As I noted a few weeks ago and Elder of Ziyon did yesterday, Palestinian refugees have no legal status in Lebanon – or in any Arab country.
So when Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinians, went to Lebanon the other day, did he demand equal rights for his constituents. Well, no he didn’t.
“The status of Palestinian refugees will remain unchanged until a comprehensive, final solution is reached” with Israel, Abbas said after meeting Lebanese President Michel Sleiman in Beirut.
“We believe there is no alternative to peace but peace itself, and we will continue our political fight for peace,” he said in a news conference.
A statement released by Sleiman’s office said the two leaders rejected the naturalisation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, an issue that for years has prompted controversy in Lebanese political circles.
Abbas did not say “let my people go” or even “let my people citizens.” He said “keep my people dispossessed.” This isn’t the most stirring revolutionary message.
Or as Elder of Ziyon, put it, “Screw you.”
Generations have grown up in Lebanon, raised families, and died, but their supposed “leader” is more interested in them keeping their stateless status rather than giving them the simple choice of allowing them to be more integrated into the land of their birth.
Mahmoud Abbas, that supposedly moderate leader of the PA, the PLO and Fatah, who claims to represent millions of people of Palestinian Arab descent, has once again told his people to go screw themselves rather than give them the option of happiness as full citizens of other Arab lands. He arrogantly claims to know what is best for his people, and is dead-set against giving them the option of making their own decisions.
I’ve not read of any protests of Abbas’s callous disregard of his people. However, two years ago when he went to Annapolis to discuss peace with Israel, there were protests. Abbas, to many, was a traitor for daring to discuss peace with Israel.
In Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas Islamists who oppose the meeting, tens of thousands joined an anti-Annapolis rally chanting “Abbas is a traitor” and “Death to Israel, death to America.”
Speaking at the largest protest in Hamas-run Gaza, leaders of the Islamist group which seized the enclave from Abbas’s forces in June said the president had no right to make concessions to Israel at the U.S.-hosted conference.
“Let them go to a thousand conferences, we say in the name of the Palestinian people that we did not authorise anyone to sign any agreement that harms our rights,” Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader, told a cheering crowd.
So when Abbas attempts to make peace he is a traitor. When he keeps his people dispossessed he is, apparently, a hero. Such is the backwards nature of the Middle East, where perpetuating the status of refugees is the Arab goal.
Unfortunately the UNRWA, which is now celebrating “six decades of service and achievement” does its share to perpetuate the status of the refugees as Elder of Ziyon notes:
So UNRWA exaggerates the number of “refugees” in Lebanon by an astounding 60% – and begs money from world governments based on hugely inflated numbers.
The “service” the UNRWA provides is perpetuating its own mission. Working together with Palestinian leadership, the international community has helped perpetuate the Palestinian grievances for sixty years now.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad
Even if Abbas wanted to advocate citizenship in Lebanon or any other Arab country for the Palestinian Arabs, their “Arab Brothers” would never stand for it. Their “Arab Brothers” treat the Palis like they would dogs. The only exception was Jordan, where King Abdullah I was assassinated for his pains and the Palis tried to overthrow and kill King Hussain. That’s the Palis’ thanks to those who do them good. Let them rot, but cut off all the money from the US and other countries in the West flowing to them. They can work for a living or they can starve, but no more dole money from the civilized world.
I assume this isn’t a surprise, Dad. It’s been the fate of the Palestinians–self-imposed, largely–since 1937 and especially since 1949. Their brother Arabs find them useful only as political sticks to beat Israel and the west. Actually helping them settle and make new lives, which is what Zionism was all about, is specifically what the Palestinians are not about.
No one seems to remember the several hundred thousand Palestinians ejected from Kuwait in the wake of the first Gulf War. In Lebanon, not only are Palestinians disallowed from becoming citizens, they are barred from owing land and from many trades and professions–so much for Israel as the Nazi state in the Middle East.
The other Arabs, of course, let this pass. No one calls them on it. When the madman cried in the marketplace, Dag Hammarskjold wrote, no one stopped to refute him and his theories were thus proved incontrovertible.
Saudi Arabia (or the Wahhabist Entity as I like to call it) reformed its naturalization law a couple of years ago. A Muslim (only Muslims) can become a subject of His Wahhabist Majesty after a long time period resident in the Magic Kingdom, 20 years I think. No infidel may become a subject. The one exception to Muslim acceptability is the Palestinian Arabs. A Palestinian Arab, even if Muslim, may never become a subject of HWM. Here is the Arab attitude to them: “Your job is cannon fodder, dog. Get out of here and go kill Jews.”