From: marty@wucs1.wustl.edu (Marty Olevitch)
Subject: A double standard? [regarding the expulsions]
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 03:50:54 GMT


I have copied the following article, with permission from the author
and publisher, from "The St. Louis Jewish Light" of Jan. 21, 1993. Any
typographical errors may or may not be my fault.

    Marty Olevitch

    marty@wuphys.wustl.edu
    marty@wucs1.wustl.edu
    uunet!wugate!wuphys!marty
--------------------------------

A double standard?

by Victor T. LeVine

The Israeli expulsion of 415 alleged fundamentalist Hamas members into
Lebanon has been roundly condemned by the United Nations and various
human rights organizations including Middle East Watch. Moreover,
considerable misgivings have been expressed by both Israelis and
friends of Israel concerned about the arbitrary nature of the Rabin
government's action. In any case, the expulsions have proved a public
relations disaster for Israel, providing Israel's detractors with an
opportunity for yet another round of unbridled anti-Israeli
invective. However, among the loudest of those denouncing Israel are
countries whose records include much more extensive, and egregious,
expulsions which occasioned little international furor or
condemnation by the United Nations. Some of these events are worth
recalling, if only to suggest that international outrage over human
rights violations is highly selective, to say the least:

1990-91: at least 300,000 resident Palestinians expelled from Kuwait,
and about 150,000 from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia also expelled about
75,000 Yemenis;

1983: ca. 1 million resident Ghanaians expelled from Nigeria;

1977: at least 100,000 resident Egyptians expelled from Libya during
Egyptian-Libyan hostilities; over 75,000 Libyans also expelled by
Egypt;

1972: 50,000 plus "Asians" (Ugandan citizens of Indian extraction)
expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin;

1971: ca. 150,000 resident Palestinians and their families expelled
from Jordan in the wake of the 1970-71 Jordanian civil war;

1970: 150,000 Nigerians expelled from Ghana;

1969: tens of thousands of resident Hondurans expelled from El
Salvador as a consequence of the Honduras-El Salvador "soccer war";

1968: 200,000 residents originally from Upper Volta and other
neighboring countries expelled from the Ivory Coast.

This list doesn't include the almost one million people driven from
their homes and into neighboring countries by the ongoing Serbian
campaign of "ethnic cleansing," nor does it include the reciprocal
mass expulsions that took place during the partitions of India
(1947), Cyprus (1964), or Rwanda-Burundi (1960).

While Arab states have labelled the Israeli expulsions as a form of
"genocide," they were silent when in 1980 President Assad of Syria had
20,000 people slaughtered in the northern Syrian town of Hama, or
when the Iraqis began carrying out their own version of "ethnic
cleansing" (1988-present) against their Kurdish citizens. Nor was
there any Arab outcry when the current Sudanese regime of Gen. Omar
Bashir began the systematic extermination of large numbers of that
country's southern, non-Muslim populations in 1991-92. To date not one
Arab state has gone on record to condemn these gross violations of
human rights by the Sudanese government.

It is also worth pointing out that while the Arab states have
threatened to pull out from the Mideast peace talks to protest the
Israeli expulsions, they have not done so. This suggests not only
that there are bigger stakes involved than the fate of the 415, but
that a number of Arab regimes currently bedeviled by local
fundamentalist oppositions (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan,
Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) have much less sympathy for the expellees
than their propaganda would indicate. While the Syrians, who could
easily persuade their Lebanese clients to take in the 415, are
pleased to join in the chorus of condemnations, they are also
unwilling to sacrifice a possible deal with Israel over the Golan
Heights by withdrawing from the negotiations.

That the Israelis blundered into an untenable situation almost goes
without saying, and there is a self-evident need for the Rabin
government to find some face-saving way out of it. However, it is
also important to see the event in perspective and to take due note
not only of the hupocrisy of Israel's main detractors, but of the
growing impatience with the Palestinians and their cause in the wider
Arab world.

Editor's Note: Victor LeVine is a professor of political science at
Washington University specializing in Middle East and African
politics.
Xref: sparky talk.politics.mideast:26304 talk.politics.soviet:10746 soc.culture.greek:12566 soc.culture.europe:11433 soc.culture.soviet:12434