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200,000 Palestinians Left Territories in Past Two Years

(Daily Star - Lebanon) Fahed Fanek - We have had our fill of slogans about the Palestinian people's adherence to their land and their resistance to being uprooted. The fact that there are 5 million Palestinians living outside Palestine (half of them in Jordan) does not uphold that hypothesis. It is not true that the numbers of people who have been leaving and entering the West Bank across the bridges are roughly equal. There is population flight from the Palestinian territories. According to one well-placed official, since the start of the intifada two years ago, the number of Palestinians who have entered Jordan via the bridges and not returned is around 200,000. Some have stayed in Jordan and joined relatives; others have moved on elsewhere. We have a national duty to Jordan first, and to Palestine second, to prevent the Palestinian state from being relocated outside Palestine, specifically to Jordan. It is in the interest of both Jordan and Palestine for traffic across the bridges to be tightly controlled. Jordan should disregard pressure to open its borders. If we're not doing enough to keep the West Bank Palestinian, we should at least keep Jordan Jordanian.
2002-08-16 00:00:00
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