Palestinian Arabs: Waste Alot, Want Alot

Beyond the failure of the Arab world to help Palestinian Arab refugees, even the Palestinians themselves consistently ignore opportunities to improve their own situation.

MYTH #287

"Israel forced the Palestinian refugees to stay in camps in the Gaza Strip."

FACT

During the years that Israel controlled the Gaza Strip, a consistent effort was made to get the Palestinians into permanent housing. The Palestinians opposed the idea because the frustrated and bitter inhabitants of the camps provided the various terrorist factions with their manpower. Moreover, the Arab states routinely pushed for the adoption of UN resolutions demanding that Israel desist from the removal of Palestinian refugees from camps in Gaza and the West Bank.⁷⁴ They preferred to keep the Palestinians as symbols of Israeli “oppression.”

Now the camps are in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but little is being done to improve the lot of the Palestinians living in them. Journalist Netty Gross visited Gaza and asked an official why the camps there hadn’t been dismantled. She was told the Palestinian Authority had made a “political decision” not to do anything for the more than now nearly 650,000 Palestinians living in the camps until the final-status talks with Israel took place.⁷⁵

When Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip in 2005, the Israelis were prepared to leave the houses of settlers for use by Palestinian refugees, but the Palestinians said these mostly single family homes were not practical for their needs and asked that they be demolished so the PA could build high-rise apartment buildings to house refugees and other Palestinians. More than two years later, not a single brick has been laid for housing for the refugees.

The Palestinians received more than $6 billion in international aid following the Oslo agreements. One might have expected that at least one home could have built for refugees with that sum, but none were. In December 2007, international donors pledged $7.4 billion in new aid to the Palestinians.^75a That should be more than enough to build homes for every refugee. Based on the last 60 years of neglect by their fellow Arabs, however, the refugees are far more likely to see their officials’ enriched than their lives improved.

Notes

⁷⁴ Arlene Kushner, “The UN’s Palestinian Refugee Problem,” Azure, (Autumn 2005).
⁷⁵ Jerusalem Report, (July 6, 1998).
^75a Roni Sofer, “Donors pledge $7.4 billion for faltering Palestinian economy,” Ynetnews.com, (December 17, 2007).

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See also Mitchell Bard's blog
Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard.

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