In Israel, and in much of the Western world, we tend to think that the Arab world is united in support of the Palestinians, that it wants nothing so much as to solve the Palestinian problem by giving them a state, and that all the Arabs and Muslims love the Palestinians and hate Israel.  This, however, is a simplistic and partial point of view, because while It is true that many, perhaps even the majority of Arabs and Muslims hate Israel, there are a good many who hate the Palestinians just as much.

Their hatred of Israel stems from Israel’s success in surviving despite wars, terror, boycotts and the enmity aimed at the Jewish state; it stems from  the fact that there is an existing Jewish state even though Judaism has been superseded by Islam, the ‘true religion.’ It is exacerbated by Israel’s being a democracy while they live under  dictatorships, because Israel is rich and they are poor, because Israel is Paradise compared to Arab countries, many of which resemble nothing so much as the last train stop before Hell (see Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan – and the list goes on) …and most importantly, because Israel has succeeded in areas in which they have failed, and their jealousy drives them up a wall.

But why should they hate the ‘unfortunate’ Palestinian Arabs? After all, the Arab narrative says that the Palestinian Arabs’ land was stolen and they were forced to become refugees. The answer to this question is complex and is a function of  Middle Eastern culture, which we in Israel and most Westerners neither understand nor recognize.

One of the worst things in Arab eyes is being cheated, fooled or taken advantage of. When someone attempts to cheat an Arab – and even more so, if that person succeeds – an Arab is overcome by furious anger, even if the person involved is his cousin. He will call on his brother to take revenge on that cousin, in line with the Arab adage: “My brother and I against my cousin – and my brother, my cousin and I against a stranger.”

Regarding the Palestinian Arabs, first of all,  many are not originally Palestinians at all. They are immigrants who came to the Land of Israel from all over the Arab world during the British Mandate in order to find employment in the cities and on the farms the Jews had built.  These immigrants still have names such as “Al Hurani (from Huran in southern Syria)”, “Al Tzurani (from Tyre in Southern Lebanon)”, “Al  Zrakawi (from Mazraka in Jordan),” “Al Maztri (the Egyptian)” and many other names that point to the actual, geographically varied origins of the so-called Palestinians. Why ask the other Arabs, should they get preferential treatment compared to those who remained in their original countries?

Starting with the end of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, the politics in the Arab world began to center on Israel and the “Palestinian problem” whose solution was to be achieved only by eliminating Israel. In order to help succeed in that mission, the Arab refugees were kept in camps, with explicit instructions from the Arab League to keep them there and not to absorb them in other  Arab countries.

UNRWA ensured that they were provided with food, education and medical care without charge – that is to say, the nations of the world footed the bill, while the Arab neighbors of these eternal “refugees” had to work and provide food, education and medical care for their families by the sweat of their brow.  Refugees who were supplied with free foodstuffs, such as rice, flour, sugar, and oil, for the use of their families, would often sell some of it to their non-refugee neighbors and make a tidy profit.

Those living in the refugee camps do not pay municipal taxes, leading to a significant number of “refugees” who rent their homes to others and collect exorbitant sums in comparison with those renting apartments in nearby cities, thanks to this tax exemption. In other words, the world subsidizes the taxes and the refugees line their own pockets.

In Lebanon, several refugee camps were built near Beirut but were incorporated into the expanding city, then turned into high-class neighborhoods with imposing high rise apartment buildings. Someone has profited from this change, and it is not the man in the street, who has every reason to feel cheated.

The Palestinian “refugee” camps located in Lebanon have been taken over by armed organizations, from the PLO to ISIS, including Hamas, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and organizations of Salafist Jihadists. These organizations act viciously towards surrounding Lebanese citizens and in 1975 brought on a civil war that  lasted for 14 long  years of bloodshed, destruction and saw the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their villages to lives of horrible suffering in tent camps all over the country’ Many took  refuge in Palestinian “refugee” camps, but the Lebanese refugees received less than 10 percent of what  Palestinian Arabs received, causing much internecine jealousy  and hatred.

In Jordan, in 1970, the Palestinian Arabs, led by PLO head Yassir Arafat, attempted to take over the country by establishing autonomous regions of their own, complete with roadblocks and armed Palestinian Arabs in the country’s north that challenged the monarchy. In September 1970, known as “Black September”, King Hussein decided he had had enough and would show them who is boss in Jordan. The war he declared against them cost thousands of lives on both sides.

Meanwhile, in Israel,  20% of the citizenry within the pre-1967 borders is made up of “Palestinian” Arabs who do not rebel or fight against the state. In other words, the “Palestinians” living in pre-1967 Israel enjoy life in the only democracy in the Middle East, while the Arab countries sacrifice their soldiers’ blood to liberate “Palestine.” Is there a worse case of feeling that you are being exploited than that of an Arab soldier putting his life in danger for this meaningless cause?

Worse still is what every Arab knows: Palestinian Arabs have been selling land to Jews for at least a century, profit immensely from the deals and then go wailing to their Arab brothers to come and free “Palestine” from the “Zionist occupation.”

Reprinted with author’s permission from Israel National News