Arab Interest in Emigration Soars

[bemildred]

The percentage of Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (Yesha) willing to relocate abroad jumped to 32%, according to a Birzeit University survey last month.

For many years, that figure hovered just below 20 percent, according to an October 24th report by the Christian Science Monitor's Middle East correspondent Joshua Mitnick.

Birzeit University pollster Nader Said, who has monitored emigration attitudes for 12 years, attributed the rise to dissatisfaction over the Hamas-led government. Because of the international aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority, some 165,000 civil servants have not been paid a regular salary since January when Hamas was elected. Those government employees and their families - one-third of the PA's population - have fallen into severe poverty. Compounding that hardship, the society has been disrupted by widespread strikes and armed clashes between Hamas and Fatah gunmen which threaten to explode into a full-blown civil war.

Even more telling, Said added, is that the percentage surges to 44 percent among Arabs in their 20s and 30s. Among younger men, it surges beyond 50 percent. Said called this the "most shocking result" of the survey.

Arutz Sheva

[Nolo_Contendre]

1. Ethnic cleansing has that effect on people

I imagine that quite a few Bosnians fled Serb atrocities, quite a few Jews fled Nazi Germany, etc. No suprise that Palestinians would like to flee the increasingly tight stranglehold of the Israeli occupation, the apartheid wall, the checkpoints, the Israeli military attacks on civilian populations, etc. They probably would like to raise their families in a more peaceful environment. I'm sure the new Israeli minister Lieberman would gladly pay their one-way bus ticket to Jordan if they promised to never return to their homeland.