The media has been reporting, non-judgmentally, about Egypt's 'refusal to accept any Palestinians attempting to flee from Gaza since the war began. But they refuse to say the simple truth: Egypt hates Palestinians and has treated them harshly since 1948.
Egypt was the only Arab country that had a policy to close its borders to Palestinians in 1948. And even then it claimed that the decision was "principled" for the Palestinians' own good. It refused to allow UNRWA to operate in its borders in 1950, relegating it to Gaza.
Gaza was turned into an open-air prison, not by Israel but by Egypt.
Then, as now, Egypt was in the forefront of wanting international aid to the Palestinians in Gaza - but the reason is not because they love Palestinians but because they want to keep them out of Egypt.
Interestingly, one small group of Palestinians remained in Egypt, forgotten by everyone until a few years ago. The village of Gezirat Fadel. has no official status, no infrastructure, and its residents have no refugee or citizenship status in Egypt even after living there for 75 years. They are the exception that proves the rule: Egypt has always been anti-Palestinian.
That hate, usually framed as concern, has been a constant feature of Egyptian attitudes towards Palestinian Arabs for over seven decades. In the 1950s, UNRWA tried to create a way for Palestinians to become self-sufficient in the Sinai, and Egypt (together with self-appointed Palestinian "leaders") scuttled those plans. In the 1970s, Egypt officially classified the Palestinians who were given limited rights by Nasser as "foreigners" and took away basic rights for the few Palestinians who were in Egypt, barring them from universities and other benefits.
The main exception was during the one year that Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt in 2012-2013, when he often opened the border to Hamas-run Gaza. As soon as he was deposed, Egypt went back to its anti-Gaza policy with a vengeance, clearing out large sections of Egyptian Rafah to get rid of smuggling tunnels and blaming Gaza for the ISIS insurgency in the Sinai. Anti-Palestinian rhetoric was all over Egyptian media.
Even today, Gazans who want to travel abroad from Egypt are not allowed to stay overnight, making their travel plans difficult.
It isn't that Egypt has a policy against all refugees. There are plenty of non-Palestinian refugees in Egypt. UNHCR says:
Egypt hosts around 430,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers from 59 nationalities. As of October 2023, the Sudanese nationality has become the top nationality, followed by Syrians. Other relevant countries of origin include South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq.Following the outbreak of armed conflict in Sudan in April 2023, large numbers of civilians have been forced to flee to Egypt and other neighboring countries in search of safety. ...UNHCR also supports Syrian refugees who fled their war-torn land and started seeking asylum in Egypt in 2012. The number of Syrians registered with UNHCR Egypt rose dramatically from 12,800 at the end of 2012 to more than 145,000 people at the end of 2022. As a result of the Sudanese and Syrian crises, Egypt now hosts the largest number of registered refugees and asylum-seekers in its history.At the same time, renewed conflicts and political instability in East Africa, and the Horn of Africa as well as the unrest in Iraq and Yemen, have driven thousands of South Sudanese, Ethiopian, Iraqi, and Yemeni individuals to seek refuge in Egypt. As of 19 November 2023, the refugee population registered with UNHCR comprised 169,000 Sudanese, 152,545 Syrians, 35,917 South Sudanese, 30,713 Eritreans, 17,277 Ethiopians, 8,034 Yemenis, 7,163 Somalis, 5,541 Iraqis, and refugees of more than 50 other nationalities.
Those are just the registered refugees.It is clear that Egypt does not have an anti-refugee policy - it only has an anti-Palestinian policy.
In fact, while Egypt was welcoming Syrian refugees, there was an exception: Syrian Palestinians. Hundreds of them were placed not in refugee camps but in jail.
Given this context, Egypt's treatment of Gazans may be principled - but the principle is that Egypt hates Palestinians, and always has.
