From Gaza to Beirut: All not Well With Palestine

-
It's heartening to see the world sympathize with Gaza.

Gaza is the underdog.
Gaza is the "third world country" fighting a Western colonial nuclear superpower. Gaza is the victim of collective punishment and way disproportionate response of Israel to the ineffective and futile missiles of Hamas.

Gaza is clearly the victim of war crimes.
Human beings are made in the image of God- that is true for Gazans as well as Israelis. Israel is acting as if only Israelis are created in the image of God. 485 Palestinians have been slaughtered- 4 Israelis died in the Hamas missile attacks.

Gaza is besieged, outgunned, bombed ruthlessly. The goal of Israel is to break the will of Gaza to fight.

Good luck. No, no good luck.

But Gaza is not the only place were Palestinians are suffering.

In many Arab countries they are suffering as well. No one has forgotten that Nahr al Bared was destroyed due to a murdereous gang having taken it hostage. Until now the Al bared's refugees are refugees in other camps.

Life for the refugees is made miserable by Lebanese laws that discriminate against them and deny them the most basic of human rights- mainly economic rights and civil rights.

The camps are miserable places of poverty and hopelessness. It is simply a crime against humanity to treat human beings the way the Palestinians are treated in Lebanon. This reality is only made uglier when the pretext is said to be the delicate mythical sectarian balance that the overwhelmingly Sunni refugees would allegedly distort by being able to work and feed their children instead of living on international handouts.

Mind you human rights organizations have been asking Lebanon for a floor of rights and not the ceiling of citizenship. The refugees themselves do not want citizenship neither.

Let this love of Gaza and sympathy to the plight of the refugees and residents of Gaza translate into momentum for decent treatment of the Palestinian refugees in all the Arab and Muslim world- especially in the worst offending state of Lebanon. There is no justification for waving the Palestinian flag and shedding tears when these countries' and their citizens have their own refugees that are treated very poorly.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Response to Amer Zahr’s Sexual Harassment Column

-
Image
Rana Abbas, former ACRL executive director Amer Zahr, Rana Abbas's BFF Response to Amer Zahr’s Sexual Harassment Column The Imad Hamad saga has attracted a motley crew of individuals who joined in for two reasons: 1. To say, without any legal basis for personal knowledge, that the allegations are “true” for a variety of reasons.  2. To say that we basically need no investigation and that Imad should be fired because these two women have made these allegations. Allegation is the key word. Let’s look at the bright side of this sordid affair. Who knew that everyone in our community is a solid supporter of women’s rights? This is great! It really is. However, by God, people will prove it by piling on Imad Hamad before receiving all the facts. Let me make one thing clear. I am not stating these women were not harassed; nor am I stating they were. No one, other than Imad and the women, was in the room when the alleged harassment occurred.  No third party ...
Read more

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

-
The Lebanese secular al Safeer newspaper. The Lebanese leftist/ secular/communist Al Akhbar Both called the individual who attacked the Jewish religious school in Jerusalem a “shaheed” or martyr. When Arab seculars and communists, in addition to Islamists, call this person a martyr, it is further proof that the conflict is, not surprisingly, a political conflict between Jewish nationalism and Palestinian nationalism- not a religious conflict. Neither party in this conflict is respecting international law. It's a fact regardless of who has the big guns- and it's Israel who has the big guns here. Noncombatants continue to suffer.
Read more

The Lessons of the Wissam Allouche case: About lies, not terrorism

-
Image
Wissam Allouche arrested by the JTTF Flag of the Lebanese Shia Amal Movement The Lessons of the Wissam Allouche case: An American Lebanese Shiite Muslim caught in the government and media dog- and- pony show Wissam Allouche, a Lebanese Shia immigrant from Lebanon was sentenced to five years in prison for lying on his citizenship application and for lying to get a security clearance from the Department of Defense. The US government had asked for a ten- year sentence. Allouche’s criminal case began in 2013 and he was tried and convicted in 2015 in the Western District of Texas district court.  After conviction, the US Attorney for the Western district of Texas issued a press release that read in part: “Jurors found that defendant lied about his previous association with the Amal militia This afternoon in San Antonio, a federal jury convicted 45–year-old Lebanese–born Wissam “Sam” Allouche of knowingly lying to federal authorities on his U.S. citizenship p...
Read more