When Palestinian Blood Isn’t Equal

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/palestinians-syria-killed/

A recently published report by the Action Group for Palestinians in Syria (AGPS), a human rights group, documented 3,840 cases of Palestinians who have been killed since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011 – nearly four times as many as those killed during the six years of the first intifada (December 1987-September 1993). The causes of death ranged from artillery shelling to shootings to torture in the regime’s infamous prisons across the country.

In addition to this report, the Syrian regime released for the first time a list of names that included 548 killed Palestinians. While the regime’s report did not note their causes of death, rights groups agree that those Palestinians died as a result of being tortured, starved, and deprived of adequate medical treatment.

The AGPS also said that 1,682 Palestinians are still missing, their fates unknown. According to some assessments, these Palestinians were either killed at some time during the bloody civil war or – “in the best case” – are still in prison. Therefore, at least 5,522 Palestinians have either been killed or have gone missing since 2011.

Along with those killed or missing, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Syria have lost their homes and employment. The Yarmouk refugee camp, which was home to tens of thousands, was utterly demolished over the course of the war. Before the camp was destroyed, the Assad regime laid siege to it.

Despite these horrors, not one official in the Palestinian Authority publicly condemned the Assad regime.

This is incredible. Where is the outcry from the PA, Arab and global news outlets, rights groups, Palestinian and Arab politicians? Where is their denunciation of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s war crimes against the Palestinians? Why isn’t every single Arab lawmaker in Israel excoriating the Syrian dictator?

When a Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorist from Gaza is killed by IDF soldiers while trying to plant a roadside bomb or trying to breach the border fence, the Arab and Western worlds are apoplectic. The Arab League issues its familiar condemnation; the consistently hostile Kuwait denounces Israel at the UN and tries to convene the Security Council; Mahmoud Abbas requests international protection for the Palestinians; and all these reactions are covered round the clock by the Arab and Western press.

When Palestinians are killed by other Arabs, evidently no one cares – not in the Arab world, and not even among the Palestinians themselves, whether in the PA or Hamas. Everyone is silent. Palestinian blood in the West Bank and Gaza is far more valuable than Palestinian blood in other parts of the globe.

Palestinians who are killed by IDF fire can be used as a tool, whether by Arab countries or the Western world, to undermine and weaken Israel. Human rights groups in the West and in Israel to invest most of their energies and attention to the Palestinian issue in Israel. The equation is plain to see: When Israel or the Jews can’t be blamed for killing Arabs, it’s not interesting.

Throughout the war in Syria, Abbas’s silence on the plight of the Palestinians there has been deafening. He has never repudiated Assad or Iran for killing Palestinians.

Palestinian Refugees? Why Not Return

Much has been written lately about the need to accept the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. 

The word “return” in international law is very clear; it means going back to where one has been before. So it can apply only to the people who left Palestine, not to their descendants who were born in another country.

Today there are less than 100,000 survivors from the 700,000 Arabs who left Palestine and became refugees, and they could be allowed to come back to Israel if they wish to, with only one condition; that they are ready to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors, as is stated in the UN declaration about Palestine refugees, which mentions ONLY the refugees but NOT their descendants: “Palestine refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” 

 There is no other example in history where descendants of refugees are still considered to be refugees, three generations later.

Palestinian Donates Recovery Room to Haifa Hospital

Tens of thousands of shekels donated to Rambam Hospital by Palestinian to improve treatment of childhood cancers and Israeli-Palestinian medical cooperation after he himself underwent treatment there; 'When I arrived at Rambam, I saw a medical team caring for patients, but I also saw the suffering of the sick children,' says donor.

Ilana Messika/TPS|Published:  11.06.17

A Palestinian man donated tens of thousands of shekels to the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa to improve treatment of childhood cancers and Israeli-Palestinian medical cooperation after he himself underwent cancer treatment at the Israeli hospital.

After being diagnosed with cancer, a senior Palestinian official was directed to Rambam for further medical examinations and treatment. While hospitalized in the Joseph Fishman Oncology Center, he met with several families of patients from the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, and showed a particular interest in the needs of hospitalized children, both Israeli and foreign. 

Photo: Rambam Hospital Spokesperson's Unit

“When I arrived at Rambam (Hospital), I saw a medical team caring for patients, but I also saw the suffering of the sick children,” recalled M. in a statement (Rambam Medical Center spokespeople said they were not at liberty to reveal the man’s identity). “Palestinian, Israeli, Syrian and children from other countries receive treatment in the hospital for a variety of serious illnesses and need all the help they can get. I decided to contribute as much as I could, both a humanitarian act and a symbol of solidarity.”

After completing treatment, M. underwrote the establishment of a children’s recovery room in the Institute of Radiology, inside the oncology center. The room provides a relaxing and supportive environment for children before and after chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments, among others.

The oncology center opened its doors in June 2016, but due to lack of funding, patients still receive radiation therapy in a different building. This accessibly problem requires patients walking outside to get to the current location of Rambam’s radiation therapy equipment when moving them hinders their recovery.

Rambam estimates, that approximately 1,200 Palestinian children and adults from the Palestinian Authority and Gaza visit the hospital every year for cancer treatment.

“Israeli and Palestinian both societies suffer from the damage of violence and I am striving towards a situation where we can all contribute to peace and health,” continues M. “One where we can take care of children, save lives, share knowledge and train Palestinian doctors at Rambam Hospital.”

M. added his goal is to improve the state of health systems and treatment capacities within the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, and encourage more Palestinians to contribute to health promotion between the two peoples.

“Medicine is a bridge between people and I hope that owing to this donation and those which will come after, we will all live a better tomorrow,” M. concluded.

Syrian refugee creates website to thank Israelis

Israel has very quietly helping Syrian refugees long before the rest of the world were paying attention to the conflict's human disaster.   There were/are many projects such as setting medical hospital up north, opening the borders to treat injured Syrians.  Israeli children collecting jackets and blankets in the winters to clothes Syrian children.  They were concerned that Syrians parents may not use Israeli clothes because the cloths tags are in Hebrew so they tore out all the tags.  They did not give the clothes/blankest for acknowledgment but to make sure the Syrian children are warm in the winter.    Israel doesn't toot its own horn when it engages in humanitarian aid.  They simply do it out of sense of compassion and express Jewish values.

Now,  a Syrian refugee living in Turkey feels safe enough to begin sharing.  He has many hits from Arabs who cannot speak out in encouragement to speak for them too 

 http://www.israel21c.org/syrian-refugee-creates-website-to-thank-israelis/

Questions for Chris Guiness UNWRA

Comment from a  student, Sima Sapir, of the Anbassadors Online course at Haifa University

UNRWA Spokesperson Chris Gunness harshly criticized our decision to demolish the homes of two terrorists who last December stabbed two Israelis to death at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.

A question for Mr. Gunness:
What’s it got to do with you?

Actually another one:
Who asked you? 

UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Its role is clear. It is meant to help Palestinians find work and if they can’t find work then to assist them with food and medication.

That’s it. It doesn’t have another role. There is nothing in UNRWA’s mandate which justifies intervention in security matters. There is nothing in Chris Guinness’ past which qualifies him to give us advice on how to protect ourselves.

And if we’re already speaking to you Chris, here are another few questions: 

a) Why doesn’t the State of Israel appear on maps in UNRWA schools? 

If you condemn violence, why were you silent when it became clear that an UNRWA building was used as a hiding place for a terror tunnel used to kill three Israeli soldiers? 

Why are the Palestinians the only ones in the world allowed to pass down the status of refugee from one generation to the next? Why can someone be born in Qatar, live in a villa in Paris, hold a Spanish passport and still be considered a Palestinian refugee?

b) Why is it that among the 23,000 UNRWA employees are there so many Hamas people (I didn’t say that Chris - as you know the Secretary General of your organization said so himself)?

c) In actual fact, why is it that only the Palestinians have a refugee agency of their own? What do they deserve that the 21.5 million refugees from Tibet, Darfur, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere don’t? 

d) How is it that since UNRWA was founded, in 1950, the number of refugees has increased from 750,000 to over 5 million (!) without a single Palestinian being expelled? Is UNRWA creating refugees?

e) And a question to the citizens of the United States: 

Do you know that your taxpayer dollars fund over a hundred million dollars a year of this insanity?

Syrian Refugees vs. Palestinian "Refugees"

Of approx 500,000 Arabs who were ordered out of Israel prior by the Arab armys' invasion in 1948, very few indeed are alive today.

The rest are not refugees as defined by the UNHCR– in the entire rest of the world, no-one can pass on refugee status to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

It's time UNRWA was wound up. It has been the greatest fraud in human history.

Exposing the greatest lie of the Middle East

There is so much disinformation about refugees. This video puts the facts forward in a no nonsense manner