Unlike Palestinians?

The initial international neglect, particularly in the United States, of the growing refugee crisis, especially of Syria, whose people have been illegally and dangerously crossing into Europe by the thousands, underlines a saddening humanitarian situation, as shocking as it is disheartening.

The crisis only jolted leading countries and some world leaders when the body of a 3-year-old Syrian child washed ashore in Turkey made it in the  media.

The belated European response, especially warm from Germany, was unlike the cool response from the Obama administration.

Germany said it was ready to take 800,000 migrants by year’s end while Britain and France declared they would absorb tens of thousands who were running away from home, mostly from the Arab world.

This calamity brings to mind the case of the some 750,000 Palestinians who escaped into the neighbouring Arab states from the Holy Land in 1948, fleeing Jewish terror groups, unaware that they will never be allowed to return to their country of origin.

Under the infamous Partition Plan, sanctioned by the United Nations, Israel was allotted 55 per cent of Palestine; the remainder was given to the Palestinians who were dismayed by this ruling that led to continued clashes between the two parties.

As much as Arab countries tried to help the Palestinians in the ensuing warfare, the Jews took possession of 78 per cent of Palestine and, more recently, remain in virtual control of the entire country, despite the presence of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

The failure of the leaders of the Western world to compel Israel to withdraw from the occupied regions and allow the Palestinians to return to their properties that are in the now Israeli state has been most appalling.

Israel would not want any Palestinian Arab to return even if he/she has property there.

Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week vehemently rejected a suggestion by Isaac Herzog, the leader of the centre-left Israeli Labour Party, to accept that some Palestinian refugees in Damascus be allowed to return to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Jews cannot remain indifferent when hundreds of thousands of [Palestinian] refugees are seeking safe harbour, and cannot be indifferent in the face of rampant murders and massacres taking places in Syria,” Herzog said last Saturday, pointing out further that “our people experienced firsthand the silence of the world”.

Several key Israeli opposition leaders echoed Herzog’s call.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, last Saturday instructed his ambassador to the United Nations to act to bring Palestinian refugees now fleeing the war in Syria to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

He urged the European Union and others to do the same, despite the fact that Israel controls the borders and all entry points into the West Bank.

Israel has fences at its borders with Lebanon and Syria, as well as with the besieged Gaza Strip, but is now planning to build a fence along its border with Jordan, one of two Arab countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Most Syrian (and some Iraqi) refugees that are escaping to Europe represent the country’s middle class, a sector that will be urgently needed once calm returns to the country. 

In other words, it is hoped that they can and will return in the near future, unlike the Palestinians.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.