Yes, we must really pity the Palestinians, a people without a country and with very little hope, illustrated by the refugee camp in Yarmouk on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, according to Robert Fisk’s January 17 ZNet article/essay – “Yarmouk: A Camp Without Hope For A People Without A Land” . Yes, they are eternal refugees; from Palestine in 1947-1948, from Jordan in 1970-71, from Lebanon 1982; from Kuwait in 1991, and now Syria with seemingly no end in sight.. Yes, they were tragically expelled from their lands in mandate Palestine; opposed to King Hussein’s army in the mini-war in Jordan, causing them to flee and go into exile; becoming tragically entangled in Lebanon’s civil war by taking sides with the muslim left that doomed their stay there; and with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait. Their refusal to embrace neutrality has doomed and condemned them to endless misery and humiliation of being stateless. And now Syria’s political divisions have doomed them a lot more with seemingly not much hope and fulfillment for them; just making them much more marginalized, traumatized and impoverished.. Now they are losing their passports, job , and homes in Syria, thereby adding to their life of endless destitution with seemingly no end in sight. It makes one wonder if there is hope at the end of the tunnel.
Thus, the US, other powers, and the UN fail to offer any solution to the Palestinian’s plight. They, particularly the US, refused to rein in Israel for decades in their ,mistreatment of them and the colonization of the Occupied Territories, giving them a carte blanche to do whatever they want to do. And now the US expresses hypocritical concern for the ‘dreadful situation’ of the Palestinians. They are oppressed now by Arabs as well as by the Israelis. And the US ironically expresses sorrow for them which is nothing but lip service. Apparently, this is the tragic fate of the Palestinians that repeats itself, a Greek tragedy.
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