Palestinians are seen as the Jews of the Arab world
Editor’s Note: A longer version of this article appeared as a three-part series in Le Monde, June 15-17, 1982. It appears here by permission of the author. Since the article was written, the economic cutbacks in the Gulf have reduced jobs available to the Palestinians and also affected the...
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“They are everywhere…like the Jews.” This is what the Gulf natives and the other expatriates say of the Palestinians, and it’s hard to tell at first whether or not they are being malicious. Some are, in fact, admirers who practice an unconscious reverse “racism.” They generalize the supposed characteristics of Palestinians: intelligent, resourceful, effective, and imbued with an uncommon work ethic. Unfavorable prejudices lead others to depict the Palestinians as a closed community: greedy, intriguing, prideful, insolent and ... inclined to Western corruption and turpitude.
After 2003, the majority of Palestinians [in Iraq] were either killed or fled to the neighbouring countries of Syria and Jordan ... After the bombing of the Shia Muslim Al-Askari Mosque in the city of Samarra, the circumstances of those Palestinians living in Iraq worsened considerably as they became scapegoats, synonymous with "terrorists" and "insurgents". Human Rights Watch reported that in mid-March, an unknown militia group calling itself the "Judgment Day Brigades" distributed leaflets in Palestinian neighborhoods ... stating the following: "We warn that we will eliminate you all if you do not leave this area for good within ten days."
Palestinians were forced to leave Kuwait during one week in March 1991, following Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation. During a single week in March, the Palestinian population of Kuwait had almost entirely been deported out the country. ... According to the New York Times, Kuwaitis said the anger against Palestinians was such that there was little chance that those who had left during the seven-month occupation could ever return and relatively few of those remaining will be able to stay.[9]
In a speech on September I, 1995, Qaddafi declared his intention to expel all Palestinians from Libya. This he reiterated on September 4, in a speech given at Saloum on the Egyptian-Libyan border. Subsequently, thousands of Palestinians were put on ships and trucks and sent into an unknown future.