Bs'd
En waarom horen we er niks over?
Dat is heel simpel: Het is niet mogelijk om de joden er de schuld van
te geven:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/845625.html
The Palestinian refugees from Iraq
By Danny Rubinstein
This is a prolonged and complicated case of suffering that reveals the
ugly aspects of the Arab regimes. On the eve of the fall of Saddam
Hussein, there were some 30,000 Palestinians in Iraq, almost all of
them descendants of refugee families who had arrived there in 1948
from Arab villages on the slopes of the Carmel range: Ajazim (Kerem
Maharal), Jaba, Umm Zinat and Ein Hud. Officers from the Iraqi army,
which held the Samaria zone, demanded at that time that the villagers
be recruited. The families of those who were conscripted were allowed
to go to Iraq.
The Palestinians in Iraq did not get citizenship and also did not
enjoy assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, but
the Iraqi regime allowed them to live in almost total equality.
They did not have the right to hold a passport but were granted a
laissez-passer. They were considered loyal to the Baath regime and to
Saddam Hussein.
When the incidents and fighting in Iraq grew worse, the refugees
became victims of the new reality. They are a weak population without
ethnic or tribal backing and they came under attack - particularly
from the Shiites but also from others who had suffered under Hussein
and wanted to take revenge on his Palestinian loyalists.
They were expelled from their homes and places of work. In the past
few years, there have been reports in the Palestinian media almost
every week of robberies, arrests, abductions, tortures and murders of
the Palestinians in Iraq.
Thousands of them fled, hundreds reached the borders with Jordan and
Syria and were put up in tent encampments: the El Hul camp in Syria
and the Ruweished camp in Jordan.
Only a few of them were allowed to enter these countries and most of
them remained in the camps which have in effect turned into internment
camps. The camps received some help from the Red Cross but they did
not have organized health or educational services.
Jordan announced that it did not have the strength to deal with the
problem. Tens of thousands of Iraqis had come to Jordan in the past
few years and that country, like Syria, has been suffering from
economic woes and growing inflation.
The refugees appealed to the Arab countries for assistance but did not
get it. Only the Palestinian Authority announced it was prepared to
absorb them; but there is border control on the part of Israel, making
their absorption impossible.
A short while ago, Canada agreed to accept several dozen sick and
elderly people from among these refugees. There are at least several
hundred people in the camps and according to Zakut's proposal, Israel
could allow them to enter the West Bank and be reunited with their
families in Samaria.
This step does not have demographic implications since more than
50,000 Palestinians have left the areas in the West Bank under
discussion since the outbreak of the intifada.
This is also not a step toward implementation of the right of return;
there is not even a hint of this. This is merely a humanitarian step
of political importance.