The untold story of the Palestinians is their treatment by their fellow Arabs. In Jordan, for instance - just in case they thought they might ever be able to settle anywhere outside of the West Bank or Gaza:
Jordanian authorities have started revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan to avoid a situation in which they would be "resettled" permanently in the kingdom, Jordanian and Palestinian officials revealed on Monday.
The new measure has increased tensions between Jordanians and Palestinians, who make up around 70 percent of the kingdom's population.
The tensions reached their peak over the weekend when tens of thousands of fans of Jordan's Al-Faisali soccer team chanted slogans condemning Palestinians as traitors and collaborators with Israel. Al-Faisali was playing the rival Wihdat soccer team, made up of Jordanian-Palestinians, in the Jordanian town of Zarqa.
Anti-riot policemen had to interfere to stop the Jordanian fans from lynching the Wihdat team members and their fans, eyewitnesses reported. They said the Jordanian fans of Al-Faisali hurled empty bottles and fireworks at the Palestinian players and their supporters.
Reports in a number of Jordanian newspapers said that the Jordanian fans also chanted anti-Palestinian slogans and cursed Palestine, the PLO, Jerusalem and the Aksa Mosque.
None of this, unsurprisingly, has made the news outside Jordan or Israel. Here's an exception:
A grave injustice is being committed against the Palestinian people -- perhaps among the greatest in their history. Thousands are being systematically robbed of their citizenship, made stateless once more by a hard-hearted government that pays lip service to peace and the two-state solution, but which seems determined to undermine both.
Israel? No -- the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the monarchy that occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 and which has long had an uneasy relationship with its Palestinian majority. Now, cynically claiming that it has the Palestinians' best interests at heart, the regime of King Abdullah II has begun removing the citizenship of Palestinians with roots in the West Bank.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
The Jordanian policy is a clear violation of these fundamental rights. Thus far, it has been met with protest in Amman and mild complaint from the Jordanian media. Yet the rest of the world has been silent.
That includes the world's leading human rights organizations. As of this writing, the front page of Amnesty International's website features an appeal for Israel to cooperate with the UN's "independent" fact-finding mission on Gaza, but nothing on Jordan. Human Rights Watch, which recently bashed Israel for the benefit of donors in Saudi Arabia, has yet to react.
The official explanation given for the decision to revoke the citizenship of Jordanians of Palestinian origin is that Jordan wants to send a signal to the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu: Jordan will not allow Israel to "resettle" Palestinians in Jordan. Never mind that the people who are losing their citizenship were "resettled" in Jordan decades ago.
(via Solomonia):
Gee, I wonder if the UNHR commission will convene a special session to commend these Jordanian measures as the creative thinking in the innovation and application of new concepts in Human Rights.
Posted by: Noga | July 26, 2009 at 01:41 PM
The Hashemites who run Jordan have always been worried about the Israelis pushing the Palestinians out of the West Bank into Jordan and saying "This is your Palestinian state - enjoy".
Not that the Israelis would actually do it, but it's the sort of thing the Jordanians would do, so it's always concerned them a bit, however irrationally.
Posted by: maguro | July 27, 2009 at 02:54 AM
"...but it's the sort of thing the Jordanians would do"
What is the next step after citizens are stripped of their citizenship?
Posted by: Noga | July 28, 2009 at 01:19 AM
I am from Jordan, and I tell you that all what you claim here in this article is nothing but bullsh*t, I never heard of these incidents you mentioned!! if you hear a story from WestBank Palestineans that doesnt mean that it is true!
on mentioning Palestineans in Jordan, official and nonoficial estimates put the Palestineans who have full citizenship at 37% of Jordans population, and these are loyal to Jordan more than to Palestine or to anywhere else. 14% are palestineans with Jordanian yellow cards, these are the WestBankers living in Jordan, they are not full citzens but have all the rights of citizens, but may be revoked citizenship anytime, and there are another 3% palestineans with Jordanian green cards, these cards grant them peremanent residency but still need an entry visa to the kingdom, and are not allowed to work in the kingdom, so the news that you copied from the Jerusalem Post is more of a funny joke than being a news. there always can be a fight in a soccer match whether in Jordan, or in Europe or even on Mars. represnts the city it is coming from, one of these teams: Alwihdat is from the Wihdat reugee camp,
Posted by: Ali | October 05, 2009 at 09:12 AM