If the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and other potential Arab peace partners of Israel would allow Palestinians to become citizens, it would be an even bigger political earthquake than those countries normalizing relations with Israel.
Right now there are 150,000 Palestinian workers in the UAE and about 250,000 in Saudi Arabia, along with at least another 100,000 in other Gulf countries. These countries have huge outside worker populations.
Palestinians are desirable workers. They work harder than Gulf Arabs and are generally better educated. Many of them know Hebrew which will make them more important as Gulf countries slowly normalize with Israel.
If the UAE and Saudi Arabia would announce that they would accept Palestinians as citizens, motivated Palestinians from the territories would move there, as well as many more from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It would help the Gulf countries’ economies and it would help Palestinians who want to live in s stable Arab land where they can raise their families.
Perhaps most importantly, it would puncture the myth that somehow purposefully keeping Palestinians in a stateless limbo for over seven decades is for their own good.
Once Palestinians are shown to be happy, productive members of the Gulf states, other countries that deny them citizenship like Egypt, Syria and Lebanon would be shown to be mistreating them not out of solidarity but out of bigotry.
The “Palestinian right of return” which has no basis in international law would be exposed as a means of using Palestinians as cannon fodder.
And the Middle East would be that much closer to real peace.
Let’s hope that this is part of the negotiations.
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