Monday, February 17, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
Jordanian media this weekend rediscovered a 32-year old fatwa that says that is it better for Palestinians die as martyrs than to leave their homes.
The Jordanian Fatwa Council in 1993 ruled that the people of Palestine are not permitted to emigrate and are not permitted to evacuate the Holy Land to the Jews.
"The people of Palestine remaining in their land is a jihad in the way of God, and they will have the reward of the mujahideen for it. Their opposition to the enemy is a jihad in the way of God, and they will have the reward of the mujahideen for it," it says. "Those who are killed in those clashes are living martyrs with their Lord, and they are provided for. All support for the steadfastness of the people of Palestine is support for the mujahideen and they are doing so in the way of Allah."
The cynicism of the fatwa, given by Jordanians to Palestinians, is obvious. It is easy to tell your political enemies - which in reality is what Palestinians are to Jordanians - that they must die, and then to justify it with religion.
But that cynicism is being seen today, by the international community, just by substituting "human rights" for "religion." The world is insisting that Gazans do not have the right to emigrate to other Arab countries, even if they want to.
It is almost certainly against international law.
Moving people against their will - deportation, population transfers, what have you - is one of the primary evils in current international law. Yes, it was a standard practice before the Geneva Conventions, but that argument does not hold water today. The only way that it might be justified is to say that it is for their own safety, which is a reasonable argument given how many explosives and Hamas booby-traps are sprinkled throughout Gaza. But that cannot justify not allowing the Gazans to return.
In reality, international law is largely a myth. Powerful nations can and do violate international law with impunity with only token complaints from human rights groups. The double standards applied to Israel is proof positive that international law is just another political tool and is not applied equally to all.
However, international law is still a powerful force, justly applied or not.
And the right to emigrate to escape a dangerous situation is an equally powerful human rights and international law concept.
Trump could have leveraged international humanitarian law in a simple way that would largely accomplish the same goals with the opponents looking like fools. And that would be to insist that Gazans who want to leave Gaza voluntarily and enter Arab and Muslim countries should be allowed to do so.
Throughout the past sixteen months, I have found only a single article by a human rights worker that said the simple truth that Gazans should be allowed to flee Gaza. Significantly, it was written by Bill Frelick, HRW's refugee rights director worldwide. No Middle East HRW employee would dare say something like this because they are so staunchly anti-Israel.
The article was barely mentioned by HRW and ignored by the world. Otherwise, the human rights community has been silent about a clear human rights issue.
Trump could have called out this hypocrisy. He could have noted that hundreds of thousands of Gazans would love to relocate elsewhere - one third said so before October 7. No one could have seriously argued then with his pressuring Egypt and Jordan and Turkey to take in refugees, just as they took in hundreds of thousands from Syria, Iraq, Sudan and elsewhere.
Their hypocrisy in refusing to accept Palestinians and only Palestinians would have been clear to the world, and pressure would have ensured that they accept them.
It is still possible that the threat of US withholding of aid to Jordan and Egypt will result in a token response. But it could have been done so much better.
No sane Gazan would stay in a war zone if they can leave - except for Hamas members. Allowing Gazans to leave voluntarily would make the still necessary job of clearing out Hamas much easier and with fewer casualties.
It was a missed opportunity. And it is a shame.
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