The Bidoon

Palestinian Arabs aren’t the only ones who are treated like dirt by the Arab world. There is also a large population known as Bidoon, short for Bidun jinsiya which means “without nationality” in Arabic. Most are Arab.

There are between 110,000 and 120,000 stateless Bidoon in Kuwait. Many have lived in Kuwait their entire lives, but Kuwait reserves full citizenship rights for those who established residence in the country prior to 1920. In some cases, residence prior to 1920 was not sufficient for acquisition of nationality…

The Bidoon in Kuwait are not allowed to work or to receive welfare services. Security ID had been taken from the majority of them leaving them no access to public health care. They are banned from travel. Bidoon children may be denied birth certificates needed to attend school.

(In Saudi Arabia), stateless Bidoon are not given passports.

The UAE also has a population of a roughly estimated 100,000 stateless Bidoon. Despite the fact many of these individuals were born in the U.E., they are not considered to be citizens.

Bahrain, to its credit, did naturalize most of their 15,000 Bidoon in 2001.

The only possible reason we don’t hear about the Bidoon is because they haven’t embarked on any terror campaigns against Western targets. If they would try to fight for their rights in the lands that they came from they’d be destroyed without anyone really caring – a couple of hundred thousand Arabs being killed by other Arabs is hardly newsworthy. There are no UN committees that condemn Kuwait or the UAE for their “apartheid” against fellow Arabs, no outraged editorials pretending to care about these Arabs’ civil rights, no international campaigns for allowing basic human rights to these Arabs. And of course there are no UN refugee camps for these people providing free food and education.

Because the oppressors are Arab, which means that the victims don’t really matter.

(crossposted on Elder of Ziyon )