Hebrew Voices #9 – The Palestinian Bicycle Refugees of Norway

Transcript

Hebrew Voices #9 – The Palestinian Bicycle Refugees of Norway

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Benjamin Netanyahu: Le ma’an Zion lo ekhesheh, u’l’ma’an Yerushalayim lo eshkot. (For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest. Isaiah 62:1)

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon with Hebrew Voices, coming to you from Stavanger, Norway. I just finished a 10-day speaking tour in Holland, Sweden, and finally, here in Norway. Everywhere I went, the street was abuzz with talk of the refugee crisis. Hordes of Syrian and Afghanis are flooding into European countries. International media is reporting how the refugees are fleeing for their lives from the civil war in Syria and the carnage of the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS.

Many are also fleeing from the Taliban in Afghanistan – at least, that’s the official story. Now, I had some free time in Norway, and I asked my hosts to take me to see the refugees. The regional news video reported that they are being housed in a local three-star hotel called The First Hotel Alstor in Stavanger. We headed over to the hotel and spoke to the refugees, who we found smoking cigarettes in the parking lot. At one point it was cold, so we tried to continue interviews in the lobby, but we were kicked out by a large, burly Norseman from hotel security. [laughing]

All the refugees I spoke to crossed the border from Russia on bicycle. There’s a peculiar Russian law that only allows people to cross the frozen border into Norway by vehicle, and that includes bikes. The refugees purchased the bicycles at the border and crossed over into Norway, where they are given all the benefits of someone fleeing from war. Now, the official narrative is that these refugees fled to Norway because of war and persecution. However, the refugees themselves were eager to tell me that they left their countries of origin because of unemployment and crime. They were very clear about this. Some described local mafias and criminal gangs as the reason for seeking a better life in Norway. In fact, none of these so-called “refugees” came to Norway itself to escape war. They all came across the border from Russia after spending time in Moscow, where the authorities were less than welcoming. Some told me that the Russian police interrogated them at length.

They eventually chose to bike into Norway, where the Norwegian nanny state provides them with a generous assistance package. They get a free hotel room, clothing, food, and even a monthly cash stipend. In fact, the government of Norway gives them $145 for every adult – that’s 1,260 Norwegian Kroners – and $102 per child – 890 Norwegian Kroners – that’s $494 per month for a family of four, free and clear, after living expenses! Now, look, it’s not a lot of money but, you know, that might be more than some of these people make in their home countries.

Now, many of the refugees at the hotel were Palestinians whose grandparents left Israel during the War of Independence in 1948. The people I spoke to were born in Lebanon but were never granted Lebanese citizenship. You see, the Palestinians have a unique status under international law. When fighting ends in a war, the refugees who can’t return to their country of origin must be given citizenship in the country where they first sought refuge, or in a third country. However, when the Israeli War of Independence ended, the Palestinian refugees were kept in a permanent state of refugeehood. In fact, the descendants of many of the Palestinian refugees today live under Palestinian rule in Gaza and the West Bank, but they are still classified by the United Nations as refugees. In other words, they live in Palestine, under Palestinian rule, but are classified as Palestinian refugees by the United Nations.

Now, let’s compare the case of the seven million Indian Muslims who fled to Pakistan during the 1947 war between India and Pakistan. These Muslims and their ancestors had lived in what became India from time immemorial, probably for thousands of years. But when they arrived in Pakistan as refugees, they were quickly integrated into their new country and granted full rights as citizens. In contrast, with the partial exception of Jordan, the Arab nations who received their Palestinian Arab brothers as refugees in 1948 refused to grant them citizenship. Their children, grandchildren, and great–grandchildren are still considered refugees today. Treating the descendants of refugees as refugees is actually against international law. However, the United Nations, in league with the Arab states, has subjected the Palestinians to a special exemption from international law, so that their descendants, for the rest of time, will be considered refugees.