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<span class="post_date" title="2015-09-17">September 17, 2015</span>
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="name"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/17/how-yarmouk-came-about-israels-unabashed-role-in-the-syrian-refugee-crisis/"
rel="bookmark">How Yarmouk Came About: Israel’s Unabashed Role
in the Syrian Refugee Crisis</a></h1>
<p class="post_meta"> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/ramzy-baroud/"
rel="nofollow">Ramzy Baroud<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/17/how-yarmouk-came-about-israels-unabashed-role-in-the-syrian-refugee-crisis/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/17/how-yarmouk-came-about-israels-unabashed-role-in-the-syrian-refugee-crisis/</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</a></span> </p>
<div class="post_content" itemprop="articleBody">
<p><span lang="EN-US">When Zionist Haganah militias carried out
Operation Yiftach, on May 19 1948, the aim was to drive
Palestinians in the northern Safad District which had declared
its independence a mere five days earlier, outside the border
of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The ethnic cleansing of Safad and its many
villages was not unique to that area. In fact, it was the
modus operandi of Zionist militias throughout Palestine. Soon
after Israel’s independence, and the conquering of historic
Palestine, the militias were joined together to form the
Israeli armed forces.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Not all villages, however, were completely
depopulated. Some residents in </span><span lang="EN-US"><a
href="http://www.villagesofpalestine.com/Qaytiyya.htm"
target="_blank">villages like Qaytiyya</a></span><span
lang="EN-US"> near the River Jordan, remained in their homes.
The village, located between two tributaries of the Jordan –
al-Hasbani and Dan rivers – hoped that normality would return
to their once tranquil village once the war subsides.</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Their fate, however, was worse than that of
those who were forced out, or who fled for fear of a terrible
fate. Israeli forces returned nearly a year later, rounded the
remaining villagers into large trucks, tortured many and
dumped the villagers somewhere south of Safad. Little is known
about their fate, but many of those who survived ended up in
Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Yarmouk was not established until 1957, and
even then it was not an ‘official’ refugee camp. Many of its
inhabitants were squatters in Sahl al-Yarmouk and other areas,
before they were brought to Shaghour al-Basatin, near Ghouta.
The area was renamed Yarmouk.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Many of Yarmouk’s refugees originate from
northern Palestine, the Safad District, and villages like
Qaytiyya, al-Ja’ouneh and Khisas. They subsisted in that
region for nearly 67 years. Unable to return to Palestine, yet
hoping to do so, they named the streets of their camp, its
neighborhoods, even its bakeries, pharmacies and schools,
after villages from which they were once driven.</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">When the Syrian uprising-turned-civil-war
began in March 2011, many advocated that Palestinians in Syria
should be spared the conflict. The scars and awful memories of
other regional conflicts – the Jordan civil war, the Lebanese
civil war, the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, and the US invasion of
Iraq wherein hundreds and thousands of Palestinian civilians
paid a heavy price – remained in the hearts and minds of many.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">But calls for ‘hiyad’ – neutrality – were
not heeded by the war’s multiple parties, and the Palestinian
leadership, incompetent and clustered in Ramallah, failed to
assess the seriousness of the situation, or provide any
guidance – moral or political.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The results were horrific. Over 3,000
Palestinians were killed, tens of thousands of Palestinian
refugees fled Syria, thousands more became internally
displaced and the hopeless journey away from the homeland
continued on its horrific course.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Yarmouk – a refugee camp of over 200,000
inhabitants, most of whom are registered refugees with the UN
agency, UNRWA – was reduced to less than 20,000. Much of the
camp stood in total ruins. Hundreds of its residents either
starved to death or were killed in the war. The rest fled to
other parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Europe.</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The most natural order of things would have
been the return of the refugees to Safad and villages like
Qaytiyya. Yet, few made such calls, and those demands </span><span
lang="EN-US"><a
href="http://www.villagesofpalestine.com/Qaytiyya.htm"
target="_blank">raised by Palestinians officials</a></span><span
lang="EN-US"> were dismissed by Israel as non-starters.</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">In fact while </span><span lang="EN-US"><a
href="https://www.mercycorps.org.uk/articles/turkey-iraq-jordan-lebanon-syria/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-syria-crisis"
target="_blank">countries like Lebanon had accepted 1.72
million refugees</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> (one in every
five people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee), Turkey 1.93
million, Jordan 629,000, Iraq 249,000, and Egypt 132,000,
Israel made no offer to accept a single refugee.</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Israel, whose economy is the strongest in
the region, has been the most tight-fisted in terms of
offering shelter to Syrian refugees. This is a double sin
considering that even Syria’s Palestinian refugees, who were
expelled from their own homes in Palestine, were also left
homeless.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Not surprisingly, there was no international
uproar against a financially able Israel for blatantly
shutting its door in the face of desperate refugees, while
bankrupt Greece was rightly chastised for not doing enough to
host hundreds of thousands of refugees.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US"><a
href="http://www.irinnews.org/report/101948/europe-doesn-t-have-a-migrant-crisis-it-has-a-syrian-crisis"
target="_blank">According to UN statistics</a></span><span
lang="EN-US">, by the end of August of this year, nearly
239,000 refugees, mostly Syrians, landed on Greek islands
seeking passage to mainland Europe. Greece is not alone.
Between January and August this year 114,000 landed in Italy
(coming mostly from Libya), seeking safety. Around the same
time last year, almost as many refugees were recorded seeking
access to Europe.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Europe is both morally and politically
accountable for hosting and caring for these refugees,
considering its culpability in past Middle East wars and
ongoing conflicts. Some are doing exactly that, including
Germany, Sweden and others, while countries, like Britain,
have been utterly oblivious and downright callous towards
refugees. Still, thousands of ordinary European citizens, as
would any human being with an ounce of empathy, are
volunteering to help refugees in both Eastern and Western
Europe.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The same cannot be told of Israel, which has
alone ignited most of the Middle East conflicts in recent
decades. Instead the debate in Israel continues to center on
demographic threats, while loaded with racial connotations
about the need to preserve a so-called Jewish identity.
Strangely, few in the media have picked up on that or found
such a position particularly egregious at the time of an
unprecedented humanitarian crisis.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">In </span><span lang="EN-US"><a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/06/us-europe-migrants-israel-idUSKCN0R60G720150906"
target="_blank">recent comments</a></span><span lang="EN-US">
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected calls to
admit Syrian refugees into Israel, once more unleashing the
demographic rationale, which sees any non-Jews in Israel, be
they African refugees, Syrians, or even the country’s original
Palestinian inhabitants, as a ‘demographic threat.”</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">“Israel is a very small state. It has no
geographic depth or demographic depth,” he said on the 6<sup>th</sup>
September.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">When Israel was established on the ruins of
destroyed Palestine, Palestinian Jews were a small minority.
It took multiple campaigns of ethnic cleaning, which created
the Palestinian refugee problem in the first place, to create
a Jewish majority in the newly-founded Israel. Now,
Palestinian Arabs are only a fifth of Israel’s 8.3 million
population. And for many in Israel, </span><span lang="EN-US"><a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011124105622779946.html"
target="_blank">even such small numbers are a cause for
alarm</a></span><span lang="EN-US">!</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">While the refugees of Qaytiyya, who became
refugees time and again, are still denied their
internationally-enshrined right of return per United Nations
resolution 194 of December 1948, Israel is allowed a special
status. It is neither rebuked nor forced to repatriate
Palestinian refugees, and is now exempt from playing even if a
minor role in alleviating the deteriorating refugee crisis.</span><span
lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Greece, Hungry, Serbia, Macedonia, the UK,
Italy and other European countries, along with rich Arab Gulf
countries must be relentlessly pressured to help Syrian
refugees until they safely return home. Why then should Israel
be spared this necessary course of action? Moreover, it must,
even more forcefully be pressured to play a part in relieving
the refugee crisis, starting with the refugees of Qaytiyya,
who relive the fate they suffered 67 years ago.</span></p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="author_description"> <em><strong>Dr. Ramzy Baroud</strong>
has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He
is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media
consultant, an author of several books and the founder of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a
Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
His website is: ramzybaroud.net</em> </p>
</div>
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