Arab “refugees”: Problem is unresolved for a reason

We’ve written on this topic many times, but a friend reminded me recently that repetition is critically important and I think it’s especially so with a blog where each day we have new readers from all over the world.

To me the most galling and underreported issue regarding so-called Palestinian refugees is the FACT that their Muslim brethren have no interest (for 60 years!) in resettling the displaced Arabs.   Actually no one has any interest.  Have you ever heard the refugee lobbying groups like Refugees International make a big pitch to resettle the Arabs living now in “camps” in Gaza to the West or to Arab countries.  NO!   They only want them to “return” to Israel!    Why no resettlement?  Because they don’t want to buck the Arab world —-Muslims need to keep the so-called Palestinians suffering.

Also, that is why the recent rumor that Obama was using $20 million to resettle Gazans to the US is so obviously false.   As a matter of fact, if Obama were to begin calling for Palestinian resettlement to the West or to Arab countries all hell would break loose from the Arab world toward Obama.   [Excepting the Iraqi Palestinians—groups are lobbying for their resettlement but that is another story!]

Here is a blog I came across this morning with a long footnoted history of the Arab refugee problem.  I’m posting it because it’s so thorough and I don’t want to lose it for future reference.    The blog called ‘Writing the Wrongs’ posted this yesterday:

Only a George Orwell or a Franz Kafka could have done justice to the story of the Arab refugee problem.

[….]

The perpetuation of the Arab refugee problem by the Arab states has the same central purpose as its creation: to bring about the destruction of the State of Israel. No Arab leader has ever tried to hide or obscure this aim. All have repeatedly made it clear that their refusal to absorb refugees into their large, empty, and population-hungry territories stems from their insistence on the right of the refugees “to return to their home,” a “right” held to be identical with the right of the Arab people to Palestine. A natural corollary of this right is the destruction of Israel as a state. The perpetuation of the “refugee problem” is part of the same policy that refuses to concede Israel’s very right to exist.

“Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem not based on assuring the refugees’ right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason,” stated a resolution of the Refugee Conference held at Homs, Syria, in 1957. “If Arabs return to Israel — Israel will cease to exist,” Gamal Abdel Nasser himself said in an interview in Zibicher Woche, September 1, 1961.

The Arab states hoped to achieve the right to introduce into Israel an army (labelled refugees) to blow it up from within as they have failed to destroy it from without.

Gosh, I wonder if they annihilated Israel, where would all the desperate African Muslims go?  Destroying the goose that lays the golden egg—-kind of insane, don’t you think?

Totally digressing!  LOL! Did you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand?   It might well have been titled “Killing the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs.”

Somalis want out of Muslim Egypt….

…..and into that “haven of hope” —the Jewish State of Israel!   From The Media Line:

[Cairo, Egypt] Ali Ahmed is struggling with life in Egypt. The Somali refugee, who was in jail for nine months, has no job. He recently got as far as the Sinai Peninsula before turning back to Cairo after plans to cross into Israel fizzled out following a run-in with police.

For many African refugees and migrants like Ali, life in Egypt is becoming unbearable, and illegal attempts to cross borders are becoming an almost daily occurrence.

Since 2006, some 13,000 Africans have entered Israel, and since June 2007, more than 30 Africans have been gunned down by border police, highlighting the ongoing struggle between rights groups and the Egyptian and Israeli governments.

Ahmed tells The Media Line at a local Somali refugee center in Cairo that he wants to get out of Egypt. He would rather “face death than continue living in a country” where he is treated as a “second-class person.”

What!  How can that be?   Where is the famous Muslim charity?  Why is a Muslim country treating its fellow Muslims as “second-class persons?”

It is Israel that is mecca for these Somali Muslims.

Africans in Cairo boast of friends who have succeeded in running the border gauntlet into Israel. Ahmed admits that despite abandoning his own plans to cross into Israel, he knows that success in the Jewish state can be a reality.

“I have a number of friends who have told me of the joy they are having in Israel, where they work and have a life again,” Ahmed continued.

Egypt said, “jump!” and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, “how high?”

The UNHCR has officially stopped granting refugee status following a request from the Egyptian government, which has made the living situation extremely difficult for the Africans. Without U.N. refugee status, the likelihood of gaining asylum in a third nation is almost nil for thousands of refugees.

Of course there is the obligatory whack at Israel which I won’t even discuss (Judy addressed the issue here in January).

It is Israel African refugees seek—they aren’t trying to break into Muslim countries except as jumping off points to “havens” only “Western culture” provides.

Israel is seen as a place where lives can be recreated. Rumors of work opportunities over the past few years have created an atmosphere within the refugee community that sees the Jewish state as the haven of hope for a new life.

Fjordman comments on Swedish “lynch mob” story

On Saturday, Gates of Vienna (GOV) blog gave us more details about the Swedish “lynch mob” story we told you about the same day—you know, where an angry mob of Swedes scared Iraqi refugees from their little town, here.   Well, Baron at GOV has contacts in Sweden who sent him more details on the incident, here, which prompted lots of reader discussion.

One commenter, the famous blogger Fjordman, calling it the re-tribalization of society, had this to say in response to the news:

This is the price you pay for destroying the cultural and social fabric of a nation through mass immigration. Similar problems are now rapidly emerging throughout the Western world for roughly the same reasons. The state can no longer uphold law and order and frequently doesn’t even try. The only option left to ordinary citizens is vigilante justice and the formation of armed clans and groups to withstand the attacks of other armed clans and groups. It’s the re-tribalization of society, which is and always has been the logical consequence of Multiculturalism. If you’re a Westerner, it’s coming to a street near you very soon, accompanied by loud cheers from the intelligentsia.

Immigrants threaten society: Quebecers openly debate preserving their culture

I’ve seen mention a couple of times in the last few days that polls in Quebec, Canada are showing an increase in the number of Quebecers who believe that non-Christian immigrants are a threat to their culture.  I don’t know much about what is happening in Canada, so I can’t make a judgement about recommendations made here,  but thought I should make readers aware that there is an on-going open debate about preserving the province’s culture.

On the one-year anniversary of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission report — it was released on May 22, 2008 — which recommended more openness and tolerance on the part of heritage Quebecers for the cultural habits and religious expression of newcomers to Quebec, it appears the report has had no effect whatsoever. Or at least not the effect the commission wanted.

Quebecers are not only resisting the commission’s recommendations, their attitudes have hardened. A Leger Marketing poll commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies, conducted May 13-16, found that 40% of Quebec francophones view non-Christian immigrants as a threat to Quebec society, as compared to 32% in 2007.

No doubt galvanized by the Bouchard-Taylor experience, which many Quebecers felt was over-solicitous of immigrants’ feelings and under-appreciative of heritage values and customs, the Movement Laique Québeçois (Quebec Secular Movement) (MLQ) has called upon the provincial government to draw up a social contract that would affirm Quebec’s secular character.

The MLQ proposes the implementation of a secular charter of fundamental rights, which would include neutrality around religion in publicly funded fields. It is asking specifically for a ban on religious symbolism in the outerwear — including kippas, hijabs and crosses — of all employees in the public sector, such as medicine, education and law courts.

Read on.

I always did think it was a good idea to get out of the public school system anyway, however one needed to make that happen, so maybe as schools get necessarily more cumbersome people will bail out.

Using the “R” word snapped me to attention

For days we’ve been getting alerts about the terrible refugee situation in Sri Lanka, but I have been too lazy to post.  Maybe after awhile one gets dulled to one more “refugee crisis.”    It was the word “resettlement” in this article that brought me around today and I figured I better at least mention this latest crisis.

(RTTNews) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday requested the Sri Lankan government to provide international relief agencies with “unhindered access” to the refugee camps housing hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced in the recent military offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels in the country’s northeastern regions.

After talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse at his residence in Kandy, Ban acknowledged that the Sri Lankan government was trying its level best to provide assistance to those displaced in the recent military offensive, but warned that it was not enough.

“The government is doing its utmost best”, but added that there was a “wide gap between what is needed and what can be done”.

His request for greater international access to the refugee camps follows earlier complaints by several international aid agencies that the Sri Lankan government has restricted their access to the camps for the displaced.

Let’s just hope Ban Ki-moon is referring to resettlement within Sri Lanka.

His remarks on Saturday came just days after President Rajapaksa assured visiting Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon that his government has charted out plans for the resettlement of the 280,000 war-displaced Tamils within the next six months.

“We will try to work hard to keep that promise realized,” Ban said Friday. “They need to be resettled as soon as possible.”

Ban’s Sri Lankan visit comes four days after President Rajapaksa declared victory in the country’s 25-year civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels.

I think ol’ President Rajapaksa is being too optimistic.   I don’t think the Tigers are finished.   Ethnic nationalism is on the rise in the world.   Read about the Tamil Tiger rebels here.   Among other great achievements they are credited with developing the suicide bomber vest.

Endnote:  We have resettled 15 refugees from Sri Lanka this fiscal year and only 1 in the whole of 2008, 2 in 2007, and 6 in 2006.  I didn’t look back further than that but, it looks like we have an up-tick this year.