Why Palestinians are Fleeing Lebanon

by Khaled Abu Toameh • April 1, 2019 at 5:00 am

International journalists based in the Middle East seem to care precious little about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon, who, for several decades now, have been protesting the apartheid and discrimination practiced by an Arab country.
As a result of these laws, the conditions of Palestinians in Lebanon have worsened to a point where 65% of them live below the poverty line, according to a report by Al-Jazeera.
The Arab and Western silence towards the plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon achieves one thing alone: aggravating Palestinian agony. Yet the only evil the Arab leaders and the international community see is the supposed evil that they link to Israel.

Palestinians appear finally fed up with the apartheid and discriminatory laws they have been subjected to in Lebanon. Al-Jazeera recently reported that 1,500 Palestinians left Lebanon in less than three months. Pictured: A Middle East Airlines flight takes off from the airport in Beirut, Lebanon. (Image source: Flo Weiss/Wikimedia Commons)

Palestinians appear finally fed up with the apartheid and discriminatory laws they have been subjected to in Lebanon in the past few decades. They appear fed up with the ongoing apathy towards their plight in the international community and media. They also appear fed up with the international media's obsession with Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The only Palestinians the international media reports about are those whose "problems" are directly linked to Israel.

For the past year, dozens of international journalists based in the Middle East have been covering the weekly protests along the Gaza-Israel border. These journalists, however, seem to care precious little about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon, who, for several decades now, have been protesting the apartheid and discrimination practiced by an Arab country.

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Turkey Mourns Christchurch Massacre, Ignores Attacks on Non-Muslims

by Uzay Bulut • April 1, 2019 at 4:00 am

The more critical problem is the discrepancy between the way the government and the people of Turkey have been treating the Christchurch attacks, as opposed to the way they have been responding to the murder of non-Muslims in their own country.
While Muslim worshippers were being murdered in New Zealand -- and Turkey was among the nations condemning the anti-Muslim slaughter and voicing outrage over "Islamophobia" -- they were paying little or no attention to the Christians in Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda, Pakistan and elsewhere who were being violated, abducted or massacred by extremist Muslim perpetrators. Where is the reciprocity?
Until Turks and others are as vocal in their condemnation of religious-based violence and hate crimes against non-Muslims as they are about those against Muslims, it is hard to take what Ataklı referred to as their "talk of tolerance" seriously.

Pictured: Flowers and tributes outside Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand -- one of the two mosques attacked in the March 15 mass shooting. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Since the March 15 massacre of dozens of Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Turkey has joined the rest of the world in condemning the murders, praying for the victims and commemorating the event by laying wreaths at the sites of the slaughter.

This is a fitting response to a mass shooting of innocent people, but there seem to be some problems with it where Turkey is concerned.

The first is the way in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been making cynical use of video footage from the deadly attacks to bolster his candidates' standing ahead of the March 31 municipal elections -- by blaming "global Islamophobia" for the carnage.

The second, and more critical problem, is the discrepancy between the way the government and the people of Turkey have been treating the Christchurch attacks, as opposed to the way they have been responding to the murder of non-Muslims in their own country.

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