Thursday, October 18, 2007

An Effective Welfare State

I've often wondered why some Palestinians that live in Gaza and the West Bank choose to stay in refugee camps. To me, the logical first thing for the Palestinian Authority to have done with all the foreign aid that pours in would be to build homes for those in the camps. And why, when given the opportunity to move, why would those in the camps choose to stay?

The Elder of Ziyon has put together an interesting post, PalArab Welfare State.

The posts lists many reasons why the camps still exist. There's little incentive for those who don't mind living on the dole to leave. There's an almost unbelievable fantasy as to what was actually lost by those in the refugee camps when their families left over 60 years ago at the urging of Arab political and military leaders. And the camps serve the cynical purpose of being symbols of victim hood.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Some good points in there.