Garbanzo Toons

Syria and the Palestinians

Since the world now revolves those eternal refugees, the Palestinians, we must know about their situation in Syria. While reading the article though, I came across some interesting facts. They aren't facts that are normally reported on since they can't be used to discredit Israel. For example,

While not citizens, Palestinians in Syria have greater rights than their brethren in other Arab countries. They can hold government jobs, attend state universities for free and serve in the military. Assad's regime has long billed itself as a champion of the Palestinian cause.

So in other Arab countries, Palestinians can't hold government jobs? They can't attend state universities for free or serve in the military? Let's find out.

In Lebanon,

They are not allowed to own property, and even need a special permit to leave their refugee camps. Unlike other foreigners in Lebanon, they are denied access to the Lebanese healthcare system. The Lebanese government refused to grant them permission to own land. The number of restrictions has been mounting since 1990. However, in 2010 the government of Lebanon removed work restrictions from Palestinians, enabling them to apply for work permits and work in the private sector.

What a relief, at least in Lebanon, things are improving. Palestinians can apply for private sector work permits, but how often are they granted? And if one gets a work permit, does this mean they get the corresponding permit to leave the refugee camp? Am I allowed to ask these questions? Did these changes come about because of the actions of human rights groups and pro-Palestinian organizations. If so, they must have worked a lot more quietly than those groups who focus all of their wrath on Israel.

We don't hear anything about it, so things are probably better in Jordan, right?

Palestinian scholars and political activists including Samer Libdeh and Mudar Zahran have described the political system of Jordan as anti-Palestinian apartheid. According to Libdeh, the royal policy of "ethnic cohesion" amounts to discrimination against the Palestinians, who comprise the majority of Jordanian subjects.

What? I'm outraged! Apartheid outside of the Zionist Entity? There must be plans afoot somewhere to boycott companies who do business with the Jordanian apartheid regime that is oppressing the Palestinians . . . somewhere. Students for Justice in Palestine, where are you? Meanwhile in Israel, Arabs who didn't flee, are citizens of Israel with full rights, They're not "refugees". They don't live in "camps." They aren't denied access to jobs. Not that these minor details matter to people whose food and drink is hatred of Israel and of Jews.

"On the individual level, there's no love for the regime or its tools of oppression, and no one thinks that it will liberate Palestine for us," said a Palestinian refugee expert in Lebanon who visited Syria this month.

Liberate Palestine? Their friends and neighbors are being murdered in the streets in Syria. They've been denied basic human rights by their "supporters" for generations, and their solution is the same self-defeating tactic that created their stateless limbo. No matter what happens they refuse to look past the hatred, which seems to be the only thing they have that gives their lives meaning. Rather than find something positive, there is always "the struggle."

He dismissed the idea that Assad's regime has been a leader in the Palestinian struggle, pointing out that Syria's border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has been largely quiet since 1974. In fact, he said he hoped a regime change would help the Palestinians achieve their ultimate goal: the return to their ancestral villages in what is now Israel. "We have to work together with the free people to liberate Syria, then we'll go to the Golan and liberate Palestine," he said. "We'll work hand in hand."

With all this talk of liberation, what exactly do they mean? Outside of the destruction of Israel and the murdering of more Jews, what is this "liberation" they speak of? So far, liberation looks like trading a corrupt dictator for the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia law. It's still evolving in most of the Arab nations who are making that trade, but we only need to look to Iran to see how that liberation worked. The Iranians are not exactly dancing in the streets.

So the question remains, when Palestinians are living under real apartheid conditions in Arab/Muslim countries, why is Israel the one accused of Apartheid?

Vasily Grossman had the answer in his novel, Life and Fate. He devotes a chapter to anti-Semitism. In it, Grossman says,

Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of - I'll tell you what you're guilty of.

There is more, and if I ever feel ambitious enough, I will reprint the whole chapter. It's part two, chapter 31, and I think Grossman captures the essence of anti-Semitism and of the anti-Semite. Of course, that kind of thinking will never make into the media. It's not their kind of thinking. We're not supposed to use terms like "anti-Semitism" to describe anyone, any organization, any culture, or any country; especially if it's true. Look what happened at Yale when the Yale Anti-Semitism Institute dared tell the truth about Islamic anti-Semitism.

For now the media will dutifully report enough of the facts to make you think you know what's going on, and so that you read it in the correct frame of mind; that is, it's all Israel's fault.

Meanwhile the Middle East burns.

Labels: anti-semitism, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Life and Fate, Muslim anti-semitism, Muslims, Palestinians, Syria, Vasily Grossman, Yale Initiative for the Study of Antisemitism

posted by Harry @ 4:23 PM