Why Is Jordan Keeping Out Palestinian Refugees? (GateStone Institute) by Khaled Abu Toameh 04/17/12)
Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3019/jordan-palestinian-refugees
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Jordan´s treatment of Palestinian refugees is not uncommon for an
Arab country. In the past, Palestinians have also been denied entry
into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Libya. Palestinians are being
held in tents, with poor sanitary conditions.
More than 1,000 Palestinians who fled from the violence in Syria and
were hoping to find temporary shelter in Jordan, have been stranded
along the border between Syria and Jordan for the past few weeks. The
Jordanian authorities have been refusing to allow them into the
kingdom.
The Jordanian authorities have set up a makeshift refugee camp along
the border with Syria, where the Palestinians are being held in
tents, with poor sanitary conditions.
Jordan´s treatment of Palestinian refugees is not uncommon for an
Arab country. Lebanon and Egypt have also refused to grant asylum to
the fleeing Palestinians. This is also not the first time that an
Arab country keeps Palestinians waiting on the border. In the past,
Palestinians have also been denied entry into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,
Egypt and Libya.
Arab support for the Palestinians has been largely rhetorical over
the past two decades, forcing the Palestinians to become almost
entirely dependent on American and EU taxpayers´ money.
Meanwhile, an additional 100,000 Syrians, who have fled their country
in the past year, have been permitted to enter Jordan.
The Jordanians are worried that if they allow a few hundred
Palestinians to settle in the kingdom, that would create a precedent
and pave the way for 500,000 Palestinians living in Syria to run away
to Jordan.
As Jordan´s King Abdullah already has a problem with the 80%
Palestinian majority in his kingdom, he does not want the
Palestinians in the kingdom. They pose a demographic threat to the
Jordanians.
The decision to ban the Palestinian refugees from entering Jordan
coincided with reports that the Jordanian authorities have begun
revoking the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinians which they had
previously been given.
Because the Palestinians pose a demographic threat to the Jordanians,
hundreds of thousands of them living in Jordan will lose their status
as Jordanian citizens.
The Jordanian government, according to sources in Amman, has even
decided to revoke the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinian Authority
leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas.
King Abdullah this week dispatched a high level delegation to
Ramallah to discuss the new measures against the Palestinians with
the Palestinian leadership. Headed by Jordan´s interior minister, the
delegation informed the Palestinians that the kingdom would not be
able to help the Palestinians who fled from Syria.
King Abdullah is so worried about the talk, mainly in Israel, about
the need to establish a Palestinian state in Jordan that he has just
instructed his government to come up with a new electoral law that
would keep Palestinians away from parliament and most government
institutions altogether.
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