Why won’t Egypt help the Gazans?

[antiterror]

It seems the most if not the only logical solution, to set up refugee shelters in the Sinai peninsula?

And FINALLY: Noone in the Arab world really wants Palestinians to leave Gaza. That'll be because, the last few times a mass exodus happened, people never went back!

Instead, you have 3rd, even 4th generation refugees in so-called "refugee camps" (actually: proper cities at this point!) by now. All over the place - most prominently: Lebanon and Jordan!

And while you'll hear these places' leaderships bemoan the fate of refugees, it says A LOT about how much they really care when you consider that many of these people are still stateless and piss-poor! Palestinian refugees are a 1a propaganda tool for half the despots in the Arab world! The very last thing any of them will want is to assume any blame for creating them!

Egypt is quite a poor country, they already are estimated to have 100,000 Palestinian refugees. I don't think they could cope with 2million.

Think how the UK moans about refugees coming here and imagine if it was announced 2 million were arriving next week.

Some great posts, thank you heidi and others

What an extra-ordinarily jaundiced response to hearing that some very thirsty, likely dehydrated people will [hopefully] be getting a draught of water in the next day or so

Much of that is true yes but the political instability of taking in refugees is there

https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/07/not-welcome/jordans-treatment-palestinians-escaping-syria

Palestinians were barred due to worries about political instability years ago, the reasons won’t have changed much. Black September and all that.

Palestinians were denied residency permits in Kuwait until 2017 (blamed for the PLO declaring support for Saddam) quite a few Kuwaitis, not all mind still loathe Palestinians, I know a lovely Palestinian person (who definitely wasn’t working for the PLO given she was a toddler) who grew up there and was treated pretty shoddily. Don’t like Israel either.

Egypt has spent a lot of time trying to shut down smuggling routes in and out of Gaza, they have a militancy problem and Israeli tourists have already been shot.

Six day war - just yeah all that.

This is the reality and experience of these surrounding areas. They may well dislike Israel intensely but we are talking about countries that are not completely stable as it is. The last thing you need is someone to move in and make you a target for Israel or start planning attacks from your soil (which has happened in the past). That is not the bulk of normal Palestinian people who will be pre-occupied with getting their lives together. But it is very difficult to move people without combatants moving with them.

It was not meant to be a racist point it’s about the fact that you have a not insignificant number of Hamas members in Gaza and no-one wants them. That is not on normal Palestinians but it is a risk countries that are already fragile may not want to take.

@HeidiInTheBigCity very informative posts. I spoke to an Egyptian academic yesterday who reflected exactly what you said.

I won't argue with any of this! Of course it's true!

I'm not even going to argue that Arab states aren't major culprits when it comes to Palestinian "refugees" (again: the scare quotes refer to the fact that we have stateless people - who were not only born in their current country of residence - but: so were their parents! In some cases: their grandparents!) And it's all because how good a job "oh, but ... Palestinian refugees!" combined with "oh, but! ... they destabilise any place where they turn up!" does for Arab leaders!

ALL OF WHICH, by the way, is a testimony against that other, often heard piece of (in that case: Israeli!) propaganda of "there is no such thing as Palestinians to begin with - they're just generic [Arabs]".

Literally every Israeli and Palestinian pro-peace-somehow person I've ever discussed this with (and: there are A LOT OF those! I was married to a Palestinian man for over a decade and, for the record: have brutally fallen out with him just this last week over "Just no! I'll need you to show Israeli children the same level of empathy that you'd want them to show ours - had it not been for the unfortunate accident of my so-called 'incompetent cervix'!"

Make no mistake! Half of the people I consider "family" are Palestinian! I do not, in any way, shape or form, claim to be neutral! I've seen my BILs dragged off into "administrative detention" by the IDF right out of our family dinner! And I RESENT the institutions that have allowed this - while claiming to be democratic!

But I've also spent two decades in this so-called "Peace Movement". And I'm a rather literal person! I'm going to need you to MEAN IT when you say "I oppose violence against civilians", and I'm going to need you to stand by your word when YOUR "side" hurts civilians!

It's now being reported that the border will be opened for foreign nationals and those will dual nationality to leave. At the same time aid will be allowed to enter into Gaza.

I have a question. I know that there are people visiting family and aid workers, visiting doctors, and so on in Gaza. But doesn't the presence of so many people with the option to live elsewhere belie the idea that it is the world's largest open-air prison?

Yeah, why don’t we do a scheme like we did with the Ukrainians.

@EsmaCannonball the ones who could leave have left already. It is not easy to immigrate anywhere with very little assets or education.
Over 3million Palestinians are already in neighbouring countries namely Jordan Lebanon and Syria according to UN’s UNRWA. It’s not as simple as it sounds.

I meant the presence of so many foreign nationals and dual nationals belies the 'open-air prison' idea.

That will be "media bias" for you!

Guess what?! Turns out it is a lot easier for you to be an international headline when you happen to be an international!

I am saying this in my function as "literally once was a headline in my local newspaper - it read something along the lines of "Local [read: British!] Woman and Family Stuck under Siege!" - and it would have been a function of my equally as local (and British!) sister calling everyone on that editorial board!

What you read is not a function of "actually, 90% of Gaza are dual nationals" but of "actually, 90% of heart-breaking stories that make it into the news concern the, realistically speaking, negligible percentage of dual nationals". That would be because "Unrelatable, Unconnected to You Foreigner Suffers Human Tragedy in Foreign Lands" is not THAT complelling as a headline!

@Rivertothesea I've heard lots of middle Eastern heritage acquaintances ( west London upbringing yo)make casual racist and derogatory remarks about Palestinians. They are trouble makers, they are ungrateful, so and so married one and divorced after domestic abuse.
Don't think there's no truth when people say Arab neighbours do not want to take in Palestinians.
Most of these people with Egyptian Lebanese, Syrian heritage I know now live in Dubai and have nice free lives.
Let's not bury heads in sands!

Report on Sky News this morning

Israel's ambassador to the UK TzipiHotovely claims "there is no humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, adding that Israel is working to "make sure all Palestinian civilians will be safe".

Unbeliveable!

This question is covered in the Guardian today:

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/15/rafah-border-crossing-could-egypt-open-it-to-fleeing-palestinians

none of the surrounding countries give Palestinians citizenship and force them to live in refugee camps. It’s not any better in Jordan, Syria or Lebanon for Palestinians than it is in the occupied territories of Israel.

I just heard them do it on BBC news 10 minutes ago. The IDF spokesman corrected it.

Well quite.

As far as gotchas go, verdantverdure wasn’t a particularly well thought out one.

The harsh reality is Hamas is preventing Palestinians from getting to safety and @Heelenahandbasket that's absolutely right. This is a situation that all these Muslim countries that don't recognise Israel have created.

Even the Guardian reports show that it’s Egypt who won’t open the border due to concerns about refugees and seems they may be negotiating an aid package for themselves. Yet see the vile claims that it was all Israel’s fault that the border was closed up thread.

if people in the uk fall so easily for Hamas lies despite our access to education and information, what chance do the Palestinians have? It really concerns me that it will be very difficult to deradicalise these people.

Trying to edit to an an apostrophe, but not sure it’s working.

Thanks very much for that response to me, @Angrycat2768 - very helpful.

One million 'displaced' people from Gaza now in southern Gaza largely without food shelter and healthcare

No ceasefire agreed by Hamas or Israel so bombing continues around them

Egypt and Israel blaming each other for the failure to open the Rafah crossing this morning

And so it goes on...........

Agree.
Desperately horrible for civilians
Can we have some more energy from the Muslim world in calling for Hamas to surrender hostages and for the sake of Palestinian children?!
Israel has no choice but to hunt down Hamas and try and rescue their hostages.