by Khaled Abu Toameh, 5/1/2015
And who ever heard of the case of Zaki
al-Hobby, a 17-year old Palestinian who was shot and killed last weekend by
Egyptian border guards? Had he been shot by Israeli soldiers on the other side
of the border, the EU and UN would have called for an international commission
of inquiry.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to
death in an Arab prison have also failed to win the attention of the Western
media. Nor have the EU and the UN, which called for an investigation into the
death of Abu Ein -- who died of a heart attack while in a confrontation with an
Israeli soldier -- deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the Palestinians
being killed and tortured to death in Syria and other Arab countries.
As far as the Palestinian Authority is
concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only
"war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who
are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And
all this is happening while the international community and media continue to display
an obsession only with everything connected to Israel.
More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed
since the beginning of the conflict in Syria three years ago, according to a
report published this week by the Working Group for Palestinians in Syria. It
revealed that 2,596 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the
conflict in that country in 2011.
But this is a news item that has hardly found
its way into mainstream media in the West. Even Arab media outlets have almost
entirely ignored the report about Palestinian casualties in Syria.
The reason for this apathy, of course, is
clear. The Palestinians in Syria were killed by Arabs and not as a result of
the conflict with Israel.
Journalists covering the Middle East do not
believe that this is an important story because of the absence of any Israeli
role in the killings.
Arabs slaughtering, executing and torturing
Palestinians is not sensational enough to grab a headline in a major Western or
Arab newspaper. That is why most Middle East correspondents have chosen to turn
a blind eye to the report.
According to the report, the victims include
157 women who were killed in the fighting between Bashar Assad's army and
various opposition groups in Syria. It also said that 268 Palestinians were
killed by snipers, while another 84 were summarily executed. Another 984
Palestinians were killed when their homes and neighborhoods were shelled by the
Syrian army and the opposition groups.
The report also reminded the international
community that the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus has been
under siege by the Syrian army for the past 547 days. Approximately 160
residents of the camp have died as a result of the siege, the report said.
It also pointed out that the camp has been without
electricity for more than 620 days. Camp residents have also been cut off from
water for the past 117 days, the report added.
In addition to the deaths, some 80,000
Palestinians have fled their homes in Syria due to the ongoing conflict. Nearly
15,000 have crossed the border to Jordan, while another 42,000 have fled to
Lebanon, the report disclosed.
As if that were not enough, last week Muslim
terrorists executed six Palestinians from Yarmouk camp after finding them
guilty of "blasphemy."
A senior PLO official in Syria, Anwar Abdel
Hadi, said that the Palestinians were executed by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated
An-Nusra terror group.
Abdel Hadi said that only 15,000 Palestinians
remain in the refugee camp, which until three years ago was home to some 175,000
people.
Another report published recently revealed
that 264 Palestinians have died as a result of torture in Syrian government
prisons over the past few years.
The most recent deaths in Syrian prisons
occurred last month, when three more Palestinians died after being tortured.
The three were identified as Bila al-Zari, Mohamed Omar and Mohamed Masriyeh.
These Palestinians were arrested by the
Syrian authorities on suspicion of helping anti-Assad forces in different parts
of the country.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to
death in an Arab prison have also failed to win the attention of the Western
media. Had any one of them died in an Israeli prison or in a confrontation with
Israeli soldiers, his story and photo would have appeared on the front page of
many newspapers and magazines in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
By contrast, when a top Fatah official, Ziad
Abu Ein, recently died of a heart attack after an altercation with Israeli
soldiers in the West Bank, his story immediately caught the attention of the
international media and human rights organizations. Many foreign journalists
covering the Middle East covered the story of Abu Ein from every possible angle
and conducted interviews with his family members and friends.
In an incident widely reported by
international media, Fatah official Ziad Abu Ein (center) is shown suffering a
heart attack while sitting on the ground, moments after an altercation with
Israeli soldiers. Abu Ein later died.
But the Palestinians who are being killed and
tortured to death in Syria and other Arab countries have never received the
same attention from the same journalists and human rights activists. Nor have
the EU and UN, which called for an investigation into the death of Abu Ein,
deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the Palestinians in Syria.
And who has heard of the case of Zaki
Al-Hobby, a 17-year-old Palestinian who was shot and killed last weekend by
Egyptian border guards? The Palestinian teenager was killed because he came too
close to the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Witnesses said he was
shot in the back and died instantly.
Once again, Al-Hobby's story has hardly
received any coverage because Israel was not involved in that incident. Had he
been shot by Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border, the EU and UN
would have called for an international commission of inquiry. But the teenager
was unfortunate because he was shot by Egyptian soldiers, making his story
"insignificant" in the eyes of the international community and media.
That Palestinians are being killed by Arabs
does not seem to bother even the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders are busy
these days threatening to file "war crimes" charges against Israel
with the International Criminal Court. As far as the Palestinian Authority is
concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only
"war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who
are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And
all this is happening while the international community and media continue to
display an obsession only with everything connected to Israel.
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