Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
No.
Egypt imposes a blockade, because
1) Hamas is dangerous. They've attacked multiple targets in the Sinai Pininsula in the past.
2) Hamas is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. An organization trying to over run Egypt.
3) Egypt (and the other states) want to keep Palestinian refugees as Palestinian refugees. After 1949, Egypt and the other Arab states had the rules of what makes a refugee changed for this particular situation. Anyone who had been in what is now Israel for 2 or more years or their descendents were considered Palestinian refugees. The Arab states then stripped these people of citizenship and property. Yasser Arafat's dad had Egyptian citizenship (so did Yasser) and property. After 1949, the Egyptian government confiscated his land and removed his citizenship, as he had been living in what is no Gaza.
If Egypt opens the border, the Palestinians will move to Egypt. They will cease to be Israel's problem. The military option failed in 1949, so the Arab states would ensure a demographic weapon. All of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan have had all sorts of migration across their borders. The only Arabs denied citizenship are the Palestinian ones.
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1) Those are all allegations right now and as of yet are still unproven.
2) Huh? Until very recently the Muslim Brotherhood were ruling Egypt, but the blockade continued in order to not upset Israel.
3) the UN is what defined what is and what isn't a refugee. In Arab culture you take the nationality of what your father is. I'm pretty sure neither Arafat nor his father ever had Egyptian citizenship since their patrilieal ancestry is Palestinian. Being born in an Arab country doesn't automatically give you citizenship of that country (I would know, I was born in the UAE but do not hold Emirati citizenship). Furthermore, this isn't a Palestinian only definition of what is or what isn't a refugee. There are 200,000 Iraqis currently living in Jordan without being granted Jordanian citizenship. In fact 40% of Palestinian refugees in Jordan were granted citizenship, something Iraqis don't enjoy. This comment seems like a thinly veiled attempt to deligitimize the Palestinians existence and I'm not going into that argument. The fact is, both Palestinians and Israelis exist today whether either side likes it or not. Neither side is leaving, so they better find a way to live with each other.