Infographic: Refugees from war in Syria vs. from Gaza

Eugene Kontorovich writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

America Helps Make Gaza an Open-Air Prison

Refugees flee every other war, but Palestinians are kept prisoners of Hamas.

Gaza is unique among modern war zones. Despite being the center of a conflict fought in dense urban areas, it hasn’t produced waves of refugees leaving for neutral countries. This has been deliberate, the result of policies by Hamas and Egypt tacitly supported by the U.S.

Every prolonged conflict creates refugees. Months after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, 3.5 million Ukrainians had applied for temporary residence in countries such as Poland and Germany. The Syrian civil war produced five million refugees—nearly a quarter of the country’s prewar population. The U.S. invasion of Iraq produced two million international refugees, and a similar number of people were displaced internally. Fleeing a war zone and seeking asylum in a neutral country is a human right enshrined in the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. If civilians hadn’t been allowed to flee past conflicts, their death tolls would have been even higher.

Yet three months after Oct. 7, fewer than 1,000 people—either foreign nationals or wounded—have been allowed by Egypt and Hamas to leave Gaza. In Israel this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected the possibility of Israel helping Gazans who wish to escape the conflict to do so. But he also complained that the war’s toll on Gaza civilians was “far too high” and echoed earlier demands that Israel “do more” to reduce the collateral damage caused by Hamas’s hiding behind its population.

I had created this infographic to show the hypocrisy of the Arab and Muslim nations who allowed millions of Syria refugees to take refuge in their countries, compared to Gaza refugees.

Palestinians and the Arab world alike like to talk about Palestinian "sumud," or steadfastness - how they heroically stay on what they consider their land.

But Gazans want to leave. They are trying any and every means to find ways to exist Gaza. Their families are paying thousands of dollars to Egyptian brokers to in turn bribe officials to put their names on the lists of people allowed to leave.  (That bribery system has been around from way before October 7.)

Egypt and Jordan have flatly stated they do not want any Palestinians to take refuge in their countries, ostensibly both for security reasons and to enhance Palestinian "sumud." But as this infographic shows, there was no such insistence to keep Syrian civilians out of their countries during that country's civil war.

Not that Arab countries welcomed the Syrians with open arms; there was resistance. But in the end, millions of Syrians were able to flee to other Arab or Muslim-majority countries. Many of them returned in recent years. And these countries had also allowed refugees from Iraq and other trouble spots.

But no one wants Palestinians. 

Even when Palestinians want to leave. 

Before the war, some 29% of Gazans said they would like to emigrate. 

The news media simply doesn't want to highlight the hypocrisy in the Arab and Muslim world towards Palestinians - they claim that they support Palestinians but they simply do not want to save any of them. 

And nothing shows that hypocrisy better than comparing how Muslim countries allowed millions of Syrians to take refuge - and not one says they will accept the Palestinians they claim to support.

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