As refugees from the Middle East and North Africa try desperately to get into Europe, the nearby and wealthy Arab states of the Persian Gulf refuse to absorb any of them, claiming, among other things, that “it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us.” It is only the poorest Arab states, Denis MacEoin notes, that have taken in refugees—“and there are other ironies” as well:
According to [one report], Syrian refugees now safely in Italy still believe that their greatest enemy is not the Assad regime, the rebel fighters, Islamic State, or the Gulf states, but Israel. . . . In the meantime—which is where the irony lies—IsraAID, the main Israeli international relief organization, is helping Arab refugees in Greece and is in talks with the Greek government to set up a long-term presence there. . . . According to [an IsraAID official, the organization] “is already working in Jordan and the Kurdish region of Iraq to help them absorb Syrian refugees.” . . .
So here is the greatest of the many ironies we have seen here. The greatest enemy of the Arabs (by their definition . . . ) is part of an international effort to assist the resettlement of the Syrian refugees, while [Saudi Arabia], their self-proclaimed greatest friend, the nation that boasts of being the leader of the Islamic world, turns them aside in pursuit of profit and a gargantuan lack of humanity. . . .
This crisis . . . demonstrates the abject failure of the EU, the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or anybody else to criticize the bloated nations of the Gulf with even a tiny fraction of the abuse they pour daily on the only democratic state in the Middle East, Israel. It is a repetition of the ongoing Palestinian refugee crisis, with the Arab states refusing to give jobs and citizenship to Palestinian Arabs over decades, keeping them in refugee camps, and laying the blame on Israel.
Read more on Gatestone: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6502/refugees-arab-states