Posted by Dan Ewert : 4/30/2002 12:18:00 AM (Archive Link)
An interesting point I’ve noticed is that the Arab world cries out in support of the Palestinians and uses them and their plight as a universal rallying cry. However, from what I can tell, the Arab world also considers the Palestinians to be the armpit of their world. After the Gulf War, those staunch Palestinian supporters, the Kuwaitis, forcibly expelled some 300,000 Palestinians in an ethnic cleansing operation because of Arafat’s support for Saddam Hussein. Syria made a similar move. Before being allowed into Israel, the PLO was tossed out of several different Arab countries. At a recent conference of Islamic states, the organizers refused to air Arafat’s comments live… they taped them and showed them later. The Arab countries are the same as the American suburbanites who get choked up about the poor homeless people but still cross the street to avoid them. They think their conditions and their plight are horrible but they don’t personally want anything to do with them. As long as they stay at that homeless shelter of Palestine, the Arabs like them fine.