Why Arabs won’t assist Palestinians
I found this interesting article by Arthur Mokin where he discusses the reasons why Arab countries do not assist Palestinians in any proper form. Though I do disagree with the author in many aspects, but here is the article:
The Oct. 4 Register-Guard carried a Los Angeles Times report on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic tour of the Middle East designed to build support for U.S. goals in the region. Among several factors threatening to undermine the secretary’s mission was the fact that “European and Arab countries, among others, are clamoring for progress in the Arab-Israeli dispute.”
We are reminded again and again by Arab diplomats that the road to peace in the Middle East lies through Jerusalem. If only, their argument goes, the United States would employ a more “even-handed” (i.e., pro-Palestinian) approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, peace could be achieved, U.S. stock in the Arab and Muslim world would appreciate dramatically, and good things would follow not only for America, but for East and West alike.
This argument is obviously predicated on the premise that the Arab world is seriously concerned about the plight of their Palestinian brothers.
That the Palestinians are in a bad way is incontestable. A Sept. 12 New York Times report datelined Gaza Strip declares, “It is difficult to exaggerate the economic collapse of Gaza, with the Palestinian Authority cut off from funds by Israel, the United States, and the European Union after Hamas won the legislative elections on Jan. 25. Since then the authority has paid most of its 73,000 employees here, nearly 40 percent of Gaza’s work force, only 1.5 months’ salary, resulting in severe economic depression and growing signs of malnutrition, especially among the poorest children.”
Israel, the United States and the European Union continue to withhold funds as long as Hamas refuses to recognize the state of Israel.
Why, then, any reasonable person could be expected to ask, don’t the Arab nations pick up the slack and help the Palestinians? Why indeed?
According to Al Jazeera, the Palestinian Authority needs $140 million monthly in order to function; it has thus far received $50 million, with about $40 million more pledged by the Arab League.
The truth is that the Palestinians have never fared well at the hands of the Arab nations.
According to Islam Online: “Arab regimes have always demanded that the international community come to the aid of Palestinians and force Israel to accept the return of refugees. Arab states did not consider it their moral or financial responsibility to take the weight of the Palestinian refugee crisis.”
Arab governments have frequently offered jobs, housing, land and other benefits to Arabs and non-Arabs, excluding Palestinians. Saudi Arabia chose not to use unemployed Palestinian refugees to alleviate its labor shortage in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Instead, thousands of South Koreans were recruited to fill jobs.
Kuwait, which employed large numbers of Palestinians but denied them citizenship, expelled more than 300,000 of them, claiming they posed a security threat.
In Lebanon Palestinians are prohibited by law from more than 70 trades and professions, and are compelled to rely on United Nations Relief and Works Agency for education, public health, relief, and other social services.
Jordan is the only Arab country where Palestinians as a group can become citizens.
Given the Arab states’ harsh treatment of the Palestinians, how can they, in good conscience, urge the Western nations, the United States in particular, to adopt a more pro-Palestinian policy in mediating the Israeli-Palestine dispute?
The answer is not hard to come by. The truth is that the Arab nations couldn’t care less about their Palestinian brothers. Their sole objective, and the goal that goads them, is the eternal, demented and monomaniacal drive to erase Israel from the face of the Earth.
Shortly before his stroke, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted in The New Yorker magazine: “The conflict isn’t between us and the Palestinians. The conflict is between us and the Arab world. And the problem at the heart of the conflict is that the Arab world does not recognize the Jews’ inherent right to have a Jewish state in the land where the Jewish people began. … The problem is the profound nonrecognition by the Arab world of Israel’s birthright.”
Arthur Mokin of Leaburg worked for 26 years as a documentary filmmaker in New York City. He taught film production at Hofstra University in New York and is the author of “Ironclad: The Monitor and the Merrimac.”
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