ammonnews.net

By Madeleine Mezagopian

Though belated, the Palestinian implication of the so called Arab Spring is gradually emerging in parallel with the ongoing peace talks between the Palestinian and the Israeli officials brokered by the USA, a role closer to arbitration rather than to mediation.

The renewal of the Cold War between Russia and the USA and between Shiite and Sunni forces manifesting itself in the proxy war in Syria provides a good arena for other different actors to test if not realize their strategies, however motivated and driven by different agendas.

While the right to return of millions of Palestinians in Diaspora remains the most crucial challenge facing the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli negotiations albeit undermined. The destiny and the status of these Palestinians are getting reshaped amid domestic drastic developments in number of Arab States which have been introduced by some observers as the Arab Spring.

In the shadow of and under the pretext of democratizing Arab political systems, relatively unknown figures emerged and occupied sensitive positions in number of Arab States. Some facilitated the naturalization of number of Palestinians with Egyptian nationality and the crossing Gaza-Egyptian borders of Palestinian insurgents to get free hand in Egypt foremost in Sinai together with local and other Islamists assimilating in the Egyptian political setting motivated by and aiming at erasing the Egyptian identity and having it integrated within Al-Umeh El-Islamieh (the Moslem Nation).

Another form of amalgamation of Palestinians in host Arab states is emerging in Syria where the siege imposed on the Yarmouk Camp by Moslem extremists is resulting in the disintegration of the camp and the integration of the Palestinian refugees in the Syrian society and in its neighbouring states at large facilitated with the destruction of some public institutions and civil status documents as identified by number of sources.

According to some Lebanese analysts, Ein-El-helou Camp in Lebanon is heading towards similar destiny that of the camps in Syria with the eventual outcome of Palestinian refugees melting in the local Lebanese society. Tension already reached this camp with the recent assassination of a Fateh member.

Jordan is not an exception. In addition to unidentified number of Palestinian refugees entering Jordan amid influx of Syrian refugees accommodated in camps and the majority joining the Jordanian society at large. Recent anger and outcry by some segments of the Jordanian society in response to much circulated Kerry's proposal however officially and in details undeclared hitherto, which coincided calls by civil societies and a parliamentary coalition to attend to the civil rights of the thousands of children of Jordanian mothers married to non-Jordanians and mostly to Palestinians, stands as an additional indicator of liquidating the key issue of Palestinians' right to return.


Between Israeli political figures' attempt to redesign the state of Israel as a Jewish state and fundamental Islamists' determination to reconfigure the Arab World of independent states into one Umeh Islamieh (Moslem Nation), two trends blossoming under the Arab Spring, on one hand and the American powerful intervention rather than mediation and the following proposal on the other, the Palestinians' right to return, if not the aspiration of millions of Palestinian for a nationhood, will inevitably become the main victim representing simply and sadly a Palestinian Autumn.




Academic Researcher, Adviser and Analyst
Conflict Resolution/Peace and
Socioeconomic and Political Development