Expulsion of Pals from Kuwait
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Peace, )
Recently I heard that after the first Gulf war, around 300.000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait and replaced by Pakistanis and Filipinos. And I also heard that they were in support of Saddam Hussein. Anyone can tell me the real story? Especially why the Pals supported Saddam?
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Saddam used the whole situation in Palestine to promote his 'Leader of the Arab world' image, the families of Palestinian suicide bombers would be payed a certain sum by the Ba'athist Administration for their martyred relative.
Also, many were allowed exlclusive use of the Saddam Hospital in Baghdad, the best hospital in Iraq at that time by far. And on top of that Saddam was pretty much the only Arab leader capable of bombing downtown Tel Aviv which occurred during the Gulf War, so you see, this is why Saddam may have been considered a hero by Palestinians.
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It was really low of Kuwait to expell 400,000 Palestinians (most of who obviously were oppressed by Saddam themselves). Most Palestinians that were expelled didin't even support Saddam, and most Palestinian politicians weren't exactly a fan of Saddam but rather opposed. While it is true that many Palestinian politicians opposed the US invasion of Iraq, they did not oppose the removal of Saddam. What they merely argued was that it should have been the Arab countries who should have dealt with Saddam instead of the US. There were some politicians in the PLO who were critical of Saddam too but later on ended up assassinated (by groups like Abu Nidal Organization). Arafat's top aide Abu Iyad for example vowed to stay neutral and opposed an alliance with Saddam but was assassinated some days later. I agree that you should expell the morons who want to destroy your country along with their supporters, but to expell people who weren't even involved is complete retardation and a huge generalization. It even makes you no different than Saddam who oppressed the populations he controlled. Kuwait doesn't even know if those 400,000 supported Saddam's invasion. It just expelled them because they were Palestinians.
If you read here you will see how Palestinians were being oppressed by Saddam in Kuwait themselves https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_expulsion_from_Kuwait#During_Iraqi_occupation This debunks the Kuwaiti myth.
"The massive exodus of Palestinians and Jordanians of Palestinian descent from Kuwait began with the Iraqi invasion into the country in summer 1990. The exodus included both Kuwaitis and Palestinians, who were forming a large percentage of Kuwaiti residents. Out of initial 350,000 people of Palestinian descent who resided in Kuwait in mid-1990, more than 200,000 fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, due to harassment and intimidation by Iraqi security forces, in addition to getting fired from work by Iraqi authority figures in Kuwait. The Iraqi education ministry in Kuwait fired 3,000 Palestinians in September 1990, and the dismissals of Palestinians from other sectors continued throughout October. The Iraqis also put pressure on the PLO office in Kuwait, which had refused to organize any Palestinian demonstrations and rallies in support of Iraq. The only Palestinian demonstration in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation was actually a pro-Kuwait demonstration, with the Palestinian inhabitants of the Hawalli district waving photos of the Emir."
Overtime Palestine and Kuwait relations are improving. But what Kuwait did was completely wrong just like what Arafat did was completely wrong. If we were to go by Kuwait's logic, most Pakistanis would have been expelled from say the UAE because well some Pakistani organisation supported the destruction/invasion of an Arab country. Kuwait can expell those idiots who decided to ruin it, but not people who are innocent. Kuwait has still banned Israeli citizens from entering which is good and which means that Palestine and Kuwait relations didin't get all that bad.