Anthony Shadid has a great piece of reporting in today’s WaPo from one of the bleak ‘temporary’ camps at the Jordanian-Iraqi border in which 1,300 Palestinians who fled from Iraq shortly after the US invasion have now been trapped for nearly four years.
Shadid interviews 52-year-old Samir Abdel-Rahim who arrived in Ruweished ‘camp’, about 40 miles inside Jordan, in the middle of the bleak desert that separates Amman from Baghdad.
Shadid writes:
- “If you don’t leave my house, I will burn it down — you and your family inside,” Abdel-Rahim, bearded and balding, said he was told by his landlord in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hayy al-Salam.
On May 4, 2003, he left with his family [wife and four children] and his brother’s family, buying bus tickets for the equivalent of about $7.
“We didn’t have a choice,” he said.
For a brief time in 2003, Jordan allowed Palestinians, including Abdel-Rahim’s family and a few hundred others, into the Ruweished camp, built about 40 miles from Iraq to house a feared influx of Iraqis fleeing the U.S.-led invasion. Jordan then closed the border. In summer 2006, Syria allowed more than 300 Palestinians into al-Hol camp, on its side of the frontier. Then, like Jordan, it sealed the border again….
U.N. officials say both countries fear the precedent that would be set by allowing in more Palestinian refugees.
“The line is drawn — that they’re not going to admit them, that they’re not going to absorb one more,” said Robert Breen, the representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan. “If you open up for some, the rest are going to come.”
The Palestinian Authority has offered the refugees sanctuary, but Israel, which controls the borders of the West Bank and Gaza, has denied U.N. requests to resettle them in the Palestinian territories, he said.
“I can’t recall ever having seen this kind of situation in such a bleak environment,” Breen said. “They can’t go backward, and they aren’t moving forward. They’re literally stuck in the desert — no way back, and nowhere to go.”
… “If there were a one in a hundred chance that we could have lived safely in Baghdad, we would have never left,” Abdel-Rahim said.
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch has said that Shiite militias have murdered dozens of Palestinians in Baghdad and that Interior Ministry forces have arbitrarily arrested, beaten and tortured others. The group said entire communities of the 15,000 Palestinians still there have received threats of eviction. Rumors abound that Palestinians, as Sunni Muslims, have served as suicide bombers and supporters of the insurgency.
“They have been systematically brutalized,” said Anita Raman, a reporting officer with UNHCR in Amman.
“You kill a Palestinian, and what is the consequence?” she added.
…Abdel-Rahim had applied to go to Canada. He pulled out the letter he had received from the Canadian Embassy.
“You have not provided sufficient evidence that you have a well-founded fear of persecution nor that you have been and continue to be seriously and personally affected by civil war, armed conflict or massive violation of human rights,” it read in part.
The last line concluded: “I am therefore refusing your application.”
“I would have to die, my husband would have to be killed, or my children would have to be slaughtered in front of my eyes, so that I’d have the right to leave this place,” his sister-in-law said. “Is that logical?”
So this is what it feels like to be stateless– that is, to belong to a group that does not have any state that recognizes that you are its citizen and is capable of intervening to ensure that your most basic rights as a person– or even your existence– as a person is safeguarded.
It strikes me that the leaders of a Jewish state, of all the states in the world, should well understood the extreme vulnerability of the condition of statelessness, and should be open to allowing the Palestinian Authority to offer a refuge in the areas under its control to these very distressed Palestinians???
Anyway, Shadid’s piece is all worth reading.
It strikes me that the leaders of a Jewish state, of all the states in the world, should well understood the extreme vulnerability of the condition of statelessness, and should be open to allowing the Palestinian Authority to offer a refuge in the areas under its control to these very distressed Palestinians???
Agreed. It would be the humane thing to do, and I can’t see that admitting a few thousand destitute refugees would pose either a security or political risk to Israel; quite the opposite in fact, since it would set a precedent for returning Palestinian refugees to the West Bank and Gaza. Readers may want to contact the Prime Minister’s office in this regard.
(Of course, one might also ask why Jordan and Syria have never signed the Convention on the Status of Refugees or accepted the obligations thereunder, and why the United States isn’t addressing its role in creating these refugees by helping them to find shelter. Nobody’s doing their job here. But the first priority is to find the refugees someplace to go.)
Pelosi Delegation to Middle East
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=81114
Jonathan Edelstein
why the United States isn’t addressing its role in creating these refugees by helping them to find shelter.
Is it United States job to do? Or its UN job and all international community to help to resolve the problem?
In same taken while you questioning Jordan and Syria of their stand, did you ever come to your mind what UN resolutions in regards of Palestinians refugees and that hold Israeli responsibilities and what Israeli did for resolving it from start?
Did come to your mind how many settlements built one occupied land illegally and those Palestinians refuges asked just to return to their destructed land not to settlements with bounces and help of Israeli governments?
Salah, I’ve said many times that I’m against the Israeli settlements. I also support an agreed-upon resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem, in which Israel will do its part by compensating the refugees and allowing a certain limited number to return. I would consider it part of Israel’s responsibility to let the PNA give shelter to the Palestinian refugees from Iraq. That doesn’t absolve Jordan and Syria, any more than Jordanian or Syrian behavior absolves Israel.
And of course the responsibility for these refugees belongs to the entire international community, but I think the United States has a particular duty because these refugees would never have had to flee if not for the American invasion.
Jonathan Edelstein,
Thanks for responding to my post, there are two things in regards of the Palestinians refugees:
First: Israelis side
In all peaces talks and most of Israelis /Supporter of Israel (includes some friends here) they show their apposition to RTR (There Right to Return) to their land in many pre negotiations Israelis refused or pre conditioned that this rights should be dropped.
As you said that “I’ve said many times that I’m against the Israeli settlements.” its nothing to do with the reality of Palestinians refugees problem as such, the continuing of confiscating lands and demolishing homes, the land goes in future for a new settlements makes things hard to swallow as this action is illegal and the land that Palestinians asked to returned no longer available to them, whatever you or other saying of “I’ve said many times that I’m against the Israeli settlements.” that not enough to change Israeli actions what you and other who somehow support Israelis should translate their opposition of illegal acts to make Israelis to realise the best for all parties they should stopping and deal with causes of the greavnesses of those Palestinians refugees living miserably for more that 60 years because of their occupations.
I second your saying of “I also support an agreed-upon resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem, in which Israel will do its part by compensating the refugees here is comes US work and should push on UN agencies and international communities to help for better living conditions and treatments also supporting their basic rights of retune to their homeland instead adapting and supporting Israelis case in this regards.
In same taken US and international community should put pressure on Israelis with some form of a regime to stop confiscating Palestinians land and homes also building new settlements on occupied land there are already UN resolutions in regards to this should be obeyed by Israelis otherwise they should face the consequences of violations of UN resolutions as other countries done and suffered like Iraq and now Iran, as you are a lawyer you understand that and the laws should works equally on all not selectively.
“United States has a particular duty because these refugees would never have had to flee if not for the American invasion.”
The entire Palestinian refugee problem would never have come about had the Israelis not conducted massive ethnic cleansing operations in 1948, and then to a lesser degree in 1967. Therefore, the ultimate responsibility for Palestinian refugees lies with Israel.
Having said that, I do agree with you that in the case of those Palestinians who have been forced to leave Iraq thanks to the United States’ invasion, as well as the two or three million Iraqi refugees and internally displaced the responsibility belongs to the United States.
Merkel’s pro-Israel stance
The official claimed that while Merkel refused to meet with families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, she focused during her talks with Abbas on the need to release kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit, who has been held in the Gaza Strip since last June. In addition, he noted, Merkel met with the families of missing IDF soldiers during her visit to Jerusalem.
Children of the Middle East-
(I hope this is relevant here-not sure where else to post it-please move as one sees fit)
Middle East Peace Critical To Region’s Children
April 21, 2007 United Nations
Children are bearing the brunt of the armed conflict in the Middle East, a
senior United Nations official said today as she concluded a two-week mission
to Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed
Conflict, interacted with children across the region, describing them as
playful and resilient but plagued by fear, anxiety, anger and feelings of
revenge coupled with hopelessness.
“It is imperative that peace come to the Middle East for the sake of the
children,” she declared in a statement released in Jerusalem.
According to official sources, approximately 400 children were killed in Lebanon
in the recent hostilities. In the occupied Palestinian territory, 124 were
killed in 2006 and today, almost 400 are still in detention. In addition, 8
children were killed or injured on the Israeli side.
“Researchers are pointing to the fact that many children in the conflict areas
need psycho-social care,” the envoy said, noting that about a third of all
children in Northern Israel suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, while
many Palestinian children also showed visible signs of being affected by the
war.
Ms. Coomaraswamy, who met with Israel’s Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livini, and
other officials, recognized the country’s “very real security concerns.” At the
same time, she voiced concern over the barrier erected to separate Palestinian
territory from Israel and raised its humanitarian consequences on children’s
health, education and right to freedom of movement.
“The present route and procedures associated with the barrier are
unconscionable,” she said, urging the Israeli authorities to appoint an
independent civilian committee to look into the humanitarian consequences of
the barrier.
Ms. Coomaraswamy also called upon the Israeli Government to release the customs
and taxes revenues due to the Palestinian Authority for health and education
expenditures.
With 398 Palestinian children in detention, the Special Representative said this
was only feeding the cycle of violence and urged a different approach to
children who engage in minor offences.
The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) must establish transparent, credible and
independent mechanisms to provide for accountability and to ensure effective
redress to victims of killings and violence against children, she said, calling
also for settler populations to be held accountable for acts of violence and
harassment against Palestinian children.
During meetings with senior Palestinian officials, including President Abbas,
the Special Representative raised concerns about the use of minors for
political and armed violence.
Ms. Coomaraswamy, who had listened to many children speak about being engaged in
this violence, welcomed the Palestinian officials’ pledge to revive the code of
conduct among Palestinian groups not to involve children in political violence
and to work with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to prevent this.
She also noted the importance of ensuring security for children both in the
occupied Palestinian territory and Israel as well as the need to stop rockets
being fired indiscriminately into civilian areas from Gaza.
The envoy welcomed steps by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli
Government to review school curricula to prevent incitement to violence and to
take further steps in this area, including the integration of peace education.
Also during her trip, Ms. Coomaraswamy requested the Israeli Government to hand
over to UN demining experts details on the cluster munitions dropped on Lebanon
during the 2006 war.
The Special Representative is expected to report her findings to the Security
Council, General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.