As European countries struggle to absorb the flood of migrants from the war-torn Middle East, Joel Golovensky asks why wealthy Arab countries aren’t opening their doors—and sees similarities with the same countries’ past refusal to absorb or settle Palestinian refugees:
While hundreds of millions of refugees all over the world have been successfully resettled and integrated into their new worlds, the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of these Palestinian refugees have been cynically kept hostages to hate and to the blind rejection of the reality their own leaders imposed. These same wealthy Arab states also renege on their pledges to support the Palestinian Authority operating budget, shifting yet another Arab obligation onto the shoulders of Europe and the U.S.
Why do world leaders not demand that these rich Arab states take care of their own brother Arabs and fellow Muslims? . . . Why are these Arab refugees, running from Arab hostility and Arab cruelty, a European responsibility?
It seems to me that this is a manifestation of raw racism. . . . It’s as if the world does not hold Arabs to accepted norms of human compassion, empathy, and moral obligation. It’s as if the world does not expect Muslim Arabs to care about their own brothers and sisters. No one dares mention their obligations and their naked repudiation of responsibility. Is the underlying premise that they are somehow different or inferior, or that their culture and code of conduct cannot be judged by Western standards? Do we implicitly discredit their culture and unthinkingly excuse them from humanitarian and international responsibility?
Read more on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Western-racism-gives-the-Arab-Gulf-states-a-free-pass-417990