Israel continues its campaign to eliminate Hamas, and the prospect of what happens to the tens of thousands of Palestinians who are now homeless is being considered.
Where will they be going?
Next-door Egypt is the obvious destination. Egypt does not want the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to turn into a triangular mess. The Palestinians won’t stop committing terrorist acts against Israel because they aren’t in Gaza. The Palestinians could also pose a threat to Egypt’s government because they have been invited as “guests”, in Jordan, and elsewhere.
Egypt will likely politely decline to host more than a few Palestinians. Syria and Lebanon already host Palestinian refugee camps which causes a lot of problems for the host governments. Jordan had the privilege of hosting Palestinians in the past, which resulted in a civil conflict and the expulsion from Jordan of the PLO into Lebanon.
The Gulf States? Saudi Arabia has begun to place greater importance on its commercial ties with Israel than the futures of the Palestinians. The smaller Gulf States — the Emirates and Qatar — will not accept refugees.
Europe is the only option. The attitude towards accepting refugees is very different from a decade back when Germany accepted almost a million migrants only from North Africa.
Washington Post:
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, warned at a European Union Summit in Brussels, last week, without providing any specific evidence, about how instability in Israel or Egypt would “immediately,” send people to Europe. He tried to link migration with terrorism by saying that “those who are in favor of migration also support terrorism.”
Although some E.U. Orban’s tone may irritate some E.U. leaders and officials, but Hungary isn’t an outlier. From Poland to Italy and Germany, politicians have stressed the need for a greater focus on closed doors due to violence in Israel or Gaza. The fear that besieged Palestinians would escape to Egypt has given new momentum to the European Commission’s proposal to pay Egypt in order to keep migrants out of the E.U.
The Europeans’ desperate act of paying Egypt to lock up Palestinians is a sign of their desperation. They’re familiar with the results of their good intentions in 2015, including a rise in crime and terror attacks, as well as a generational issue in trying to integrate two million refugees.
New York Sun:
Cairo warned reporters of an imminent “Palestinian Exodus” when Israel launched its aerial counter-strikes last month against Hamas terror facilities in the northern Gaza Strip.
This has not occurred, and Netanyahu told Giorgia Melons of Italy that Israel does not want a repeat of Dresden — the heavily damaged German city by British and American air bombardment during World War II. Estimates suggest that up to 300,000 Gazans may still wish to leave the Strip.
Europe and the U.S. will be occupied for several years by the decision of where to place 300,000 refugees. We hope that someone will tell Biden to be careful when he asks for volunteers to take in Palestinian refugees.
