Lebanese foreign minister tweets against Palestinians, but no one seems to care much

Last month, Lebanese Foreign Minister  Gebran Bassil tweeted that he supports the right of Lebanese women to pass citizenship to their husbands and children, except if they are married to a Palestinian or Syrian men.

It caused a bit of a ruckus in Lebanon but his explicit bigotry didn't make a ripple in the international media..

Earlier this month, he again went to Twitter to say, “It is normal to defend the Lebanese labour force against any other foreign labour, whether it be Syrian, Palestinian, French, Saudi, Iranian or American, the Lebanese come first!”

The Syrians and Arabs of Palestinian descent who are in Lebanon generally have nowhere else to go, so of course they need jobs. Yet he lumps them in with other foreign workers, who are also an important part of the workforce as they are throughout the Middle East.

Again, there was some regional controversy over his comments, and the rest of the world yawned. I didn't see any "pro-Palestinian" groups issue statements of condemnation.

Anti-Palestinian bigotry in the Middle East is simply not a story unless it can be ascribed to Lebanon's southern neighbor.

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