Canada looks to boost refugees from Gaza, Egypt says no over security

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Egypt doesn’t want to take in an influx of Palestinian refugees, fearing a security threat. Canada, on the other hand, seems sure that we can handle a situation that countries in the region are shying away from.

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The issue of Palestinian refugees is a complex one, and there is more than one reason that countries such as Egypt and Jordan have refused to take in refugees. That includes publicly stated claims that they don’t want to aid Israel in pushing Palestinians off their land, but security is also a factor.

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has said that he worries an influx of Palestinian refugees to the Sinai Peninsula would create “a base for attacks on Israel. Israel would have the right to defend itself … and would strike Egyptian territory.”

That’s something Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director with the International Crisis Group, agreed with, noting Egypt dealt with an insurgency — now mostly quelled — sporadically on the Sinai Peninsula, starting in 2011.

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“Cairo does not want to have a new security problem on its hands in this problematic region,” Fabiani told Associated Press in October.

And what would that security threat be?

A poll taken in December and reported on by Reuters showed that 72% of Palestinians said they “believed the Hamas decision to launch the cross-border rampage in southern Israel was ‘correct’ given its outcome so far, while 22% said it was ‘incorrect.’”

Almost three-quarters of Palestinians agreed with attacking innocent civilians, raping women, killing old people in their homes, and thought that taking the young and old, and men and women as hostages was acceptable. This is the population that the Trudeau government believes we can bring into our country out of a humanitarian concern.

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Concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza is understandable, but importing a population that is at odds with Canadian values is not. All the polling of the population in Gaza, by Palestinians themselves, shows that they are not in line with Canadian values.

This is not a population fleeing war, this is a population cheering on war — a population totally radicalized by decades of propaganda, some of it funded by Canada through UNRWA schools.

Some comparisons have been made to the Ukrainian situation, with Palestinian supporters implying racism is at play because of security concerns and vetting. That’s simply not the case; in Ukraine, we are dealing with a population that is trying to repel an invading Russian army as that country tries to establish a Western-style liberal democracy.

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This isn’t even like the Syrian refugee crisis, which Canada stepped up to assist with.

In that instance, there was a population fleeing war and fleeing extremists, they weren’t cheering on ISIS or Asad — they simply wanted to live.

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That’s not the case here. After decades of radicalization and 15 years of Hamas control of Gaza, much of the population thinks like the terrorists running the place. Bringing in that population to Canada will be problematic.

Justin Trudeau likes to say that diversity is our strength, but this might be stretching it a little too far.

We already have people in Canada expressing outright support for terrorist groups, with the regulars marching in the streets. We don’t need to import people whose values are at odds with our own.

Canada needs to find a way to help with the humanitarian crisis without importing a new crisis into this country.

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