March 4-10, 2004

loose canon

Why Palestinians Suffer

by Bruce Schimmel

JERUSALEM -- Is the security fence that Israel is building around Palestinians comparable to the WWII concentration camps for Jews? It’s a comment I’ve heard smart people make, and it is grossly misinformed.

There's no denying that Palestinian refugee camps are cruel and subhuman or that these camps are an insult to all of humanity.

But let's first agree that these refugee camps are not designed for genocide.

Yes, Palestinian men, women and children are being held in hellish ghettos, but unlike the Jews of WWII, they are not waiting on death row.

Unlike Jews in Nazi death camps, Palestinians continue to receive international relief funds. This year, an estimated 3.9 million Palestinian refugees will receive about $315 million through a United Nations relief agency whose sole mission is their welfare.

And you'll be interested to know that the primary funder of this U.N. agency is the United States; we contribute just under $100 million of the annual tab to help the Palestinians.

But the really interesting point -- the one which sets the Palestinian suffering in sharp contrast to the destruction of the Jews -- is not about those who furnish their aid, but about those who don't.

While the U.S. picks up about 30 percent of the cost, in the year 2000, the states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf emirates collectively contributed just a bit more than 2 percent of the humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Egypt, Iraq and Syria gave nothing to them at all.

Nothing. Zippo. Bupkus.

The oil-rich Arab states have done little to ease the pain of Palestinians.

It is incontrovertible that the Palestinians suffer terribly in these prison camps. But unlike the Jews of WWII who fled to friendlier lands before Hitler closed the door, the Palestinians are offered no refuge in nearby Arab states.

Instead, the Palestinians are being used as human shields in a campaign of propaganda that obscures the oppression of many people across the Middle East. In effect, the Palestinians are the pawns behind which oil-rich tyrants hide.

In the Second World War, Jew reached out to Jew for salvation from the camps. Many found helping hands. But the Palestinians are fed only the illusion that murdering Jews will turn back time, return them to their land and bring an end to the state of Israel.

Palestinians suffer as prisoners of Israel because martyrdom is the only comfort Arab states gives them. And while Israel is indeed the visible cause of their pain, the Palestinians are in ghetto prisons because having them there suffering serves the political agenda of other Gulf states.