Migration

Anyone who has passed into Britain from Europe were surprised to see one if not several border checks entering the UK from the Eurostar and numerous Ferries passing through Britain and the Continent. Much of the fuss came from the realization that many of the UK’s migrants came from other developed countries in Europe, most notably the border crossings between the UK and France. While many of the Ferries were shut down and border security heightened on open ports, concerns still exist that waves of illegal migrants are making the crossing to Britain via France’s Ferries, lorries and trains.

Near the town of Cherbourg in Western France there is a human rights debate among French officials about refugee camps in the area which were seen as a major jumping point for refugees heading to the UK. While many see the camps as requiring more attention and facilities being required to keep it to the standard of basic human rights, others see them as the main cause for migrants coming to the UK and wish them to be moved or closed. In reality, with much conflict in areas of the world such as Iraq and Afghanistan and economic migrants from Iran and Syria and other places also making their journey to the coast of France, the issue is most likely to become greater as tension rise abroad. It is claimed that people are arrested daily in their attempts to make it to the UK from the French costal towns.

Much of the issue in towns like Calais and Cherbourg however is that number of smugglers who help migrants make it to the UK with much ease according to UK officials. While the French government vowed to stop making more camps and crack down on smugglers, it seems that demand is ever-growing with troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan the policy may not meet the needs of governments, nor refugees.

This week’s news roundup is short, but not on account of the fact that we have little to say, or that there is little to report - it’s primarily due to tricky technology - but on to the news:

The growing number of Iraqi refugees might soon have even fewer places to flee to, as Syria announced it would start introducing mandatory visas from September 10. Neighboring Jordan has essentially already closed down its borders to Iraqi migrants, though no similar visa scheme has been introduced. European countries have also all but replaced their borders with a wall, when it comes to Iraqis fleeing the hardship of ongoing civil war and military occupation. This newest Syrian initiative could also affect visa regulations for the United States, as the New York Times goes on to say: “The beginning of a visa program in Syria could present serious obstacles for the American program to resettle refugees in the United States because Iraqis are required to be interviewed by American immigration authorities outside Iraq. The United States is considering Iraqi candidates for refugee status from countries in the region, but the overwhelming majority are in Syria and Jordan.” More on this story can also be found in the Sept. 4 edition of the Financial Times.

• Ahead of the EU-Neighborhood Summit in Brussels, Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner has called for the creation of “mobility partnerships” to facilitate legal access to EU territories for migrant workers from countries that are a part of the official European Neighborhood Policy. She shared her thoughts at a speech at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg.
• The Center for Immigration Studies, a self-proclaimed “pro-immigrant, low-immigration think-tank which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted” has published a new study, according to which the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year) will add 105 million to the nation’s population by 2060. While immigration makes the population larger, it has a small effect on the aging of society. In an article in the International Herald Tribune, Mark L. Haas is an assistant professor of political science at Duquesne University, looks at the effects a changing demographic landscape could have on future US policies and suggests that “To protect its international security, the United States needs to maintain its enviable demographic position. Specifically, it should reduce Social Security and Medicare payments to wealthier citizens, raise the retirement age to reflect increases in life expectancies, maintain largely open immigration policies, and, above all, restrain the rising costs of its healthcare system. A defining political question of the 21st century is whether American leaders have sufficient political will and wisdom to implement these and related policies. Failure to do so will significantly jeopardize future levels of America’s global influence and safety.”
• The UNHCR has developed a range of teaching materials to help educators address the issues of refugees and migration with students.
• And finally, two pamphlets/books worth reading: The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) has published two recent, topical publications on the issue of migration. First, Sergio Carrera and Elspeth Guild outline the main contents of the EU proposal to sanction employers of irregular migrants by looking at the obligations and sanctions applicable to the employer, the procedures foreseen for the presentation of complaints as well as the set of guarantees provided to the third country national worker. The authors analyze its added value and compatibility with some general principles of European Union law. In a Policy Brief, Carrera and Florian Geyer examine the compromise reached on the future of the EU Treaty from Justice and Home Affairs perspective. With the formal scrapping of the ‘pillar structure’, this policy field will be among those most fundamentally changed by the new framework. By presenting these changes and highlighting the great number of exceptions and derogations, the authors assess the potentially serious implications of the Reform Treaty for the common EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and offer some suggestions to help avoid the inherent hazards.

So much news this week and much of it not good: In Iraq, local authorities grappling with the large number of internally displaced people, as sectarian violence exacerbates. Still no light at the end of the tunnel for Zimbabwe, which has seen a mass exodus of its citizens to South Africa. Meanwhile, authorities there are trying to come to grips with how to categorize these migrants - as refugees? As economic migrants? Where to house them? What to do? Politicians and authorities in Germany have spent the week looking for answers on another pressing question: How to address overt racial violence in Eastern Germany? The attacks on eight Indian migrants in the tiny Saxon town of Muegeln is cause for more than just concern. Thank goodness, there’s positive news from Denmark, where a new integration scheme seems to be pedalling things in the right direction.

• The International Herald Tribune features a new series of articles on those internally displaced as a result of continued fighting in Iraq. We have covered the tenuous situation these migrants face in numerous stories on this blog, including the unwillingness of many European countries to accept additional Iraqi migrants or offer them protection in the first place. Now, it seems, certain Iraqi provinces are doing the same: “governmental and relief offices (report) that some provinces have refused to register any more displaced citizens or will accept only those whose families are originally from the area.” Read the IHT’s coverage here, here and here.
• In an somewhat related story, the United States has been forced to pay $250,000 in compensation to a recognized Iraqi refugee for wrongful detention back in 2003.
• In last week’s news roundup, we featured one of the many stories about Elvira Arellano, who quickly became a figurehead of the immigrant rights movement in the United States, when she staged a protest against her deportation while seeking refuge in a church. She has since been deported to Mexico, where she was subsequently arrested. Her young son - an American citizen - remains in the United States. Hundreds of supporters took to the street in LA to rally for her cause and those of thousands of other migrants like her.
• Following up on another of last week’s stories, the UN refugee chief has said that setting up refugee camps for Zimbabweans fleeing their country to South Africa was not the answer. In an Associated Press article, Antonio Guterres said that “only those who had never lived in camps would advocate such a solution.” He also said that action had to be taken, despite the fact that the majority of these migrants were economic, rather than political refugees. The South African government has been under increasing international pressure to react to this exacerbating situation.
• European governments are arguing their strategies toward reducing African migration to the continent are working: an article in this weekend’s New York Times reports that the number of migrants landing on European shores has been cut by a third. EU leaders link this decline in part to the launch of FRONTEX and to a number of legal changes that facilitate access to Mediterranean countries. These claims, of course, must be set against a recent news from the UNHCR, according to which at least 10,000 people have died trying to reach Europe’s “safe haven”. UNHCR representative Paolo Artini delivered his assessment to a hearing at the European Parliament in early July, where he criticized Member States’ inability to agree on burden sharing mechansims. Additional information can be found here (in German) and here.
• As we recently reported, a number of trade unions in Germany have been putting pressure on the government to ease up on labor mobility restrictions to allow qualified personnel to fill currently existing gaps in the labor economy. Following the European Union’s 2004 enlargement wave, the German government (along with a number of others) had insisted on a ban on workers from Eastern Europe moving to Germany, in part because of the high unemployment rate. The government has reconsidered this earlier decision, perhaps in part due to rising public pressure, but largely, because of economic necessity, as Judy Dempey reports in the New York Times.
• Those of you lucky enough to subscribe to the Financial Times will be privvy to a full article on European immigration flows, published early last week. The article refers to recent Goldman Sachs research on population mobility to Europe’s “core”, i.e. the old Member States. Seemingly flying in the face of those that the adverse effects of demographic change cannot be weakened by immigration, the article notes that migration to the EU15 had added “an estimated 8.7m people to their populations. Between 2001 and 2005, relative to the population, these 15 countries experienced net migration of 0.5 per cent per year on average – more than the US and far higher than the rate over the previous 40 years. But net migration into the larger EU25, which includes newer central and eastern European members, was slightly higher over the period at 8.8m. This suggests the underlying impetus came from workers entering the market from outside Europe, rather than from new EU members.”
• Australia has introduced a new citizenship test, which includes specific questions to test “mateship”. What’s that, you ask? It is a heavily criticized concept encompassing “tolerance, compassion, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and secular government, equality of men and women and peacefulness”. The test goes on to say that “Australia has a strong tradition of mateship in which people help and receive help from others voluntarily, especially in times of adversity.” According to the BBC, the idea of “mateship” caused a stir in 1999, when voters rejected an attempt by Prime Minister John Howard to have the concept written into the preamble to the constitution. It was criticised as too sexist, or inappropriate for a formal document.
• Integrating into a new society can be as easy as riding a bike, at least in Denmark. Riding a bike is a quintessential to being Danish as speaking the language and so the country’s Red Cross has taken to teaching immigrants how to cycle, the SPIEGEL reports (in English). “Students come to learn to ride a bike not only for convenience, but also to help them get jobs. For example, the Danish Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs has a program in place that encourages and subsidizes immigrants and refugees who would like to become social health workers, and work in places such as elderly homes. One recent change in the government’s program is a requirement that the job applicant has a certificate saying that he or she can ride a bike.”
• And much to my disliking, I have to end this week’s newsroundup by featuring a number of links on the racist hate crimes in Eastern Germany, which have not only shocked the country, but the world. Last Sunday, in what can only be described as a manhunt, eight Indian immigrants were driven through the streets of the tiny East German town of Muegeln, verbally harassed and beaten to a pulp by a suspected group of neo-Nazis. Police intervened and a number of suspects arrested. Politicians and authorities have spent much of the week looking for answers as to the identity of the perpetrators of this heinous crime, as well as to the question why nobody intervened. The English edition of Der Spiegel has full coverage of the story here and a roundup of reader reactions to the crime here. Commentary from the national and international press can be found here.

Since 1954, there has been a decline in the vision of America as a liberator of nations and people as they were known for in the Second World War and the Korean Conflict and their anti-colonial position after 1945.  Since 1954, the realization that US Foreign Policy could do more harm than good was defined in Guatemala where the CIA helped oust democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz in a coup and installed a military leader Colonel Armas on behalf of the United Fruit Company. United Fruit feared that land reforms by Arbenz would lead to expropriations by the government and hurt United Fruit who owned the majority of Guatemala’s rural farm production and was one of the top banana producers worldwide at the time. The CIA actively aided United Fruit by overthrowing the government and labelling Arbenz and communist and using force to remove Arbenz from power. It resulted in decades of human rights abuses and dictatorships in Guatemala and still produces much conflict today in Guatemala with the Chiquita company, the altered name of United Fruit Co.

While the US has assisted greatly in places like Korea, Japan and Bosnia in the last fifty years, the interference by US Foreign Policy in places where the objective was unclear or stability of government to achieve an economic or political objective took precedent over natural power trends and democratic movements in the country often resulted in disasters inside the US and abroad.

Unclear objectives were part of the conflict in Vietnam and were inherited by the War in Iraq and subsequent civil war that has commenced in what is currently the most dangerous place in the world. It was finally admitted this week that the Iraqi Government will likely not be able to manage the future situation in the country, and unlike in Vietnam where Saigon was taken by the communist forces, Iraq has nothing but splinter groups who will push the country further into anarchy.

Stability of governments to meet an objective was also a strong motivation for US involvement. While in cases such as Bosnia where the objective was clear and noble, other cases such as those in Latin America often produced hundreds of thousands of refugees as well as one party states to ensure stability in the region. The trend and methods in the Guatemalan case spread most notably in Chile in 1973 where Agusto Pinochet was able to murder his democratically elected opposition with CIA aid and ensure his dictatorship until the late 1990s. The 80s saw more bloodshed with support for traditional leaders in Nicaragua and El Salvador who are still suffering from effects of the conflict to date.

Until Iraq, the activities of the US were seen as becoming more as a policing duty as in the Balkans as opposed to producing coups like in Guatemala and Chile. In the 90s, Colombia and the War on Drugs brought US aid to the conflict, albeit more debatable in its result as FARC and other groups often do not represent the people of Colombia, but took to kidnapping western oil workers in the region and contributed to hurting locals in Colombia which have suffered greatly from instability over more than two decades. While the US was not the aggressor in many cases in the Andean region, companies were seen to abuse their position in developing regions but without direct US support for the companies, but only military aid to democratically elected Colombian government officials. These conflicts continue to plague Colombia to this day.

In the end despite moral and immoral activities by the US, the result for many errors in US foreign policy has been a reflection of the errors committed in Guatemala in 1954. Millions of refugees have fled Iraq, Colombia, Vietnam, Chile, Central America and Guatemala of course due to poor decisions and sometimes active punishment of those in opposition. Many of these individuals live in your communities today, and are a reflection of why choosing leaders and their decisions do make a difference to the health of communities worldwide.

Please refer to Kyle de Beausset’s articles on the Chiquita Bananna Boycott and his article on Illegal Aliens and Guatemala.

  Jacobo Arbenz: Elected Leader or Communist? The Media Decides… 

To many, the State of Israel and the territory beforehand has always been a place which has taken in more foreign nationals, pilgrims, refugees, colonial citizens and even Crusaders, Greeks and Roman Legions in its long and turbulent history than any other place in the world. Before 1948, the territory called Palestine was taken by the British, before the Ottomans as well as European Crusaders and numerous ancient powers in the region. Since 1948, Jewish settlers from Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world have built the State of Israel, in the process taking in most of its initial population from the 1920s until the 1980s as migrants from all around the world. While the vast majority of these people are Jewish from many countries worldwide, Israel has also taken in other non-Jewish people such as Baha’i and other smaller minorities from around the world.

CNN’s program Impact this week has addressed another refugee crisis affecting Africa and Israel these past few months. Many refugees from Africa who have traditionally become victims of civil strife and lack of economic opportunities in their own countries have traditionally tried to make it to Europe or other countries in the Middle East. Now many African migrants have chosen Israel as a place to gain refugee status. With difficulties processing migrants in Southern Europe and countries such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Israel has been challenged to process many African migrants passing through the porous Egyptian border in through the Sinai Desert towards Israel.

As discussed in the International Herald Tribune this week, a new debate has arisen in Israel about African refugees. The crisis in Darfur, which has gone for years without any real assistance from Europe and the United States has become a real issue in Israel. Many of the asylum seekers coming to Israel are not economic migrants, but are coming from the region of Darfur making the deadly voyage through the African deserts towards Israel. While in Israel many see the state as being created from the refugees of the Holocaust, there is also a strong realisation that Israel with its sensitive economy, relatively small population and other uniquely Israeli burdens may not be the best country to try to deal with large refugee crisis such as Darfur, especially when none of the major international players have made any serious efforts to try to resolve the crisis in Darfur. While it was not seen to be a realistic action to be taken by the Israeli government, it was decided this past week that Israel would no longer be accepting refugees from Darfur, but would allow those already in Israel to stay.

The lack of action by the International Community who is often concerned with the stability in the Middle East is becoming a major crisis in the region. Israel, while being one of the smallest countries in the region would likely have a lot of difficulties being one of the only countries to accept Darfur refugees with no assistance in aiding those lucky to make it to Israel from other countries. A similar crisis in Jordan and Syria also reflects the lack of assistance from the International community, absorbing more than 2 million Iraqis with little help from the International community except for a request in the UN to absorb more individuals in countries with little extra resources or space. While terrorism and extremism have always been the characteristic terms defining the Middle East, the real issue in the region is and was always based upon the crisis of refugees eternally roaming the deserts to find a peaceful life.

The BBC World Service did a series called India-Pakistan 07’ this past week on radio and television programming detailing issues and conflicts and positive developments since the independence of India and Pakistan 60 years ago this past August 14th 1947. While independence from the British Empire and division of the colony into the free states of India and Pakistan is a matter of celebration, the politics and division of the country also resulted in one of the largest mass migrations of individuals in the 20th Century and also in the deaths and assaults of thousands of migrants in the process.

India and Pakistan are some of the most multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious countries in the world today and India is seem to be one of the next major international economic powers and Pakistan an increasing regional power. India’s and Pakistan’s Diaspora also have become large and important communities in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa and of course Asia, working in all levels of society and some of the most important fields of study and the economy in their adoptive nations. This mass movement of people all around the world starting within the British Empire, towards mass migrations in 1947 on the border between the newly independent states and forward into the modern world towards the Americas and Europe and the Mid East have made the people of India and Pakistan one of the most widely spread communities around the world, but also has created enormous debate on the history of many of the conflicts which propelled much of the migration and the violence resulting from the forced migration arising out of Partition.

Inspiring many poets, artist, politicians and filmmakers, the division of India and Pakistan has left a deep impression on people on all sides of the conflict to date. This inspiration has followed much of the people from the region overseas and across generations. In a Canadian production, the movie Partition was created to reflect issues surrounding the conflict at the time and illustrate the problems different ethnic and religious communities faced during the period of separation of India and Pakistan. Described as a South East Asian Romeo and Juliet, the movie focuses on a couple from different religious background during the forced migration of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other ethnic communities in the border regions of India and Pakistan during Partition of the former British Colony. The fictional story reflects thousands of similar real accounts and artistic interpretations of the conflict and history of the region.

It should be encouraged to look into more of the history of the people and the region, as many of us all around the world have Indians and Pakistanis as friends and neighbors. It would be a positive development for all people to understand more about the debates and conflicts in a region of ever-growing importance.

Marina Nemat has just published her book The Prisoner of Tehran on her time as a political prisoner in Iran in the 1980s. In her time there she was arrested for having negative views of the Revolution of 1979 and was put in prison for many years. Her perspective is an interesting one, as one of her interrogators, who was a political prisoner himself under the Shah became her husband in the end. While she was forced to marry him, there was some respect between the couple and the views he held as a prisoner himself. In the end Marina was released from prison and while all these years she has refrained from telling her story, in her book she reveals for the first time her life as a political prisoner. Marina now lives in Canada.

With the problems in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, the influence of Iran on communities and individuals linked with Iran is growing, and while many Iranians are members of some of the most successful and peaceable communities abroad, the effect of the Government has often impacted many Iranians inside Iran like Marina Nemat as well as Iranians and other people outside of Iran in a negative fashion.

Like Marina, Zahra Kazemi a Canadian journalist who was born in Iran, was also arrested during her time in Iran. Despite her being a foreign national, she was taken as a prisoner for reporting the wrong information about the government in Iran. She was consequently raped and killed in a way to disrespect her in the most brutal manner and then publicized to have perished due to an illness during her time in prison. While her son pushed for recognition and action to be taken in honour of his mother, very little was done in regard to the issue.

This week the International Herald Tribune published an article concerning the Jewish Community of Argentina’s troubles with the ever growing relationship between Argentina and Venezuela. The concern is one involving economy and terrorism as President Hugo Chavez, who provides much of Argentina’s energy in the current energy crisis there, has made overwhelming gestures towards the Iranian Government in order to increase ties with another oil producing nation as well as spite the United States. What worries Argentine Jews is the fact that the bombing of the Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires a few years ago which killed more than 50 people and wounded 200 was sponsored by the Iranian Government and members of Hizbollah according to the article. The influence of Iran via Venezuela towards Argentina who has the largest Jewish population in Latin America is a great worry to the victims of the bombings in Buenos Aires and Argentines as a whole.

In a final article from the New York Times, American soldiers in Iraq increasing claim to find support of insurgents by Iran. While there have been many small stories and rumours about Iran’s involvement in Iraq, the support of Hizbollah in Lebanon and political difficulties in that country may be a reflection of the ever growing influence of Iran abroad. While the true actions of Iran in Iraq and abroad are never clear to observers, it is something that the region and world community will eventually need to address in the near future.

While Iranian people in Iran and in the Diaspora have contributed greatly to communities all around the world in which they live, some aspects of a future Iran should be considered in the context of their ever-growing influence. It is unknown what responses people in Iran and abroad may take to actions by the Iranian Government, but with the positive and negative presence and influence of Iranians and Iran abroad the result is sure to be one of great interest.

This week’s news takes a look at the situation in the small country of Moldova where a majority of its workers abroad are illegal, examines the further developments in the shooting of the Brazilian man during the chaos of the London Bombings and the resulting inquiry into his death and focuses on Libya’s human rights record and deaths on the US border. We also take a look at Australia’s further integration issues and a record breaking number of African Migrants reaching the Canary Islands of Spain this past week :

• IMF forecasts that Moldova will be the world leader for the amount of money sent home by migrants in 2008. Most of the Moldovan workers abroad are illegal immigrants. See the story here.
• London police misled public after accidental shooting, panel finds a top official failed to inform the commissioner of the victim’s identity, thus allowing erroneous reports to be perpetuated in the media. The Brazilian national was killed by London police during the anarchy of the London Bombing, but inquiries found that errors by the London police were skewed and subsequently covered up in the aftermath of the situation. See the story here.
• Libya is set to take charge of a UN anti-racism committee in a move condemned by human rights groups who say the north African country’s rights record disqualifies it from the post. Libya takes over on the heels of torture allegations put forward by foreign medics recently released from the country. See the story here.
• The number of illegal immigrants who have died trying to get into the United States is higher than ever this summer. According to USAToday, many migrants have not been able to survive the harsh conditions of the deserts between the US and Mexico and often perish during the journey. Resaons for this are discussed in the article. See the story here.
• In a report by CNN, The body of a Cuban-American, Luis Lazaro Lara Morejon who was under investigation in a migrant smuggling case was found riddled with bullets along a road outside the Caribbean resort of Cancun, authorities said Tuesday. See the story here.
• A new test for Migrants to Australia is to be created according to the Sydney Morning Herald. People who are seeking to immigrate will face stricter scrutiny of their ability to integrate into Australian society, the Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews said this past week. See the story here.
• A record-breaking 180 African immigrants reached the Canary Islands in a single ocean-going canoe on Monday as new super-sized vessels began to be used in the perilous journey from Africa’s Atlantic coast. The 180 sub-Saharan Africans were picked up by a Spanish maritime rescue vessel off the island of Tenerife. See the story here. 

This week there has finally been some positive media about Iraq and its people. Iraqis cheered the Iraqi national team all around the world this past week when they beat defending champions Saudi Arabia in the Asia Cup of Football with a score of 1-0. Characteristic of the current situation according to unconfirmed sources, all the players on the team no longer lived in Iraq, and a match has not been played on Iraqi soil in nearly 17 years. In addition, there were fears that there might be some violence as during semifinal celebrations 50 fans of the team were killed in attacks in Iraq during street festivities. Despite all the positive and negative developments, the Iraqi national football team did achieve a great victory and is made up of many different cultures and religious affiliations as is the country itself. They are an example of how a positive future is plausible in Iraq despite all of its natural divisions in society. Only few were injured in the celebrations for the final victory of the Asia Cup.

Iraqis achieving victories outside of their country of birth is likely to become the standard in the future as many Iraqis are fleeing and have fled the chaos of their home state. In Cathryn Cluver’s wonderful posting this week on the Oxfam report on Iraq and its refugees we see that more than 2 million Iraqis have fled outside the country, and that inside the nation state the quality of life, education and other essentials have been drastically effected since 2003. For this reason it will be a likely trend that while Iraqis may achieve success outside of their home state, inside of Iraq success may be defined as being able to leave and as a result live outside of their place of birth.

While Iraqis are fleeing in record numbers, the host states that are accepting the refugees have yet to form a balanced approach to accepting refugees from one of the world’s most dangerous places. In a BBC World broadcast of August 2nd the situation in Syria where the brunt of the 2 million Iraqis have fled is discussed in detail in the telecast report. Syria, with a population of appx.18 million have accepted via some sources more than 1 million Iraqi refugees and with Jordan have accepted and are being pushed to accept more refugees. Despite this, the world community outside of Syria and Jordan have accepted very few Iraqi refugees compared to Syria and despite the focus and support they wish to give to Iraq, there has been little concrete action to help the actual people leaving Iraq. At the end of all the above observations, it is clear that a refugee crisis from Iraq had begun from the resulting conflict and that there needs to be a great deal more effort beyond Syria and Jordan in accepting Iraqi refugees…People can be surprised what refugees in conflict can do with some opportunity on an equal field of play.

See: R. Basas’ article The Burden Hardest to Bear for more information on Refugees leaving Iraq to Syria and Jordan

If you are a Palestinian refugee and have family ties to the West Bank, you may be in luck. In an apparent move to bolster the government of Mahmoud Abbas, which has been losing its footing in the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government is allowing “a number” of Palestinian refugees to settle in the West Bank (and the West Bank only - NOT Gaza), under “certain circumstances.” The article in the New York Times which reports this latest development, thus proves what experts have been warning us about over the past few weeks: The refugees stand to become a political pawn in the conflicts that plague the region.