Sometime I feel that Arabs want to erase Israel from the map of the Middle East because it is democracy that threatens, by its example, the autocratic power structure of the Arab-Islamic world.
I also feel that Arab governments always used Palestine issue for political maneuvering. I mean if Arab governments are really so sympathetic of Palestines, why the hell , all of them refused to harbor palestines refugees after 1948? And I am saying this based on historical evidence. All of you are welcome to check the facts.
After the 1948 war, Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and its more than 200,000 inhabitants, but refused to allow the Palestinians into Egypt or permit them to move elsewhere.
Although demographic figures indicated ample room for settlement existed in Syria, Damascus refused to consider accepting any refugees, except those who might refuse repatriation. Syria also declined to resettle 85,000 refugees in 1952-54, though it had been offered international funds to pay for the project.
Iraq was also expected to accept a large number of refugees, but proved unwilling.
Lebanon insisted it had no room for the Palestinians. In 1950, the UN tried to resettle 150,000 refugees from Gaza in Libya, but was rebuffed by Egypt.
Jordan was the only Arab country to welcome the Palestinians and grant them citizenship (to this day Jordan is the only Arab country where Palestinians as a group can become citizens).
And unfortunately, history has now provided us enough evidence to prove the validity of this thread’s title. For example, Arab governments have frequently offered jobs, housing, land and other benefits to Arabs and non-Arabs, excluding Palestinians. For example, Saudi Arabia chose not to use unemployed Palestinian refugees to alleviate its labor shortage in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Instead, thousands of South Koreans and other Asians were recruited to fill jobs.
And the biggest example is the first Gulf War. Kuwait, which employed large numbers of Palestinians but denied them citizenship, expelled more than 300,000 of them. “If people pose a security threat, as a sovereign country we have the right to exclude anyone we don’t want,” said Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States, Saud Nasir Al-Sabah.
In essence, the treatment of the palistnes refugees by Arab governments is best summed up by a former director of UNRWA, Ralph Garroway, in August 1958:
“The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”