The Palestinian Situation

Hello friends. I realize that over the past few months, I have given you the Israeli side of things in the majority of my blog posts. I will not apologize for this, because the pro-Israel point of view is becoming incredibly rare, almost extinct, in day-to-day conversations and media reports. However, I realize that an imbalance exists, and that I have devoted little time and attention to articulating the Palestinian situation. I will attempt to do so now. The Palestinians are currently going through an incredible amount of pain and suffering that is almost unimaginable to an American audience. When talking about the Palestinians, it is necessary to break up the discussion into three categories: the Palestinians living in Gaza, the Palestinians living in the West Bank, and the Palestinians living in refugee camps in other Arab countries. The Palestinians in Gaza are subjugated to some of the worst living conditions on earth. Many of them are unemployed, and families have to get by on an average of $1230 a year. Most of the Palestinians in Gaza are forced to live in cramped, overcrowded refugee camps. They are ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, a tyrannical government with a law system similar to the one the Taliban once used in Afghanistan. To make matters even worse, Gaza is under a military blockade by the Israelis due to Hamas's habit of launching missiles at Israeli civilian centers. This makes food and other necessary items almost impossible to obtain for rank and file Palestinians. The situation is indescribable, and I pray for a solution that can bring some kind of peace so that the civilians caught between the Hamas terrorists and the Israeli military can be assured of life with dignity. The Palestinians in the West Bank are somewhat better off than their brothers and sisters in Gaza. They are under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, a "democratic" form of government run by President Abbas, Yasser Arafat's successor. While this government "rules" the West Bank, in reality it lives and breaths at the pleasure of the Israeli Army. The Israeli Defense Forces currently occupy much of the West Bank in the name of national security, and Israeli settlements are slowly taking more and more of the territory for Israelis and leaving the Palestinians living there with less and less of the pie. Israeli roads, checkpoints, military bases, and settlements divide up the West Bank from north to south and east to west, giving the Palestinians very little land for them to actually "rule". There is no question that some Israeli soldiers stationed in the West Bank occasionally abuse their authority and make the lives of the Palestinians living there extremely difficult. The Palestinians of the West Bank, however, are more upset with their impotent government at the moment. Some of them have just received their "December salaries" when we are currently in April. The government takes the lion-share of foreign aid for itself, creating 28 ministries when 18 would do and giving President Abbas a 15 car convoy to travel two miles, all of them brand new Mercedes. Corruption is rampant. Low-level government employees are forced to beg on the streets because their salaries haven't been paid in months. My Palestinian history professor often talks about this corruption and lack of leadership coming from the Palestinian Authority. Elections have not been held in years, and he calls for Abbas to have the guts to actually let the people decide on a course of action and choose their own rulers. Lastly, the Palestinians in the refugee camps scattered throughout the Arab countries surrounding Israel also live unenviable existences. There is massive unemployment, very little money, and very little hope of life getting better any time soon. Their "Arab Brothers", who encouraged them to revolt and promised a massive Arab victory in 1948, turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the horrible life these people are living and their pleas for help. The grand majority of them look down on the Palestinians with disgust, viewing them as, at best, second class citizens. Only in Jordan have the refugees been somewhat accepted with open arms. Palestinians there have received Jordanian citizenship, and Palestinians make up a majority of the country's citizens. Across all three areas, the current Palestinian existence can generally be described as grim. These are people, just like you and me, hoping for a better tomorrow and a better life for their children. Sure, there are radicals who preach terrorism, but we must not paint a people with a rich history with such a broad brush. Saying every Palestinian is a terrorist is like saying every American wears a cowboy hat everyday and drives a hummer. It's silly, ridiculous, and fundamentally untrue. What we have to remember at the end of the day is that these are people just like you and me, people whom God calls us to love and care for. Do I have a solution to the problem? No of course not. Is there a perfect solution? Probably not. What I have written here barely scratches the surface on Palestinian life here in the Middle East, and I encourage you to read up on it and educate yourselves more thoroughly before making a judgement. At the end of the day, however, something positive has to be done, because these people can't live like this forever.