Bombing Refugee Camps in Gaza Instead of Paying the Refugees Reparations

[DogPoundPup]

The news keeps reporting that the Israeli air force bombed refugee camps in Gaza.

Did you ever wonder how those refugee camps got to be in Gaza? Cont'd . . .

I mean, where are they refugees from? There didn't used to be refugees in Gaza, before 1948, after all. The grandparents of today's refugees were living in their own homes, which their ancestors had lived in for centuries if not millennia.

After Germany created Jewish refugees in WW II, it was made to pay reparations to the victims, right?

Israel hasn't paid a dime to any of the Palestinian families it expelled in 1948,

Continue reading http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/bombing-refugee-camps-in-gaza-instead.html

[stray cat]

1. You could argue that Britain and the US should pay as well.

or Jordan and other arab states for those homeless since 1967

[hack89]

2. There are refugee camps because the Arab countries

refused to accept and assimilate Palestinian refugees that were created by all the wars they started. The Arabs despise and fear the Palestinians and want them only as pawns against Israel.

Israel should pay some reparations as part of a comprehensive peace plan, but don't try to convince me that the camps were inevitable - all those refugees could have been helped a lot more by their Arab brethren. Why weren't they?

[aquart]

3. Reparations? Were they landowners?

How about the land that was set aside for them? THE LARGEST PORTION OF THE PALESTINE MANDATE! What did they do with THAT land? They weren't kicked out of Palestine. They were give ALL of it except one tiny part which had been paid for (at inflated values) by Zionist fundraising to absentee Arab landlords living it up in Beirut. So the Arabs who actually had title to that wasteland already had their money.

As for the refugee camps, the Palestinians had millions at their disposal. MILLIONS. Check the New York Times archives, they did a two-page spread on what they had and what they owned. Embassies in 94 countries...have you ever seen an embassy in a low-rent district? Remember, that includes staffing and security. The people who went out to work were getting tithed and the Arab nations were being flat out blackmailed to pay the Palestinians. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?

Who else on the planet is a "refugee" sixty years after the event?

[Igel]

4. I think there might have been some refugees in Gaza in '46, '47.

IIRC, there was a kibbutz there on land that was bought by Jews from Arabs. They probably took in at least a few Jewish refugees from Europe.

Of course, if there were, they cleansed by Egypt in '48 (or "fled") and became refugees with the other soon-to-be-Israelis that lived there. Oddly, Egypt didn't compensate the refugees in '48. Then again, that utterance has two meanings, doesn't it? Of course, the land was repurchased after '68 and the settlement set up again, only to be cleansed--this time by the Israelis, but because the Palestinians believed the soil, thrice bought by Jews, was still stolen from Palestinians. But at least those families were compensated.