Refugees immediately arouse sympathy in the media. From a purely human perspective, I can of course understand this, because these are people who have temporarily or permanently left their homeland due to political coercion, war or life-threatening situations. The world has welcomed seven million Syrian refugees. Why doesn’t anyone want the 1.5 million Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip? There are over 100 million refugees worldwide, but everyone almost only talks about the Palestinian refugees. Why is this? The Palestinians don’t have a monopoly on suffering, the Jews have also suffered. But Israel looks forward and continues to live. The Palestinians are constantly looking back and playing the victim – with generous help from the West.
Although the leaders of the Arab countries show understanding for the “suffering of the Palestinians” in the Gaza Strip, they are not ready to accept refugees from the coastal enclave into their countries. The Egyptian president, the Jordanian king and the Turkish president have repeatedly condemned the war, but have offered no concrete help for the Palestinian refugees. Neither does the Arab League. The term “Palestinian refugees” is nothing more than a stigma, an effective propaganda tool against Israel. Palestinian refugees automatically means “Israel stole their land and drove them out.”
According to the UNHCR’s latest Global Trends Report, 108.4 million people were displaced worldwide at the end of 2022. In total, 19 million more people were on the run at the end of 2022 than at the end of 2021 – that corresponds to an increase of 21 percent. And the final year of 2023 will push the number of refugees worldwide even higher. I actually only ever hear about Palestinian refugees. Who are the other refugees? True, in the last two years we have also heard more about Ukrainian refugees, of which Israel has also taken in 40,000.
If there really are seven million Palestinian refugees according to UNRWA, who are the other 100 million refugees in the world? The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) estimates the number of refugees, including their descendants, at seven million. Six million Palestinians are said to live in the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Around 1.5 million Palestinians who fled from the northern Gaza Strip are trapped in the southern Gaza Strip. Israeli troops urged Palestinian civilians to seek safety in the south. This makes these Palestinian refugees refugees for the second time. Everyone talks about the suffering of the Palestinian refugees, but no one really wants to take them in. The Palestinian problem in the Gaza Strip is a security trap for Israel.
The party artificially keeping the Palestinian problem alive is UNRWA. Compare yourself how a Palestinian refugee lives and how real refugees live in Africa or other crisis areas. UNRWA’s total budget for 2021 and 2022 is $1.5 and $1.6 billion, respectively. No other group other than the Palestinians has a private UN aid agency. A privilege that only Palestinian refugees enjoy. For decades, billions of dollars have been pumped into the money machine of Palestinian refugees, especially in the Gaza Strip, and nothing has improved. Only underground have the Hamas terrorists created a new world, an unimaginable labyrinth of terror that Israel is now discovering in the war in Gaza. Thanks to foreign donations to UNRWA, the barbaric Hamas regime was able to further expand its terror machine against Israel. The UN refugee agency is essentially a Palestinian organization hostile to Israel. UNRWA employs almost 31,000 Palestinians.
Civil war has been raging in Syria since 2011. As a result, according to the UNHCR, around 5.6 million people have left the country (as of June 2022). Today, an estimated seven million refugees from Syria live around the world, including 3.6 million in Turkey, 1.4 million in Lebanon, 900,000 in Germany, 650,000 in Jordan, 250,000 in Egypt, 200,000 in Sweden and 20,000 in Canada. Around half a million Syrians have died in the Syrian civil war. And no one wants to take in the 1.5 million Palestinians from Gaza?
In the Arab region of the Middle East, no one wants to take in the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. In addition, Arab governments criticize Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip much less than Western governments and human rights organizations. The Arab governments have their reasons why they no longer want to accept Palestinians. Chaos broke out wherever the PLO and the Palestinians were: in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Tunisia and finally in Israel. The West lacks the knowledge behind the Palestinian refugee problem, people don’t even know the name of the river in the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The Palestinian refugee problem is simply a classic and convenient excuse for anyone who hates Israel.
Seventy-five years ago, Jews and Arabs began a new life in this land. A new beginning for both peoples. The Jews returned to the promised land after the Holocaust, some of the Arabs fled the country and had to get used to a new ruler. From their perspective, the land was taken away from them, but that has happened to many peoples in history, including Israel 2,000 years ago. Almost 1,500 years earlier, Joshua had conquered the land of Canaan, and other peoples at that time, seven in number, also had to get used to a new ruler in the land. But isn’t that the real problem in our reality with Palestinians today? I can’t expect Palestinians to become Zionists, even though I know some. The Palestinian refugee problem is the result of a biblical promise, and in my opinion it cannot be solved.
Israel invested in a new life and a better future, the Palestinians invested in suffering and the past, they only complain about what was taken from them. Much more has been taken from Jews throughout history, and yet they continue to move forward. Furthermore, I am sure that according to UNRWA, the official Palestinian refugees are doing much better than millions of Arab citizens in the Middle East. I know this because I hear it again and again from many Palestinians.
Palestinians are like the biblical wife of Lot – we call her Mrs. Lotte. Instead of looking forward, Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. The Palestinians only look back and always cause trouble, which is why no Arab country wants to accept the Palestinians. The West has pampered the Palestinians into VIP refugees and this is now taking revenge against Israel. The West should care more about the other hundred million refugees on this earth, then the Palestinians and Israel would be much more helped.
