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Cries of outrage can be heard loud and clear against Israel and their alleged mistreatment of the Palestinian people. We hear about how the Palestinians are suffering, how they are in need of humanitarian aid, and how they seek refuge. We can likely all agree that the actual innocent Palestinians in Gaza are suffering, but what must be questioned is the mainstream media and international community’s obsession with Israel; and their tendency to turn a blind eye at the true oppressors of the Palestinian people. If the world is really concerned about innocent Palestinians, then why are there public outcries and protests only when Israel is involved, but stark silence when Palestinians are oppressed in Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt?
Let’s take a look at the history.
Jordan 🇯🇴
Jordan houses nearly 2 million Palestinian refugees, the largest of any country. Around three quarters of these refugees hold full Jordanian citizenship. According to a national Jordanian census carried out in 2016, there were 634,182 Palestinian refugees who did not hold citizenship. These Palestinians live in the most impoverished communities in Jordan, and have none of the rights that are afforded to Jordanian citizens.
Digging deeper into the Jordanian history with the Palestinians, following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Jordan’s Arab league took control of the West Bank. In 1950 Jordan officially annexed the territory, more than doubling the Jordanian population. At this time, King Hussein bin Talal issued a law extending Jordanian citizenship to “any person who, not being Jewish, possessed Palestinian nationality before 15 May 1948 and was a regular resident in [Jordan] between 20 December 1949 and 16 February 1954,” effectively giving Jordanian citizenship to all Palestinians from the West bank. This continued until Israel re-captured the West Bank and Gaza in their 1967 pre-emptive strike where they defeated the Arab armies. After this, Yassar Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) moved its base to Jordan, and the PLO clashed with King Hussein. Namely, Arafat questioned Hussein’s claims to the West bank and his control of Jordan. Hussein launched the military campaign “Black September” against the PLO, forcing Arafat’s organization to leave Jordan and relocate to Lebanon. In 1988 Jordan officially relinquished their claim to the West Bank to the PLO, during which they revoked the Jordanian citizenship of some 760,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank. Further, in the 2000s Jordan revoked the citizenship of thousands more Palestinians from the West Bank who were residing in Jordan, and any Palestinian refugees who came to Jordan from Gaza were never given Jordanian citizenship. These refugees, and their future offspring have none of the rights that are afforded to Jordanian citizens, including access to public health care, public schools and universities. They cannot work in the public sector, they are ineligible to work as lawyers and engineers, they must have special permits to be employed in the private sector and there are severe restrictions on their ability to own land.
Where is the outrage against the suffering of these Palestinians in Jordan?
Egypt 🇪🇬
Similar to Jordan and the West Bank, after the 1948 war Egypt held control of Gaza. Unlike in Jordan, Egypt did not provide Egyptian citizenship to Palestinians in Gaza. They remained in control of the area until the 1967 war, when Israel gained control of the territory. In the years to come, after several failed diplomatic peace treaties, most of which Israel accepted and the Palestinians rejected, Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in 2005. The IDF forcefully removed every Jewish resident from the area and Israel relinquished control to the Palestinian Authority. In 2007 Hamas took control of the region.
In 1948, 1956 and 1967 many Palestinians fled to Egypt. Egypt did not allow UNRWA to operate in their territories. According to an article published in the Forced Migration Review in 2004 around 50,000 Palestinians were living in Egypt. At the beginning, when Gamal Abdel Nasser was in power, Palestinians were able to study, work and receive other state services, and were by and large treated equal to Egyptian nationals. But by the late 1970s, tensions between Egypt and the PLO created a rift. Egypt amended their laws to treat Palestinians as foreigners, and they lost their access to free university education, and many were unable to afford tuition. Additionally, many Palestinians in Egypt could no longer afford health related emergencies, they were restricted from owning land, were required to pay heavy fees to renew their residency status, and would lose their residency status if they spent more than 6 months outside of Egypt. The UN Refugee Agency is supposedly responsible for protecting Palestinians living outside of UNRWA areas, but push back from the Arab states has not allowed this to take place, leaving Palestinians in Egypt to live in poor conditions with minimal rights.
Where are the UN resolutions supporting the Palestinians in Egypt?
The political considerations within the Arab world are complex and full of tension.
As we can see, the Palestinians throughout the region are often caught in the middle and treated as second-class citizens.
This begs the question, are the Pro-Palestinian activists actually doing anything to support Palestinians? Or are they just fixated on their hatred for Israel, the only Jewish-state surrounded by 49 Muslim countries?
On This Topic 👁️
On Jordan 🇯🇴
https://nakba.amnesty.org/en/chapters/jordan/ | https://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/jordan
On Kuwait 🇰🇼 | https://www.badil.org/publications/al-majdal/issues/items/1355.html
Why The Middle East Won’t Accept ⛔ Palestinian Refugees | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7GAg8sWDpI
A Message to Those Claiming to Protect 🪬 Palestinians Lives | https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzTlZ6OIn6w/