Harvard Arab Weekend brought with it much debate about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. After all, if there is one political position all Arab countries rally around, it is surely Israel’s mistreatment and subjugation of Palestinians. The Arab League has always been quick to denounce Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and condemn Israeli airstrikes against the Gaza Strip. These criticisms, however, are duplicitous. They serve to draw attention away from Arab countries’ egregious human rights violations against the very Palestinians whose interests they so forcefully support on the world stage.
Understanding the Palestinian plight requires a thorough historical analysis, which is replaced by this short paragraph in the name of brevity. The British Mandate included all of present-day Israel and Jordan. Winston Churchill, then the Colonial Secretary, decided that the westernmost part of the Mandate would be the Jewish state, and the eastern three quarters of the territory would be placed under the control of King Abdullah, a Hashemite. British expediency dictated the matter. Transjordan was to be a compromise of sorts: it would, “while preserving the Arab character of area and administration… treat it as an Arab province…of Palestine.”
King Abdullah of Jordan, though, has declared that Jordan will never be Palestine. “Jordan will never be a substitute land for anyone. It makes no sense…We should speak loudly and not allow such an idea to remain in the minds of some of us.” Abdullah ignores the fact that the distinction between Palestine and Transjordan in the early 20th century was arbitrary—prior to British occupation, the Jordan River had not been used as a political boundary since Ancient Egypt in 1200 B.C. Abdullah further emphasized his refusal to assimilate Palestinians into Jordan: “Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine.”
In recent years, thousands of Palestinians have had their Jordanian citizenship revoked. Although Jordanian government claims these people simply haven’t kept their paperwork up to date, human rights groups accuse the government of actively disenfranchising Palestinians, who amount to a majority of the population in today’s Jordan. Jordan, moreover, houses tens of thousands of Palestinians in refugee camps. Upwards of 60% of these households have inadequate access to drinking water or proper sanitation; poverty as well as overcrowded living conditions are common. (The persistence of refugees is largely due to the fact that children of refugees are defined as refugees, an uncommon definition which only perpetuates the problem.)
Iraq is far worse. Since America’s offensive in 2003, the 34,000 Palestinians have been harassed, beaten, detained, forced to leave, and murdered. Only about 13,000 remain in Iraq. Many now live in refugee camps, where they have been stranded for years. One such camp, Al-Waleed, offers refugees nothing except very basic schooling for the children and embroidery for the women. To make matters worse, sewage runs openly outside the tents, leading to higher incidences of disease and infections. The refugees there face, at best, an uncertain future and often have left family behind or watched them beaten or killed.
Thousands fled to Syria, only to be flatly denied entrance. Instead, they were forced into Al-Tanf refugee camp, literally located in the no-man’s land between Iraq and Syria. Hundreds of Palestinians who had previously immigrated to Syria were then relocated to Al-Tanf. Refugees there face not only a severe humanitarian crisis but extreme weather conditions as well. Sandstorms, intense heat, and floods characterize the desert region. Those living in Syria also often face hardships associated with refugee camps, particularly crowding and water supply.
These problems are only worse for the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. Over half of the refugees live in camps, which house up to 45,000 people with no formal infrastructure. The size of the camps is fixed, so residents are forced to build upwards without proper construction materials due to governmental rules. In fact, refugees in Lebanon have the worst socio-economic situation of all Palestinians, even worse than those in Gaza and Syria. Moreover, Palestinians are forbidden from practicing medicine or law in Lebanon and have severely restricted civil rights and property ownership, despite a recent human rights campaign.
The only hope for Palestinians, it seems, is to be granted amnesty by a Western country. The Al-Tanf camp was recently closed, and its residents relocated to Belgium, Chile, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, among other countries. Brazil, Australia, Canada, the United States, and several other nations have also accepted thousands of Palestinian refugees, largely because the Arab nations don’t want them.
This article is not about the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. It is about the hypocrisy of the surrounding Arab countries and the very real and largely ignored plight of the Palestinians living as refugees and second-class citizens there. They are driven from one country to the next, living in refugee camps under inhumane conditions to escape harassment and death. Mistreatment of Palestinians abounds well beyond Israel’s borders. Any activist truly concerned with the plight of Palestinians must strive to correct injustices wherever they occur.