Friday, July 24, 2009
Joel Pollak on the mass stripping of Jordanian citizenship from Palestinian Arabs: Palestinian Rights: A Warning
A grave injustice is being committed against the Palestinian people -- perhaps among the greatest in their history. Thousands are being systematically robbed of their citizenship, made stateless once more by a hard-hearted government that pays lip service to peace and the two-state solution, but which seems determined to undermine both.
Israel? No -- the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the monarchy that occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 and which has long had an uneasy relationship with its Palestinian majority. Now, cynically claiming that it has the Palestinians' best interests at heart, the regime of King Abdullah II has begun removing the citizenship of Palestinians with roots in the West Bank.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
The Jordanian policy is a clear violation of these fundamental rights. Thus far, it has been met with protest in Amman and mild complaint from the Jordanian media. Yet the rest of the world has been silent.
That includes the world's leading human rights organizations. As of this writing, the front page of Amnesty International's website features an appeal for Israel to cooperate with the UN's "independent" fact-finding mission on Gaza, but nothing on Jordan. Human Rights Watch, which recently bashed Israel for the benefit of donors in Saudi Arabia, has yet to react...
why are these things never in the main news? why do I have to find them in a smaller site liek yours?
what a pity the Media does not have a News branch anymore.
Tip of the iceberg.
Admittedly, I have not read the constitutions, Sharia law dictates, statutes, etc. of all twenty-two members of the Arab League, but I've read summaries by analysts who indicate they are acquainted with the relevant statutes of these states and they have indicated that not one of the Arab League states allows Palestinians to become citizens, not even via marriage or accident of birth. (I'm open to being corrected, but I've read three or four summaries over the years, all confirming this general set of policies, coordinated via the Arab League.)
Jordan and Egypt are noteworthy, especially so the former as anyone acquainted with the history of the Sunni Arabs in question and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will know. Still, more broadly, this is a policy coordinated via the Arab League - the Arab Muslim nations in the Maghreb, the Levant and the Saudi peninsula, Somalia and Sudan additionally.
Btw, the Sunni Arab claim to the land that Israel comprises is based upon their concept of the waqf (***), essentially that since they once ruled the area (in actuality for about a century) they therefore have an ongoing claim to it in perpetuity. Of course they also hate Jews and hate Israel, but in terms of Islamicist dictates and claims in general (similar to what they apply, in concept, to the larger part of Spain and other lands still), that is underlying rationale.
*** I'm not certain but I don't believe "waqf" is the more precise and proper term, my Islamicist vocabulary is admittedly wanting and, regardless, "waqf" does convey a sense of a presumptive and arrogated claim based upon imperial/historical Islamicist principles.