Palestinian exodus from Syria feared
(JNS.org) The recent fighting in Damascus has led to fears of a mass Palestinian exodus from Syria to neighboring Lebanon and Jordan, generating concern amongst officials in those countries.
Palestinian officials say more than 90 percent of the 180,000 Palestinians they call refugees in the Yarmouk camp near Damascus have been displaced. Palestinians say Syria is home to an estimated 500,000 Palestinian refugees—a number that some consider to be inflated because the United Nations, breaking its typical policy, also considers the descendants of Arabs who fled Israel during the 1948 War of Independence to be refugees.
Arab leaders for decades have refused to resolve the status of their refugees in order to deflect criticism of their own failures and maintain pressure on Israel. As a result, many of Arab states have denied Palestinians basic rights such as health care, employment and services in order to distance themselves from the responsibility of the problem.
Jordan, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and is one of the few Arab countries to give Palestinians citizenship, is denying entry to Palestinians while allowing Syrian refugees in.
“Jordan is not a place for solving Israel’s problems, and there is a clear, sovereign Jordanian decision to deny entry to Palestinians,” Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Ensour told the Arab daily al-Hayat on Jan. 10, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In Lebanon, already home to more than half a million Palestinian “refugees,” officials worry that a further arrival of Palestinians would disrupt the country’s delicate sectarian balance.
Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he rejected a recent UN-brokered deal with Israel to allow Palestinian refugees from Syria into the West Bank and Gaza. He told journalists in Cairo that he would rather “they die in Syria than give up their right of return [to Israel],” the Associated Press reported.
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France holding up EU consensus declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization
(JNS.org) Attempts by the European Union (EU) to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization have been stalled as a result of the inability of the 27-member community to reach a consensus on the issue.
Recent efforts to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization come amid reports confirming the involvement of Hezbollah and Iran (Hezbollah’s funder) in the terror attack against Israeli tourists in Bulgaria—an EU member state – last summer.
The U.S., Canada and Israel consider the Lebanon-based group to be a terrorist organization. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a resolution urging the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terror group and to impose sanctions.
But according to the Jerusalem Post, France is blocking the designation in order to preserve its leverage in Lebanon, a former French possession, and to prevent retaliation from Hezbollah.
The stalled measure comes despite Hezbollah’s past terrorist attacks against the French. In 1983, Hezbollah, with Iran’s support, detonated two separate truck bombs outside the American and French military barracks in Beirut, killing 299 American and French servicemen.
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Netanyahu moves ahead with E1 construction
(JNS.org) Just more than a week ahead of the Israeli general elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to move ahead with construction in the E1 zone between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim, following the eviction of Palestinian protestors from the area on Sunday.
The E1 zone—short for East 1—is a 4.6 square mile area consisting mainly of rocky desert, located just east of Jerusalem.
Netanyahu originally announced plans for construction in the area in late November, after the Palestinians’ status upgrade at the United Nations.
Palestinian activists, with the support of the Palestinian Authority (PA), recently established a tent city in the area to protest the Israeli announcement. The Palestinians maintain that the area is essential for continuity of a future Palestinian state and their proposed capital in eastern Jerusalem.
Late Saturday, Netanyahu ordered the police to remove the protestors.
Despite opposition from Palestinians and the international community, Netanyahu told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday that “we will complete the planning, and there will be construction.”
Israel argues that it hold on to the E1 area in any peace agreement and compensate the Palestinians with land swaps. Israel needs the area in order to maintain a connection with the large Jewish commuter city of Ma’ale Adumim, which is east of the E1 zone.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org