Palestinian here: I wish one day the Arab world gets as little as 10% of th

[Solomon2]

Palestinian here: I wish one day the Arab world gets as little as 10% of the criticism Israel gets for atrocities committed towards Palestinians.
submitted 2 days ago* by throwaway874832749

Considering the success of my last post, I thought of doing a new post about how Palestinians have been treated throughout the Arab world. I'm sure most of this information is new to you considering the considerable lack of media reporting on the issue. FYI, I'm a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon. Here's the proof.

Let me start with a couple of countries:

Lebanon
Around half of the 400,000 refugees live in camps, deprived of many rights. Refugees don't have any property rights, no access to the Lebanese healthcare system and there are certain restrictions on jobs we are allowed to do. We are issued handwritten [travel documents](Page not found - Passport-Collector.com | Passport-Collector.com) of appalling quality (large size, cheap paper). The travel documents don't even have a full date of birth, just the birth year. You probably know about the Sabra and Chatila massacre (from the movie Waltz with Bashir, perhaps my favorite animated movie) were 3000 Palestinian civilians were killed in cold blood. These are at the top of my head, I'm sure there's more. This is what a British MP Gerald Kaufman said in 2011 when he visited the camps:

When I went to Gaza in 2010 I thought I had seen the worst that could be seen of the appalling predicament of Palestinians living in conditions which no human being should be expected to endure. But what I saw in the camps in Lebanon is far worse and far more hopeless. The conditions are unspeakable, but for over 400,000 of our fellow human beings this is their life: today, tomorrow and for a future that cannot even be foreseen. At least in Gaza, frightful though the situation is, the people are free within the confines of their blockaded prison. In the camps of Lebanon they are not free.​

Syria
Surprisingly, refugees there are treated quite well, almost like a citizen. Although this is changing and the Palestinians are being forced to choose sides in the Syrian uprising.

Jordan
It's the only country that naturalized Palestinians after the annexation of the West Bank, perhaps because they needed the population back then. From what I know from my family members living there, there's some discrimination between the natives and Palestinians, but it's minimal compared to other Arab countries.

Kuwait
Kuwait expelled more than 450,000 Palestinians when Arafat declared his support for Saddam during the Gulf war.

Iraq
Palestinians enjoyed full rights under Saddam's reign, however after the 2003 war they were severely targeted with discrimination or killings and the majority fled the country.

Egypt
You can read this report here. Not only are they discriminated against (no free education) but they receive no UN assistance whatsoever. If they go out of the country for more than 6 months, their residency permit might be revoked. Imagine being born and living in a country your whole life and needing to renew your residency permit every couple of years. Also, a little bit about the occupation of the Gaza strip by Egypt, one observer (a member of UN) noted that "For all practical purposes it would be true to say that for the last six years in Gaza over 300,000 poverty stricken people have been physically confined to an area the size of a large city park."

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I'm sure there's more but these are off the top of my head. Also, for a Palestinian refugee it's very hard nowadays to get a work visa to Gulf countries. I was accepted for an internship in Dubai for an American bank but I waited for the visa for 1 and a half months and it never came. I had to relocate to another office. This isn't anecdotal evidence, many complain about this.

Moral of the story: Israel naturalized over 1.5 million Palestinians. They enjoy full citizen rights and many of them would remain in Israel even if a Palestinian state is established. Palestinians in the Arab world on the other hand suffer from discernible and vile discrimination. If a non-Palestinian Arab speaks of the maltreatment of Palestinians by Israelis, tell them to STFU and demand rights for Palestinians in their countries before they complain about Israel. People living glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

EDIT: Don't downvote the truth.

 

[Shocco]

They enjoy full citizen rights and many of them would remain in Israel even if a Palestinian state is established

Stop treating Arab citizens like enemies: (ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3391545,00.html)

"My dream is that my children and grandchildren, as well as Israel's Arab citizens, will be able to feel they are part of the country, that they have equal rights … and that they are not treated like enemies," says leading Arab Israeli academic Dr Adel Manna. Manna, the head of the Department for Arab Society in Israel at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, is concerned by the widening gap between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens"

Israeli Schools Separate, Not Equal (hrw.org/en/news/2001/12/04/israeli-schools-separate-not-equal)

Israel systematically discriminates against Palestinian Arab citizens in its public school system, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

(hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/ISRAEL0901-01.htm

"Nearly one in four of Israel's 1.6 million school children are educated in a public school system wholly separate from the majority. The children in this parallel school system are Israeli citizens of Palestinian Arab origin. Their schools are a world apart in quality from the public schools serving Israel's majority Jewish population. Often overcrowded and understaffed, poorly built, badly maintained, or simply unavailable, schools for Palestinian Arab children offer fewer facilities and educational opportunities than are offered other Israeli children. This report is about Israel's discrimination against its Palestinian Arab children in guaranteeing the right to education. "

(articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/24/world/la-fg-israel-arab-laws-20110324)

New Israeli laws will increase discrimination against Arabs, critics say

"Israel's conservative-led Knesset adopted two controversial laws Wednesday that critics warned will worsen discrimination against the nation's Arab minority and make it easier to prevent Arab citizens from moving into hundreds of Jewish towns and villages."