AP: Poor, Downtrodden Palestinians Leaving Their Beloved Homeland
AP writer Sarah El Deeb does her best to pull your heartstrings about the awful situation that the Palestinians have brought on themselves by voting in a terrorist government and then starting a war with Israel. Yeah, seriously, we're crying on the inside:
Palestinians have emigrated in large numbers before, a response to decades of war, unrest and displacement, but Palestinian government officials fear this is a particularly strong wave. The emigration is hurting Palestinian prospects for statehood, says pollster Nader Said. "What Israel couldn't do by force," he said, "we were able to do with internal dispute, lack of leadership, accompanied by economic pressure and the siege on Gaza."... Although Palestinian society tends to stigmatize its emigrants as deserters, a recent poll indicated that the number of young Palestinians willing to leave if given a chance has jumped from 25 percent to 44 percent over two years....
Businesses are also leaving. More than 20, including clothing and plastic factories, have moved to Egypt or Jordan in the past six months — as many as in the previous six years — taking 12 percent of Gaza's scarce jobs with them, according to Gaza's Federation of Industries.
In September alone, 35 factory owners applied to relocate their machinery abroad, said Mohammed al-Kidwa, governor of Gaza City. Some who left came back because of the difficulties of doing business abroad.
We're actually being kind of unfair to Ms. El Deeb. This is a pretty well-balanced article, with the exceptions of the "homeland" headline and snarky reference to the "the fenced-in strip". In fact, reading it again, we feel almost guilty about maybe laying it on a little too thick in our own hed. But it's the Associated Press, so can you ever really be too sarcastic about their anti-Israel bias? You might not now what anti-Israel nonsense they're up to today, but they certainly do.
Bonus question: if Sharon's "take Gaza and choke on it" strategy turns out to have been a moderate succeed in the medium term, do we get refunds on the hours upon hours of time we spent answering angry emails?
Previously: Associated Press: "We are all Hezbollah" is Not Anti-Israel, AP Headline and Lede: Syrian War Against Israel Would Be "Resistance", The AP Lede On the Lebanon Tribunal Is Rank Bias
