"The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," declared United Sates President Barack Obama in his June 4 Cairo address. Really? Compared to what? Things are tough all over. The Palestinians are one of many groups displaced by the population exchanges that followed World War II, and the only ones whose great-grandchildren still have the legal status of refugees. Why are they still there? The simplest explanation is that they like it there, because they are much better off than people of similar capacities in other Arab countries.
The standard tables of gross domestic product (GDP) per capital show the West Bank and Gaza at US$1,700, just below Egypt's $1,900 and significantly below Syria's $2,250 and Jordan's $3,000. GDP does not include foreign aid, however, which adds roughly 30% to spendable funds in the Palestinian territories. Most important, the denominator of the GDP per capita equation - the number of people - is far lower than official data indicate. According to an authoritative study by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies [1], the West Bank and Gaza population in 2004 was only 2.5 million, rather than the 3.8 million claimed by the Palestinian authorities. The numbers are inflated to increase foreign aid.
Adjusting for the Begin-Sadat Center population count and adding in foreign aid, GDP per capita in the West Bank and Gaza comes to $3,380, much higher than in Egypt and significantly higher than in Syria or Jordan. Why should any Palestinian refugee resettle in a neighboring Arab country?
GDP per capita, moreover, does not reflect the spending power of ordinary people. Forty-four percent of Egyptians, for example, live on less than $2 a day, the United Nations estimates. The enormous state bureaucracy eats up a huge portion of national income. New immigrants to Egypt who do not have access to government jobs are likely to live far more poorly than per capita GDP would suggest.
Other data confirm that Palestinians enjoy a higher living standard than their Arab neighbors. A fail-safe gauge is life expectancy. The West Bank and Gaza show better numbers than most of the Muslim world:
Life Expectancy by Country in Years
Oman 75.6
Bahrain 75.6
West Bank and Gaza 73.4
Saudi Arabia 72.8
Jordan 72.5
Algeria 72.3
Turkey 71.8
Egypt 71.3
Morocco 71.2
Iran 71.0
Pakistan 65.5
Yemen 62.7
Sudan 58.6
Somalia 48.2
Source: United Nations
Literacy in the Palestinian Authority domain is 92.4%, equal to that of Singapore. That is far better than the 71.4% in Egypt, or 80.8% in Syria.
Without disputing Obama's claim that life for the Palestinians is intolerable, it is fair to ask: where is life not intolerable in the Arab world? When the first UN Arab Development Report appeared in 2002, it elicited comments such as this one from the London Economist: "With barely an exception, its autocratic rulers, whether presidents or kings, give up their authority only when they die; its elections are a sick joke; half its people are treated as lesser legal and economic beings, and more than half its young, burdened by joblessness and stifled by conservative religious tradition, are said to want to get out of the place as soon as they can." Life sounds intolerable for the Arabs generally; their best poet, the Syrian "Adonis" - Ali Ahmad Said Asbar - calls them an "extinct people".
Palestinian Arabs are highly literate, richer and healthier than people in most other Arab countries, thanks to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the blackmail payments of Western as well as Arab governments. As refugees, they live longer and better than their counterparts in adjacent Arab countries. It is not surprising that they do not want to be absorbed into other Arab countries and cease to be refugees.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/18/2009 00:00 ||
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There's also the pesky little problem of their Arab "brothers" not wanting them. The only thing between the Paleos and a state is themselves.
By now, most people know that the Iranian regime treats its dissidents with unrestrained barbarity. Even the leading dead tree media have reported anecdotally on the torture of prisoners and the bashing, beating, axing and stabbing of protestors in the streets of the major cities. But it is not easy to get a clear picture of the dimensions of the savagery. Itâs hard to get the real numbers on the bloody repression the mullahs have unleashed on their people, and one reasonâperhaps the most important oneâis that the regime is doing everything in its power to conceal the facts, typically using the same cruel methods that filled the prisons in the first place.
Officially, the regime claims only 37 dead since the demonstrations began on the 12th of June, but about 1800 persons remain unaccounted for. The real figure is very close to five hundred known dead. And, according to reliable sources, the morgues still have a stockpiles of about 400 corpses. Each day three to four corpses are released to relatives.
The release of the cadavers follows a singularly macabre procedure. Close relatives, such as mothers, are ordered to report to a particular prison. Upon arrival they are immediately â and totally unexpectedly â jailed for two days. After these two days they are told that they can be released but that they first have to sign a secrecy pledge about their treatment and a declaration that their loved one had died of âinnocent causes,â such as a car crash. The regime uses several other non-torture related death causes, such as brain injury, heart surgery, etc.
After signing the papers the relative can receive the corpse. Upon receipt of the corpse of the [mainly young] man or woman, the real cause of deathâbrutal tortureâbecomes obvious. They see their loved one totally beaten up, nails pulled out, evidence of rape, bodies covered with so many burns that it is difficult to recognize the dead person, and the like.
Despite the secrecy pledge, these horrendous details are now emerging and even members of the usually very loyal part of the clergy are now disgusted and upset. Indeed, there is so much disgust with the supreme leader and his men, that the country is inundated by leaks from the highest level of the regime.
The most famous of these leaks were contained in a letter written by one of the leaders of the opposition Green Movement, Mehdi Karroubi, to his sometime ally, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who still sits in the countryâs two most powerful âlegislativeâ bodies, the Guardian Council and the Council of Experts.
Karroubiâs letter was published on August 9th in a newspaper close to his group, and then reprinted on the reformist Norooz web site. The principal accusation was the sexual torture of prisoners. Citing âpeople who hold sensitive positions in the regime,â Karroubi wrote:
Some of the detainees say that [certain] people [in the prisons] are raping girls who have been arrested, causing them vaginal tearing and injuries. They are also raping young boys, causing them depression and severe physical and emotional harm⊠so that [after their release] they hide in the corners of their homes.
In light of the gravity of [these allegations], I expect you, as head of the Assembly of Experts, [to form] a committee to will investigate and deal with this matter objectively and transparentlyâŠ
Although the rape of prisoners is a longstanding practice in the Islamic Republic, the letter produced a considerable outcry. The Parliament appointed a special investigator, who said he could not digest the horrible details (or perhaps face the consequences to himself if he submitted an accurate report), and promptly resigned. But his resignation was rejected. Meanwhile Karroubi himself has left Tehran for his native Lorestan, where he can count on the protection of his people. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
08/18/2009 00:00 ||
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Obviously they acted stupidly in this matter... Oh wait, I can't say that to "them", can I?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
