Palestinian refugees are being systematically starved to death and denied medical care and humanitarian relief. And yet the United Nations is totally silent: no protests, no condemnations, no resolutions.
Dr. Hussein Ibish, a noted Arab-American commentator and senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, reports that Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad’s regime has been routinely killing Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp. It’s a situation, he writes on his blog, that “breaks new ground in cruelty.”
Assad’s regime has inflicted enforced starvation; last weekend alone, according to Ibish, at least 41 Palestinians died as a result of food and medicine shortages. This week, a PLO convoy loaded with food and medicine was fired on by pro-Assad forces, preventing them from delivering relief to the camps.
Normally, the slightest allegation of suffering inflicted on Palestinians (by Israel, that is) brings about instant worldwide outcry and an emergency session of the UN Security Council. When pro-Palestinians were blocked by Israelis from sending supplies to Gaza that might include weapons, for example, it was front-page news leading to international investigations.
But Syria has become a blind spot on the world eyechart, most glaringly for the Obama administration. As a result, the war there has devolved into a battle between Iran-backed Assad and his al Qaeda-backed rebel foes — with ominous implications for the world, no matter which side wins.
Selective outrage at the United Nations is nothing new, of course. But this example is especially ironic. For Thursday marked the kickoff by the world body of events launching the “International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”
Not least of the Palestinian tragedy is that when there’s no Israel that can be blamed for it, the world is all too happy to turn a blind eye to the savagery directed at Palestinian men, women and children.