PLO and its Relations with Neighbours
As feared, PLO became the proverbial camel in the tent. The PLO harboured intentions of expanding its reach. They mounted a coup to depose the King in September 1970 to achieve this in Jordan. The Coup failed because of the Jordanian armed forces, who launched a full-fledged attack on the PLO. The PLO armed elements were driven out of the cities and later allowed to shift to Lebanon via Syria. This conflict came to be known as the Black September. The PLO element, which moved into south Lebanon, started creating trouble during the civil war 1975. PLO controlled the southern and western parts of Lebanon. They were one of the principal reasons for igniting the Lebanese civil war. They teamed up with the leftist Arab movement to fight the Christian nationalist Maronites. The civil war destroyed Lebanon. It lasted for 20 years and left Lebanon in complete disarray and ruins.
The PLO did not enjoy good relations with Syria either, as Yasser Arafat and Syrian President Hafez Assad did not trust each other. The Syrians were always suspicious of the Palestinian refugees in Syria. In the Syrian civil war, the Syrian forces targeted the Palestinian refugees and the PLO cadres. Later, in 2011, Hamas endorsed the Syrian civil uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, thus deepening the chasm even more.
Egypt has been a supporter of the Palestinian cause since the beginning of the formation of Israel. They provided moral and Political support and were the first to recognise Palestine as an independent state in 1988. Yet Egypt was never keen to allow any Palestinian refugee on their soil. Their plea was their hands were full of migrants from other Muslim countries, and they could not bear the burden of additional influx coming into their country. Egypt shares a border with the Gaza Strip, which has a check post at Rafah. Such an arrangement allowed them to send aid to the Gaza Strip and prevent the influx of refugees into their country. This happening was before the Arab Spring. Then, the Muslim Brotherhood happened. The group, which initiated the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2010, found support from Hamas, which was entrenched in Gaza. Wary of Hamas and their support to the Muslim Brotherhood, they never allowed any Palestinians to come into Egypt after that.
Hamas Era
When the Gaza Strip held elections in 2007 and voted Hamas to power with an overwhelming majority, it changed the equation for every Muslim nation in the region. After Yasser Arafat, the Fateh under Mahmoud Abbasi ruled Palestine's West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hamas was critical of Fateh, calling them too soft on Israel. They prophesied harsher opposition to Israeli occupation. The plank appealed to the Gazans in their newfound patriotic fervour, and they elected Hamas to power. Hamas is a militant organisation first and then a political one. All the neighbouring countries understood this attribute well, thus the desire to steer clear of them. There was no overt show of opposition, but the underlying currents were to signal distancing from Hamas in Gaza. All surveys from 2002 to 2014 indicate that Hamas was unpopular in neighbouring Muslim states. The PEW centre survey held in 2014 is given below.
 |
Source:PEW Research Centre : Spring 2014 Global Altitudes Survey: https://www.pewresearch.org/
As is evident from the above tables, the Muslim world population was not supportive of the Palestinian refugees and the Hamas organisation. The above survey was done in 2014 and may seem outdated. But the sentiment was very much against accepting Palestinians as refugees in neighbouring countries till mid of 2023. There are many reasons, and these are elaborated on later. On 07 Oct 2023, the Hamas executed a raid into Israel, killing its citizens and taking hostages. This Hamas operation gave way to a new conflict in the region. Israel went on a full-scale offensive. The Gaza Strip had a compulsory population migration to facilitate the Israeli offensive into the northern part of the Gaza Strip first and now the southern part of Gaza. Yet not one Islamic nation or Arab country announced that it would accept the outflow of Palestinian refugees. The two neighbouring countries, Egypt and Jordan, were categorical in stating that the Palestinian solution has to be found without the burden of refugees. Quoting from the Reuters report from Amman/Beirut on 14 Oct 2023: 'Calls for a humanitarian corridor or an escape route for Palestinians from Gaza as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has escalated, has drawn a blunt reaction from Arab neighbours. Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, and Jordan, which is next to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have both warned against Palestinians being forced off their land. It reflects deep Arab fears that Israel's latest war with Hamas in Gaza could spark a new wave of permanent displacement from the land where Palestinians want to build a future state'. In a statement to Reuters on the same day, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday. "It is important that the (Palestinian) people remain steadfast and present on their land."
No comments:
Post a Comment