The Refugee Hypocrisy of Western Countries

author : Marco Rosaire Rossi

By Marco Rosaire Rossi

The creation of Israel in the Middle East was not only one of the greatest destabilizing events in the region’s modern history, but was also one of the greatest examples of Western refugee hypocrisy. While the anti-Semitic fervor was growing in the early half of the twentieth century, the majority of Europe countries were unwilling to open up their doors to Jewish refugees looking to escape persecution. In effect, Palestine – under British mandate at the time – became the Jews’ only safe haven. Between 1920 and 1929, 100,000 Jews entered Palestine. The next decade, 1930 to 1939, that number more than doubled to 232,000. After the war compelled migration of Jews to Palestine, this trend continued. The Soviet Union – which was notoriously anti-Semitic under Stalin – supported the creation of Israel as a way of dealing with the refugee crisis that faced Eastern Europe. In the United States, President Truman put pressure on Britain to allow for 100,000 Jewish refugees to enter the country. Meanwhile, the United States – which was the most desired place for refugee settlement in the world - was only willing to accept 20,000 refugees. These efforts made Palestine – a country around the size of New Jersey – the largest recipient of World War II refugees - more than all other nations combined. At the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 the refugee crisis continued, but this time it was desperate Arabs who were fleeing Zionist terrorism, and unlike what had happened with the Jews, there was no area of the world that the Western powers wanted to transfer these people to. The war caused the deliberate displacement of between 700,000 and 1,000,000 Arabs, creating whole families of refugees who remain stateless to this day.

The worst part of this history is that it is repeating itself in the same region, with many of the same players -- only this time it is caused by the invasion of Iraq. So far, about 2 million Iraqi refugees have been created by the war. That number is a conservative estimate, and it only begins to tell the story. Many Iraqis have been displaced, but they are not considered refugees because they are unable to leave the country. The constant violence and tight security makes free movement of peoples near impossible. In addition, those who do leave usually are only able to do so because they have the proper paperwork that convinces the host country to allow them to stay. Getting the paperwork –even an Iraqi passport – can cost a fortune. Most Iraqis have to go through a complex web of bribes, bureaucracy, and black markets with no certainty that they will get what they are looking for. The cost of paperwork also doesn’t include the cost of traffickers, who charge large sums to get desperate people out of the country through dangerous and uncertain means. Plus, Iraqis still have not recovered from the diaspora created by Saddam’s repression, the first gulf war, the UN sanctions, or a combination of all three. More Iraqis were seeking refugee status in industrialized nations in 1997-1998 then in 2002-2003, during the initial lead-up and invasion.

The response by the major powers in the industrialized world to Iraqi refugees has been tragically pathetic. With the exception of Sweden – which has received more requests for refugee status by Iraqis then the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, and the United Kingdom combined – the Western nations have been extremely unwilling to open their doors to refugees. For Europe, the United Kingdom and Denmark – two countries that contributed troops to the United States’ Coalition of the Willing – have been particularly reluctant. In 2006, the United Kingdom reviewed 735 Iraqis migrants seeking refugee status. Of that amount 85 were granted – giving the United Kingdom only a 12% overall protection rate. Denmark was even worse. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees calculated its overall protection rate for Iraqis in 2006 to be at 3%.

Perhaps the worst industrialized nation to respond to the Iraqi refugee crisis has been the United States – if only because it is primarily responsible for creating the crisis. In 2006, only 535 Iraqis applied for refugee status in the United States. The small number demonstrates an awareness among Iraqis in the futility of trying get accepted into the United States. Indeed, since 2003, the United States has only granted 5,000 Iraqis refugee status. That is a pitifully low number when compared to the number of refugees accepted by Iraq’s neighboring countries. Lebanon has accepted 40,000 refugees, Egypt has accepted 100,000 refugees. Syria – which has a population of just fewer than 20 million, has 1.3 million Iraqi refugees. Jordan, a country with only 5.7 million people, has 750,000 Iraqi refugees; that would be equivalent to 40 million refugees in the United States. Sadly, both Syria and Jordan have closed their doors to Iraqi refugees because of the economic pressures the influx has caused. Meanwhile, the riches country in the world – the United States – has announced it will only accept 12,000 new Iraqi refugees for 2008.

Following the Arab-Israeli war the United Nations established the United Nations Relief and Work Agency to aid the refugees created by the crisis. It took another two years for the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees to be written. Even after it was written, it took another three years for the treaty to enter into force. When it did, it only applied to people who became refugees prior to 1951. It took another thirteen years to write its Optional Protocol which lifted the time-period restrictions. Meanwhile, the United States - known as “a nation of immigrants” – still has not ratified the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, ratifying only the 1967 Optional Protocol. Needless to say, bureaucracy does not move at the speed of human tragedy. At times, the misery of limbo can be worse then death itself. As one displaced Iraqi told a New York Times reporter on February 3, 2007, “I wish they would attack us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all, so we will rest… We cannot live this way anymore. We are dying slowly every day.” Tragically, unless dramatic steps are taken to correct the hypocrisies of Western countries, the displaced Iraqi's hopelessness may continue.