Why Arabs Don't Want To Receive Palestinian Ex-Prisoners

Most of the Arab countries are refusing to receive Palestinians released from Israeli prison as part of the US-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal. In the past few weeks, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners -- many of whom were imprisoned for acts of terrorism -- in return for Israeli hostages who kidnapped to the Gaza Strip during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. At least 1,200 Israelis were murdered and thousands wounded on that day. Another 251 were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and "ordinary" Palestinians.

Some of the prisoners were released to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem. Many others were released to Egypt, with the hope that other Arab countries would host them. According to Palestinian sources, the Egyptians have agreed to allow only a handful of ex-prisoners to remain in Egypt, while dozens of others are searching for countries that will agree to receive them. With the exception of Qatar and Turkey (a non-Arab Muslim country), most of the Arab countries have reportedly refused to allow the released prisoners into their borders, the sources revealed.

The Jordanians and Lebanese, for their part, have not forgotten how Palestinians sparked civil wars in their countries in the 70s and 80s.

After the Palestinians tried to overthrow their host, King Hussein of Jordan, in 1970; then started a civil war in Lebanon right after that; then, when welcomed into Kuwait, took the side of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait in 1990, it is hard to blame any regime.

Egyptian-American author Dr. Sam Yousef commented:

"Arabs are really a disgrace to humanity and Islam!

"Tunisia and Jordan refuse to receive any of the released deported prisoners stuck in Egypt, and Algeria has not responded yet, while Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan will each receive 45 prisoners."

"The prisoners who were released and deported from Palestine and now stuck in hotels in Cairo. They are still wearing their prison clothes and have not changed them.

"There is no Arab country willing to accept them, not even those countries that were crying over the Gaza Strip, the Gazans and Palestine [during the Israel-Hamas war], and even keyboard heroes are unable to pressure their governments to accept the prisoners."

The Arab countries' refusal to receive the ex-prisoners should not come as a surprise to those familiar with the problematic relationship between the Palestinians and their Arab brethren. It is not uncommon to hear from many Palestinians how they have always felt betrayed by the Arab countries.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, an observant American Muslim, testified in 2018 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security:

"The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. Help us modern-minded, secular, liberal Muslims marginalize their influence by declaring what they are: a terrorist organization.

"Unfortunately, much of the conversation about the Brotherhood has been obstructed, muted, marginalized, deferred, minimized by the Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers or their allies here in the West....

"I ask my fellow Muslims: Will they be the side of freedom, liberty, and modernity, or will they be on the side of tyranny of the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey's AKP, the Iranian Khomeinists, or Pakistan's Jamaat e-Islami?

"Develop foreign policy mechanisms to disincentivize Qatari and Turkish Government facilitation of the Brotherhood and ultimately think about suspending Turkey from NATO....

"And please stop engaging Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups in government, media, and NGOs, and recognize their Islamist terrorist sympathies."

Such a designation would also make it far more difficult for the countries that support the Muslim Brotherhood, especially Turkey and Qatar, to keep on doing so. The Muslim Brotherhood has already been declared a terrorist organization by the governments of Austria, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Many of these Arabs understand that Hamas and many other Palestinians have no intention of abandoning the fight against Israel, a move that will result in more violence, bloodshed and destruction. That is also probably why no Arab country is going to invest one dollar in the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas remains in power and as long as Palestinian children are indoctrinated to murder Jews.

[TBC: For the full article, please see:]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21442/palestinian-ex-prisoners