Oh, the hypocrisy!
Elder of Ziyon makes some palpable hits against the Arab states’ — and the world’s — selective indignation. Lebanese trying to leave their war zone are being admitted by the hundreds of thousands into Syria. Meanwhile, the people in Gaza who want to flee their own war zone — the entire Strip — for the safety of the Sinai have been prevented, by the Egyptian border guards, from entering Egypt. More on this double standard can be found here: “Lebanon shows us how the world betrayed Gaza by insisting no Palestinians could flee to safety,” Elder of Ziyon, October 6, 2024:
As of a week ago, an estimated 374,000 people had fled Lebanon to Syria. That doesn’t include the thousands that fled by plane over the last few weeks.
It is natural for people to want to flee a war zone. The Lebanese know how thoroughly their country had been hijacked by Hezbollah, how embedded Hezbollah is in many of their neighborhoods, how much Hezbollah has been using them as human shields in its quest to entrench and strengthen itself for the sole purpose of an eventual war to destroy Israel. The UNHCR is doing what it can to help the refugees in Syria.
Yet over the past year the exact same scenario occurred in Gaza. A similar terrorist group had taken over an entire area filled with civilians, hijacked it for the sole purpose of using it as a launching pad to destroy the Jewish state, and cynically used those civilians to be human shields.
Except in Gaza, there was no refugee agency helping those fleeing. Because except for a fortunate few who could pay exorbitant bribes to Egyptian middlemen, Gazans couldn’t escape their war zone created by Hamas.
A very few Gazans — the richest of them all — have had sufficient sums to bribe Egyptian officials to let them cross the border into Egypt. But compared to the numbers clamoring to get out, their numbers have been so very few.
Arab states, instead of welcoming them, insisted that they did not want any Gazans to take refuge there. The world shrugged – they have the right to refuse who enters their borders, right? And besides, this was for the Palestinians’ own good, because if they fled, who says they would ever be allowed to return?…
The world community was not only silent, but it tacitly supported Egypt’s and Jordan’s decision to reject refugees from Gaza even as they have allowed millions to enter from other conflict zones.
Egypt’s and Jordan’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Because when they were welcoming refugees from Syria, they did not want Syrian refugees of Palestinian origin – Jordan turned some away and put others in separate camps and Egypt jailed them.
Again, the world was silent….
Why does Egypt prevent Palestinians from entering the country from the war zone of Gaza? And why in the past did Jordan prevent Palestinians living in Syria from fleeing war-torn Syria during its civil war and entering Jordan? In the case of Egypt, it does not want Gazans to leave Gaza for fear that once in Egypt, they will attempt to remain in the country rather than return home after the war there has ended, thus depopulating the Strip. which would lessen the pressure on Israel to ameliorate conditions in Gaza. And in the case of Jordan, the government did not, and does not, want still more Palestinians arriving from outside, given that the 60% of the country’s population that is already Palestinian is rightly seen as a threat to the stability of the Hashemite monarch’s rule. The Jordanians remember the Palestinians of Black September who challenged King Hussein’s rule in a violent uprising that lasted from 1970 to 1971.
But no one mentions any of this. No one cares. Let the Lebanese into Syria. But keep the Gazans like flies in a fly-bottle, unable to escape the war zone that Hamas has inflicted upon them.
somehistory says
So many riot on behalf of the ‘palestinains,’ but no one wants them for neighbors, employees, citizens, or ‘refugees.’
Israel is expected to give over everything the ‘palestinians’ want; land, money, electricity, jobs, and is criticized for every ounce of self-preservation taken in that regard, but no other country wants anything to do with them. They are a ‘tool’ and a ‘weapon’ against Israel and the Jews.
If some other country said come on in, we’ll give you some land, etc. the palestinains wouldn’t go; and if somehow, someway, they did, it would end the pressure use of the weapon against Israel.
St Croix says
You nailed it!
somehistory says
Thank you.
Robert Mann says
> Egypt, it does not want Gazans to leave Gaza for fear that once in Egypt, they will attempt to remain in the country rather than return home after the war there has ended, thus depopulating the Strip. which would lessen the pressure on Israel to ameliorate conditions in Gaza.
I have always thought so, but this is the first time I’ve seen it written.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
One more thing – why aren’t there UNRWA reps in Syria, helping Lebanese who filed there resettle? Why is that now the UNHRC’s coverage, and not UNRWA’s?