Why are Palestinians shunned?  It is not just Israel, it is everywhere in the Middle East, their brothers and sisters.  Palestinians were originally defined as people that lived along the coastline of the Mediterranean on the land that is now Israel.  They were Arab, Jewish and Christian.  Most of the Christians fled to South America.  As the Jewish people were pushed from their lands in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, etc… they fled to ‘Israel’.  Albeit the population grew because they had nowhere else to go.  But the Palestinians have nowhere else to go now either.  No one wants them.  They are refugees everywhere.

So, why does the media concentrate only on Palestinians within Israel? There are approximately 1.3 million Palestinians in Israel, 3.3 million in Jordan, 500,000 in Chile, 430,000 in Syria, 400,000 in Lebanon, 330,000 in Saudi Arabia, 225,000 in North and South America, 44,000 in Egypt, 40,000 in Kuwait, 310,000 in ‘other Arab states, and 308,000 in ‘other countries’.

Exactly how do they fair when in their Arab brother countries?

In Jordan and Syria, most Palestinian refugees have been integrated into society; however, in Jordan, only Palestinian refugees displaced by the 1948 War have Jordanian citizenship and enjoy largely favorable treatment on par with Jordanian nationals. Refugees from the Gaza Strip who did not hold Jordanian passports at the time of their flight in 1967 have been denied citizenship and are mostly confined to the “Jerash” camp. In Syria, Palestinian refugees have not been granted citizenship but have been accorded equal treatment with Syrian nationals in almost all respects. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have fared considerably worse; sectarian tensions and the activities of the PLO have prevented their integration into Lebanese society. The majority of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in UNRWA refugee camps or other unofficial camps and shelters, often in conditions of abject poverty. They face restrictions on their right to work, access to education and healthcare, and ownership of property. Only those displaced in 1948 have residency rights in Lebanon whereas all other Palestinian refugees are deemed illegal immigrants.

Outside of the Operation Areas, Palestinian refugees face even more of a precarious existence.

In Egypt, Palestinian refugees are treated as foreigners and face significant restrictions on their ability to access education, government services, and employment. Renewal of residency permits is difficult and there are reports of frequent detention of Palestinian refugees by the authorities in Egypt. Iraq, once a refuge for Palestinian refugees, has now become a country of persecution; many Palestinians were targeted in, and fled from, Iraq following the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

In the Gulf States, particularly Kuwait, Palestinians are treated as foreign migrant workers with no permanent residency rights.

Approximately 59% of the population reside in refugee camps:

In Gaza there are approximately 1.2 million ‘registered’ refugees.

West Bank – 740,000

Syria – 500,000

Lebanon – 450,000

Jordan – 2 million

The discrepancy in populations verses registered refugees is huge. But foreign aid is based on refugee count, not population. Which opens another topic – how much money is funnelled to the Palestinians annually? By whom? And where is it spent? Have they built schools and hospitals and industry? Have they built roads and water systems and farmed crops? Do they make clothes and build homes and temples?  Or are they a welfare state wherein they do – nothing?

We constantly talk of their ‘plight’, their losses, their poverty, their poor conditions, but what has changed since they became refugees?  Those that lived in Palestine lost their homes in 1948, they were evicted by the UK.  Nearly 60 years of ‘aid’ has absolutely nothing to show for it.  Once again, welfare produces nothing.  It doesn’t ‘lift’ people out of poverty, instead it creates even greater poverty.   There is one notable exception to Palestinian refugees.  Those that fled to Chile worked the fields, made goods, sold products – and prospered.   It was hard, damn hard, but they had no choice and so they lifted themselves up.  These Palestinians were all Christian. They took no handouts, no UNRWA funding, no governmental aid. They didn’t live in refugee camps, they are well educated and have risen above their plight.

In 1950 when aid began pouring in to the Middle East, it supported about 750,000 ‘refugees’. Today the number is 5 million and growing without restriction. All children, grandchildren down the line of eternity – are grandfathered in. It is a shambles. The one example of UNRWA schools and medical facilities for the Palestinians is in a town outside of Damascus. But we obliterated Damascus, it lies in rubble. So much for that. Syrian refugees from Palestine became refugees once again after the country was bombed and Al Nusra and ISIS took over. Most fled to Jordan where they idle in camps in dire need of attention.

No one in the camps work. They are not required to and have little to no supportive education to enable them to work. It is the supreme example of pouring money down the drain of entitlement without creating a self sufficiency of production. Sixty years worth of nothing.

But why do the Arabs hate them so much? One theory is that the Palestinians have a knack for ingratiating themselves in their host country. Perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of a need to feel a cause, or a purpose, whatever it is, Palestinians typically find themselves on the losing side of a civil uprising whether in Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait or wherever.

Lesson: no one likes an ingratiating bully…