebanon blame Palestinians and the PLO for Israel's invasion in the 80's. Palestinians living in Lebanon are generally poor and regularly discriminated against by the government and the locals. Palestinians face very tough passport restrictions and many of them have been stranded outside of Lebanon for failing to comply with the complicated and freguently changing Lebanese passport rules for the Palestinians
With Palestine, Against the Palestinians
“We are against the settlement of the refugees in any country,
but the host countries should provide the refugees with
a dignified living.… The host countries should allow the
refugees to work, to live and to move in dignity until they
achieve their right of return.”—Palestinian Cabinet
member, Saeb Erekat, in December 2003.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in some of the worst conditions outside the Occupied Territories -exiled to decaying refugee camps and barred from schools, hospitals, jobs, and city halls across the country. For more than 55 years, Lebanon has systematically imposed a host of draconian restrictions on resident Palestinians to prevent their integration and to signal to the international community that it considers Palestinian refugees to be an international, not a Lebanese, problem.The government of Lebanon rules out all discussion
of refugee rights by raising objections to the permanent implantation of Palestinians into Lebanese society. It argues that an implantation-tawteen in Lebanese political jargon-will tip the political balance of religious and ethnic groups in the country. The tawteen issue, however, involves naturalization of the refugees rather than interim rights pending a durable solution. Lebanon considers the issues to be one and the same, and treats the Palestinian refugees as a security problem, rather than a humanitarian crisis. In this paper, the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) examines the systematic denial of UN Refugee Convention rights to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a population that has been warehoused since 1948.
....
"Crumbling buildings-their walls riddled with bullet holes-remain as testament to the wars of the past 50 years. Lebanon prohibits rebuilding camps damaged in war, enlarging existing camps, or building new camps. Armed soldiers monitor entrances, searching for materials the refugees might use to repair their homes."
...
An April 2001 law does notallow "anyone who is not a national of a recognized State, or anyone whose access to property is contrary to the Constitution's provisions relating to 'Tawteen' to acquire real rights of any nature." This law also prohibits Palestinian refugees from inheriting property already in their family's possession. While the government of Lebanon freely issues travel documents to Palestinian refugees, it did not always guarantee their readmission. In 1994, Lebanon created a new law requiring Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon to obtain exit and re-entry permits. Five years later, the government lifted this requirement. According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the precedent discourages both Palestinian refugees from going abroad and other states from granting them visas, for fear that a new revision may suddenly require a return visa to Lebanon.
This is a great article discussing Arab treatment of Palestinians. The article is far too long to post the whole thing on this page, but I strongly recomend everyone read it.
The whole article can be found here:
http://www.refugees.org/data/wrs/04/pdf/66-73.pdf "
This is truely fucked up.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Because of all the anti-Israel sentiment that people toss around, probably. Its easy to forget all that is not peachy in the Arab world, even if you don't factor in Israel as some boogeyman.
I have said a million times in a variety of posts stating how before 9/11 even occured many Muslims were dying at the hands of Muslim radicals...I think many in Western culture have no idea on the magnitude of groups like Al Queda have had on their own people...too many people on here get caught up in Israel vs Muslims, America vs Muslims....people forget that Muslims have had to deal with radical Islam first hand for decades....
For example these radical Muslim groups targetted Muslims who strayed from the Koran (eg. woman not covering themselves head to toe, women going to school) and have performed atrocities against their own people...this would be the same of radical Christian extremists killing off people for having pre-marital sex.....which sounds crazy but this type of extremism has been used on Muslims by Muslims....
My point is that the majority of Muslims do not want this and I believe to say they are not trying to rid their countries of these nut jobs is absurd.....
But you know on the flip-side thinking of the possibility of extremist Christian acting in a manner similar to radical Islam makes you realize how bad these people really are....and they need to be dealt with but not with bombing innocent people and use of over-kill....which will undoubtly create more extremists who are bent on revenge more so than on the traditional Muslim extremist rational to kill because they have been warped by the mis-interpretation of their own holy book but those who have a selfish and evil agenda
Ironically, the country that did the most humanitarian job in the occupied territories is... Israel. Lots of private organizations here are trying to do thier best in order to help Palestinians civilians, and now I'm hearing that Israeli public and, believe it or not, the Israeli gov would like to help the Lebanese civilians as well by sending them food, medications, clothing etc'. I'm EXTREMELY hoping that would actually happen.
Another alaram, gotta run.
It (the articles I posted to and what you just said) speaks volumes for the state of affairs in the Middle East (both past and present) and it is very revealing of the overall relationship between them. Without a doubt it indicates a widespread apathy among Arabs/Muslims.
Which of course is also very indicative of the deep-rooted animosity, contempt and conflict they all have for and with each other.
Which also speakes volumes for the deep-rooted problems they have, which are hardly "all of America's fault". There's no question the United States has stuck their nose in the Middle East's business far too many times and for a very long time. But it's obvious to me their problems run a lot deeper and go back a lot further than just blaming it on America.
I hope you are right and I hope someone helps these innocent civilians. This is a horrible situation.
Best wishes and Stay safe.
Local news has just reported Israel WILL supply humanitarian help (food, medications, clothing etc') to Lebanon via Cyprus :-)
edit: Israel will operate this with the help of French ships. As far as I understand we intend to transfer supply from other countries via these ships. Also, the IDF asured that the ships sailing path to/from Lebanon will be safe, so that the evacuation operations of foreign citizens will expanded (= not only from Beirut port).
GREAT NEWS!!! I hope they get the ball rolling and wheels turning.....IMMEDIATELY!!!!!
Thanks for the update!!!
Be careful and Stay safe!!!!!
A few things I have to question here.
First, how does the mistreatment of Palestinians by other Arab countries compare to the mistreatment of Palestinians by Israel? The article admits Syria and Jordan are good to the Palestinians... and that's where MOST Palestinian refugees are... so how siginificant of an issue is this? What is the point here - is it that Arab countries are supposed to bear the burden of refugees forced out of their land by Israel????
Second, consider the source. It admits its bias in favor of Israel. It also proposes this bizarre argument for why it supports Israel:
"There are many good reasons to support the state and the creation of Israel. Religion (as well as the holocaust) should NOT be one of them. The creation of Israel should be supported as a REWARD to the Jews living in current day Israel for their support to the winning sides of world war 1 and world war 2. At the same any Arab claim to Israel should be revoked due to the Arab/Muslim worlds staunch support for the axis powers in both world war 1 and world war 2. The state of Israel should be supported not to avoid being "cursed", but because Israel is the middle east's only democracy, the holy sites are protected under Jewish rule and are always open to people of all faiths, and lastly, but not leastly, because Israel has been a staunch supporter of the United States in every major world conflict even when they didn't have to." (source)
OK... "any Arab claim to Israel should be revoked due to the Arab/Muslim worlds stauch support for the axis power in both world war 1 and world war 2"... wow... so does this mean Germany, Italy and Japan should lose any claim to their land? Well, at least it admits Arabs had a claim to Israel/Palestine. Furthermore, what Arab/Muslims countries supported the Axis powers?? In World War 1, it was the Ottoman Empire, led by Turks who ruled over Arabs including Palestinians. Ottoman support for the Axis powers wasn't exactly "staunch". There was a large faction that supported the Allies and another large faction that supported neutrality. Germany had to negotiate with the Ottomans to get their support. Not that any of that really matters because the Palestinians, who were subjects of the Ottoman Turks, had nothing to do with it. Moving along... In World War 2, the only Arab country that was a member of the Axis powers was Libya, which was then A COLONY OF ITALY!!! Palestine, by the way, was then a colony of the British Empire.
So we see how the author(s) of this site has made some incredibly flawed arguments.
But I'm not done yet.
Israel is no longer the Middle East's only democracy. It is currently bombing the shit out of democratic Lebanon. The Prime Minister of Lebanon said Israel's current military campaign is "collective punishment" and has "no moral or legal legitimacy." The Prime Minister of the newest Middle Eastern democracy, Iraq, has just said “The Israeli attacks and airstrikes are completely destroying Lebanon’s infrastructure ... I condemn these aggressions and call on the Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo to take quick action to stop these aggressions. We call on the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression.”
As far Israel being a staunch supporter of the U.S. in every major world conflict... how many Israeli troops are in Iraq or Afghanistan?? There are none. It is completely the other way around! The U.S. has provided billions of dollars and hi-tech weapondry to Israel.
Maybe I am just slow today, but I don't see how you've shown this author's arguments to be flawed. Basically, you're accusing the author of a pro-Israel bias. OK, how so? You haven't really picked any holes in the specific arguments, with the exception of the Arab world supporting the Axis in WW-II, which yeah, didn't really happen. I think the basic point about Palestinians not recieving very good treatment from the rest of the Arab world remains valid.
Where are you getting this history???
According to the very site that this thread's argument is based on: "In Jordan, for example, most of the 1.5 million Palestinians have citizenship and are well integrated socially and economically, although some 278,678 are still living in camps." There was some conflict between the Western-backed Hashimite Kingdom in control of Jordan and the fedayeen among the Palestinian refugees who wanted to overthrow the government. The coup was put down with the help of the Israeli air force! There was no Arab-led massacre of Palestinians. And that was only one small point in history called Black September or the "era of regrettable events". And again, as the author(s) of this site said flat out, things are cool with the Palestinians in Jordan.
Source: Cleveland, William L. "A History of the Modern Middle East 2nd Edition" Published by Westview Press (2000) pg 353
I'm not going to deny that many (but not most) Palestinians refugees have received unjust treatment, but the original injustice was forcing them out of their land and the only country that should be held responsible for this is Israel!
"original injustice was forcing them out of their land" - I agree.
"The only country that should be held responsible for this is Israel" - I disagree. Black September was performed by the Jordanian army, therefore they are responsible for their actions. Us forcing the Palestinians out of Israel does not mean they must be killed in Jordan. We received lots of refugees from many countries, including places like Iraq or Sudan (most of them arrive to Egypt) which considered to be 'hostile countries', but we didn't kill any of them (nor did Egypt).
Anyway, the original point is still valid: Arab nations don't really like the Palestinians [1] or the southern Lebanese people & they had never offered them humanitarian help, only weapons, money to buy weapons and terror trainings.
[1] I think the best example would have to be the peace agreement we had with Egypt - Israel offered Saadat to have the Gaza area under his authority (= giving those areas to Egypt as well as returning Sinay area). He refused.
Unfortunately for you, my point was not to defend Israel or even give them a pass.
1) To point out that a majority of Arab countries also treat them badly. Which makes the situation even more sad and desperate.
2) This is not simply an USA and Israel contrived and intiated conflict. I think it's obvious ( even without using this article as an example) that this conflict is deeply-rooted in cultural and religious traditions that have been in existence for thousands of years.
3) To point out that the whole Middle East ( including Arab Christians) needs to take a good, long, hard look at themselves, as well.
4) This situation is so fucked beyond all reason.
You misunderstood me. I meant that the only country responsible for forcing them out of their land is Israel. Certainly the Jordanian government is responsible for Black September.
And I did a quick Yahoo search for "humanitarian aid for palestine" and found that Syria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Turkey, Malaysia have all sent humanitarian aid to Palestine... and I bet I'd find more if I kept looking ... I also found stories where humanitarian aid Palestine from these countries was blocked by Israel.
OK. Sorry I misunderstood your intent. At the same time, I think the author(s) of the website has a different intent.