Does anyone really care about the Palestinians?

[darkhorse]

No of course not, and yes it is a serious matter - but many of those nations were generous enough to take them in the first place after Israel kicked them out of their country and refuses to take them back, it would be a bit ironic for Zionists to be complaining about how they are treated!

I am saying that i have doubts about the motivations of the writers of this article, that it is not the welfare of Palestinians in Arab countries that concerns them as such, more the fact that Arab govts - by refusing to accord the refugees a good standard of living are refusing to take Israel's responsibility off their hands and accept that the Palestinians can never go home, what galls the authors is the idea that the Arab Govts expect that one day these people should be allowed to go home (and so is housing them separately and treating them as distinct from their own population).

The authors of the article are irrelevant to the issue and the facts of the case.
Arab governments dont give a dam about the Palestinians despite their posturing and protests about what happens in Isreal. Its part of a populist game among Middle Eastern dictators to appear to be among the people and hide the fact that they are dictators. Its very easy for them to unite the population around the cause of the Palestinians and cover up for the massive injustices going on in their countries.
Palestinian refugees are held as hostages in squalid refugees camps by these Arab governments simply to prove Israeli injustice in 1948 - they stateless, forbidden to work, own property, receive education, etc. They are disowned and forgotten by the arab governments and their political supporters in the west.
There were 711,000 of them in 1948 - now there are 4.6 million - so most of them never set foot in what was conidered now to be Palestine back then.

[Nodin]

The authors of the article are irrelevant to the issue and the facts of the case.
Arab governments dont give a dam about the Palestinians despite their posturing and protests about what happens in Isreal. Its part of a populist game among Middle Eastern dictators to appear to be among the people and hide the fact that they are dictators. Its very easy for them to unite the population around the cause of the Palestinians and cover up for the massive injustices going on in their countries..

Quite true. However I don't think anyone even passingly familiar with the situation is unaware of this.

Palestinian refugees are held as hostages in squalid refugees camps by these Arab governments simply to prove Israeli injustice in 1948 - they stateless, forbidden to work, own property, receive education, etc. They are disowned and forgotten by the arab governments and their political supporters in the west.
There were 711,000 of them in 1948 - now there are 4.6 million - so most of them never set foot in what was conidered now to be Palestine back then.

True, to an extent.

None of that excuses the colonisation of the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem etc, however.

[Eurocitizen]

I think that Alan Shatter should be asked if he cares about the Children who have been murdered in Palistine .

[Interista]

I dont' think anyone would or could deny that the Arab governments have often been disgraceful in their treatment of Palestinian refugees. But the root cause of the issue is the fact that they are just that- refugees, and the problem would not exist if it were not for Israel expelling them in the first place.

There's this brain dead notion which many pro-Israelis have - that those who support the Palestinians also support most Arab govts. Nonsense, of course. Like most people who support the Palestinian cause, I am deeply critical of just about every single Arab govt. Which is more than can be said for many Zionists these days, many of whom are showing a strange fondness for the 'moderate' dictatorships of the Gulf.

jmcc

And empathising with the cause du jour is so much easier than actually doing something about the problem.

i'm not sure what you're suggesting ordinary people can do - more than what they are already doing. Which is: boycotting Israel and pushing for more people (and govts) to do the same, protesting Israeli human rights violations and donating to charities such as MAP. Medical Aid for Palestinians - Home

What do you want them to do? Sign up for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade?

trhrandull

Tell me this is not the same Judith Miller that was completely discredited because of the propaganda she peddled about Iraq and WMD in the run up to that war at the New York Times?

Seems to be her alright. Now, I take the point that you should tackle a person's arguments, not them as individuals. However, this person's integrity is so utterly compromised that it is astonishing that she can still find work in journalism at all.

[FakeViking]

I think that Alan Shatter should be asked if he cares about the Children who have been murdered in Palistine .

Ah! At last, EuroChickan posts on an I/P related thread. And guess what? It's smearing an opponent of the incompetent incumbent. F* Off, EC.

[John Biffo]

This stuff has been rumbling on for eons and personally I am getting sick of it.

All you hear is claim and counter claim, attack and counter attack, terrorist action and retribution.

Martin would be better off applying his energy sorting out this country rather than getting involved in a no win situation.

I realise he is Foreign Min. but in my opinion, he has no place in that fooked up neck of the woods.

Plenty to do here.

[Thac0man]

As we watch Michael Martin highlight the problems of the Palestinians in the West Bank and as Arab states condemn Israel for their treatment of Palestinians, one wonders how much of this is real.
Does anyone care about the 4.5 million Palestinians living in Arab countries in squalid refugee camps?
These arab governments almost all of whom are dictators have left Palestinians stateless and destitute - purely as a means of applying pressure to Israel. They are held as hostages to prove the injustices of 1948 - which is over 60 years ago now.
As an example, in Lebanon, Palestinians were stripped of the right to own property, or to pass on the property that they already owned to their children – and banned from working as doctors, lawyers, pharmacists or in 20 other professions.

Its a fair point. Certainly Arab countries have been quick to take up the Palestinian cause when it suits them, but slower to support Palestinians when Palestinians need it in certain areas.

But after Black September in the Jordan, 1970, and numerous other incidents, Arab countries have been wary of allowing the cause of Palestinians to dictate their internal agenda. Its not that long ago, only 2007, that Lebabon laid seige to a Palestinian refugee camp to force out militants who were operating on Lebanese soil. That was a protracted bloody operation and Hezzbollah stood by and watched. Yet even Hezzbollah use the Palestinian cause to further their own agenda and excuse their existance.

But the state of Palestinian refugees in foreign countries is a complex issue. Their sorry state is in large part tied to the "right of return" campaign. If Palestinians get "too comfortable" they are not going to return, so their discomfort serves a purpose and an agenda. Recently I saw an interview with a Palestinian, not sure what country he was living in, who had never been to the Westbank or inside Isreal. He was claiming the right of return based on the fact his grandfather was displaced from Isreal. It begs the question, at whose behest are Palestinians kept in a state of agitation based on lack of propsects outside of Isreal proper? Certainly no large scale campaign aimed at getting better conditions for Palestinian refugees or having them re-settle in the Westbank or Gaza has been mooted by either Hamas or Fatah. So amongst the Arab and Palestinian leaders there seems to be a common agenda. Certainly dulling the heightened sense of injustice that Palestinian refugees feel would not serve the longer term goals of the Palestinian struggle.

The sad state of Palestinians outside of the occupied territories does on the face of it need condemnation. But the maintaining of said sorry state serves both domestic and foreign policy agenda of Arab countries and keeps alive a strong and valuable bargaining chip in the Palestinian/Isreali dispute. Another facet of this, going back to Arab hosts of Palestinian refugees, is that unlike Europe which has allowed powerful Tamil, Kurdish and other communities to take root, who help breath life into their own conflicts and lobby poltically, Arab countries avoid allowing such groups to "take root".

[Shirley Temple Mount]

Ahh... so individual Arab Governments should take responsibility for the failures of the UN the EU the UK the US. Sure what can the international community do about the Palestinian refugees and their inalienable right to return under international law ? Nothing apparently.

Pack up camp lads, its all over. The man from Israel...he say no.

[cHeal]

I think my main interest in the conflict is that it was largely manufactured. By the zionists abroad and inside Israel prior to its creation. I have a fundamental issue with a country just being rebadged and given to a group of people by some sort of world government. It doesn't make any sense why this would ever be done. Compensating the crimes against one ethnicity by allowing them carry it out upon another, an innocent ethnicity? Idiotic.

But in reality I don't care about the Palestinians. Thousands of people are dying every day and I think the idea that I would sympathize with one group and not the other or indeed them all makes the whole sympathy game a bit of a sham. So I save my sympathy for the people I know really. Pretty much everyone else gets a pass.

[Thac0man]

Palestinian refugess and their plight is sadly nothing special. They live in squaler and misery, but in relative security.

Lets face it, bar Europe, Australia and the US there are very few destinations legitimate asylum seekers from anywhere want to go. Malaysia and Thailand host a great many asylum seekers from Burma and Vietnam, yet all are regularly harassed and intimidated, even though they are registered with the UN.

But back the issue of Palestinians. I saw a program last year about a Palestinian refugee in Cuba. His lot is not that differant from those in Lebanon in reality. He suffered poverty, discrimination and uncertainty (with the added ingrediant of racism). It was in his opinion still better than life in the occupied territories, but again, as a Palestinian refugee he was not much better off in Cuba than he would have been in Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon.

There is the political issue of the right of return involved in the situation of Palestinian refugees. But in a wider context, no nation outside of the West is particularly accomodating or welcoming of refugees. Apart from the ongoing political consideration of the 'right of return', the situation of Palestinian refugees is only of greater concern because we chose to make it so. In the context of how refugess are treated globally, their case is sadly not unique.