Why Egypt and other Arab countries are unwilling to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza
The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to ... migrate to Egypt.” He warned this could wreck peace in the region.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II gave a similar message a day earlier, saying, “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.”
Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood. El-Sissi also said a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the two countries’ 40-year-old peace treaty.
Tldr: Nobody wants them, because they fear they will bring hamas with them and because they are a political tool against Israel.
Its seriously f*d up.
A friend from Lebanon basically explained to me the exact same thing, it's not that they don't want Palestinians, it's that they know Hamas will 100% enter Lebanon as refugees, and add to that the centuries old conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims (Hezbollah is Shia while Hamas is Sunni) and you have your answer.
Thought Hamas was shia too since they work with Iran so much
Yeah that's a bit counterintuitive but perfectly makes sense when you remember that Hamas originated from the Muslim Brotherhood, which is Sunni.
Well why are they working with Iran then? I though Muslim Brotherhood types tended to align with the Erdogan wing of Turkey's politics given that they're trying to replicate that muslim reaganism kind of vibe.
A case of "the enemy of my enemy is also my friend". That they're too different ideologically doesn't mean they can't work together when they're not on the same soil.
True, but also maybe they remember the Black September?
NIMBY but country-level. "THEY DESERVE A COUNTRY! - but keep them out of ours. We don't want the crime or poverty. And don't tell the press or citizenry we said that."
:P
They deserve a country on their land. I hate Sisi with all my heart, but he's right. There's only one way Palestinians migrating out of Gaza is going to end and that's not Israel calling them back in after they're "done rebuilding".
Yes, but also they’re human beings and their lives are on the line. A diaspora is better than death, or at least that should be an individual decision.
There are already millions of refugees in camps around the world. Countries won't take them. Turkey and Iran each host over 3 million already, and they host the most refugees of all countries. Where will this diaspora go?
I mean other than that there's the fact that most countries can't readily accept two million refugees, and if Israel's current stunt gets them Gaza I don't wanna imagine what will happen to the West Bank.
Bullying Palestinians from their land in the West Bank has been going on for decades, and is getting a big push in the last week as the world is focused on Gaza and jewish extremists feel emboldened. Zionists are far more interested in the fertile West Bank (and Jerusalem) than the rubble in the Gaza Strip.
And it won't be pretty but two million refugees could be spread out, there are a lot of extremely wealthy countries that always say they support the Palestinian People. But apparently only as long as they remain in Palestine...
This is from the article, so nowhere near your tl:dr
Yes it's a terrible tldr if you get into nit and grit of it. :)
I can say that Palestinians are being used by islamist groups since the beginning of time and those groups care more for the destruction of Israel than anything else, including having a country named palestina.
That's fair. Kind of the same way as Afghanis and Iraqis have been used by Western nations to overthrow gov'ts that don't want to make oil deals with said Western nations.
It's a game that costs innocent lives, no matter who the players are.
Only that one is exploitation for practical reasons, one is religious. The first can be negotiated, the second cannot.
This conflict cannot be solved by the west, Israel, or anyone else, but the Palestinians and for many decades they were pushed by hamas and Israel together to not go into direction of peace.
pRaCtIcAl rEaSoNs
Maybe not the correct word for the situation, but I'm sure the meaning is there.
Aaand... They are right.
They're being very self-serving. They're essentially cooperating with Israel to hold Palestinians hostage while claiming they're looking out for the long-term interests of the hostages. They just don't want refugees or the terrorists who would come with them, and they're trying to dress it up as more than that.
Well, Hamas continuing the fight from the other side of the Egyptian border, which would be expected, would just draw Egypt into the fight
Accepting the refugees is tantamount to advertising your land the new battleground, cuz Israel totes wouldn't lob missiles at refugees amirite?
Israel's already genocided a dozen times more casualties than they took, they need to chill the fuck out.
"Their refusal is rooted in fear that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into their countries and nullify Palestinian demands for statehood"
This line in the article is important to remember.
I struggle to think of too many times any country has welcomed all refugees with open arms. Any refugees, from any conflict, fleeing to anywhere.
We should stop making refugees and forcibly displacing people, everyone loses. We already have 108 million forcibly displaced peoples, and 40% are kids globally.
It's gonna get much, much worse thanks to climate change.
For sure. Which is why we need to figure it out now before we use up what resources we have left on making and shipping yet more bombs and tanks. I can't even begin to imagine the carbon footprint of that.
It’s probably near carbon neutral as each dead person removes a lot of carbon load.
Let's not go down the path of quantifying the 'value' of people's lives, it has historically led to bad things.
Quantifying people's carbon footprint isn't quantifying the value of their lives.
And the value of people's lives is quantified all the time. Any time money is spent to save people's lives, the people who fund it are gonna want to know how much it costs and how many lives it's expected to save. If the cost per life saved is too much, the money doesn't get spent. Without doing that kind of calculation, you either spend no money saving lives, you do nothing but try to save lives, or you just throw a random amount of money at the problem and hope it does enough good to be worth it.
It's also not even necessary in the context of comparing the impact of continuing war to advocating peace. Military equipment doesn't have an inherent right to exist or uses once created, and the people we're talking about already exist and deserve a peaceful happy life as much as anyone else. The choice we do have though is around where we spend existing carbon and the damage we cause in pumping into mutual self-destruction.
I am keenly and painfully personally aware, and I don't enjoy participating in that either. I also consider many implementations to have led historically to bad things because it is near impossible to quantify without some truly horrible and ham-fisted reductionism.
Despite what the white folks have tried, America has typically been incredibly welcoming to refugees and diasporites.
It's actually one of the biggest chips on Israel's shoulder, because while America was never perfect for jews, it was better enough than everywhere else that jews who made it here outright rejected the notion that jews cannot be "safe" without a "homeland."
I mean, sure, but that's a lot easier said than done
So are most complex problems or worthwhile efforts. I'd love a simple working solution just for once too, but no, situations got to be all contextual and nuanced and shit.
For Jordan there's the added paranoia that Palestinian refugees were the source point of one of their kings getting assassinated after he began making moves to recognize Israel
Did everyone forget the 8 million refugees the Iraq and Afghanistan war created?
Because they're hateful shitheads.
They feel that is too many to take in. No other reason.