Once, thousands of Palestinians from Gaza moved across the "historic Palestine" border to the Sinai without complaint ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, February 06, 2025

Once, thousands of Palestinians from Gaza moved across the "historic Palestine" border to the Sinai without complaint

Gaza camp (illustrative)

Much of the rhetoric against Palestinians being allowed to flee to Egypt is centered around the myth that Palestinians don't want to leave their homeland, and would refuse to cross over the border of "historic Palestine" to live outside it, as that would be tantamount to another "nakba."

But once upon a time, thousands of Palestinians from Gaza were relocated to the same Sinai desert that Egypt wants to ban them from today. Their leaders were silent and the world shrugged.

In the early 1970s, Israel tried to make Gaza into a livable and secure place. One of its major activities was to build, widen and pave roads inside crowded camps. This necessarily demolished housing where these roads were, so Israel built housing projects for Gazans to move to. (Yes, Israel built them houses.)

One of them was in the Sinai, an area Israel conquered during the Six Day War. In the space that used to be a barracks for Canadian peacekeepers in the Sinai, Israel refurbished the building and thousands of Gazans moved into what became known as the "Canada Camp."

While some Arab nations and UNRWA complained about Israel widening the roads and the demolition of buildings to make that work, I don't see any contemporaneous accounts of the moving of these Gazans to the Canada Camp warning about expelling them from "Palestine."

After Israel's Camp David peace treaty giving back the Sinai, Egypt did not want these Palestinians to live in their land. They agreed with Israel on a plan to move them back to Gaza. Egypt was supposed to pay for them to buy land in Gaza to build new houses, but it never ponied up most of the promised money. The residents lived in limbo, without any benefits from Egypt but also no benefits from UNRWA, until the 1990s when Canada itself (and Kuwait) decided to pay for their relocation back to Gaza.

The point is that the Gaza border was not considered sacred to Palestinians when Israel controlled both sides of the border. The borders of "Historic Palestine" were not considered a red line.

And Egypt, then as now, professed its unending support for Palestinians while doing everything it could to get rid of them from its lands.

Things haven't changed on that front.