Why Arabs Don't Want To Receive Palestinian Ex-Prisoners

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21442/palestinian-ex-prisoners

by Khaled Abu Toameh
March 3, 2025 at 5:00 am

• The Jordanians and Lebanese, for their part, have not forgotten how Palestinians sparked civil wars in their countries in the 70s and 80s.

• [The Arab countries'] refusal to take in Palestinian prisoners probably arises from the fact that these countries actually do not care about the Palestinians and even consider them an ungrateful people and troublemakers. Many Arabs also seem to have lost faith in the Palestinians' ability to implement reform and end rampant financial and administrative corruption in their governing bodies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

• "The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. Help us modern-minded, secular, liberal Muslims marginalize their influence by declaring what they are: a terrorist organization." — Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, in testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, July 11, 2018.

• "In point of fact, nothing would be more pro-Muslim than the marginalization of the Muslim Brotherhood and its direct affiliates. Making the Muslim Brotherhood radioactive would allow the light to shine upon the most potent antagonists in Muslim communities: those who reject political Islamist groups and believe in liberty and the separation of mosque and state." — Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, in testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, July 11, 2018.

• "Call on American Muslim leaders to take a position on the Muslim Brotherhood and its overarching theo-political ideology. I ask my fellow Muslims: Will they be the side of freedom, liberty, and modernity, or will they be on the side of tyranny of the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey's AKP, the Iranian Khomeinists, or Pakistan's Jamaat e-Islami?" — Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, in testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, July 11, 2018.

• "Develop foreign policy mechanisms to disincentivize Qatari and Turkish Government facilitation of the Brotherhood and ultimately think about suspending Turkey from NATO." — Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, in testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, July 11, 2018.

• "And please stop engaging Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups in government, media, and NGOs, and recognize their Islamist terrorist sympathies." — Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, in testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, July 11, 2018.

• Such a designation would also make it far more difficult for the countries that support the Muslim Brotherhood, especially Turkey and Qatar, to keep on doing so. The Muslim Brotherhood has already been declared a terrorist organization by the governments of Austria, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Most of the Arab countries are refusing to receive Palestinians released from Israeli prison, many of whom belong to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups, as part of the US-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal. The Jordanians and Lebanese, for their part, have not forgotten how Palestinians sparked civil wars in their countries in the 70s and 80s. Pictured: Crowds of celebrating Palestinians, some waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, great Palestinian terrorists who were set free by Israel in exchange for Hamas releasing Israeli hostages, on January 20, 2025, in Beitunia, on the outskirts of Ramallah. (Photo by Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)

Most of the Arab countries are refusing to receive Palestinians released from Israeli prison as part of the US-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal. In the past few weeks, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners -- many of whom were imprisoned for acts of terrorism -- in return for Israeli hostages who kidnapped to the Gaza Strip during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. At least 1,200 Israelis were murdered and thousands wounded on that day. Another 251 were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and "ordinary" Palestinians.

Some of the prisoners were released to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem. Many others were released to Egypt, with the hope that other Arab countries would host them. According to Palestinian sources, the Egyptians have agreed to allow only a handful of ex-prisoners to remain in Egypt, while dozens of others are searching for countries that will agree to receive them. With the exception of Qatar and Turkey (a non-Arab Muslim country), most of the Arab countries have reportedly refused to allow the released prisoners into their borders, the sources revealed.

The ex-prisoners, many of whom belong to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups, are stuck in Cairo, where they are staying in hotels and hospitals.

The Arab countries that refused to host the ex-prisoners have not announced their position officially, for fear of facing a backlash from Palestinians and their own people. It seems the Arab states are not eager to provide shelter to Islamist jihadists who could join forces with other terror groups and pose a threat to the regimes that have taken them in.

The Jordanians and Lebanese, for their part, have not forgotten how Palestinians sparked civil wars in their countries in the 70s and 80s.

After the Palestinians tried to overthrow their host, King Hussein of Jordan, in 1970; then started a civil war in Lebanon right after that; then, when welcomed into Kuwait, took the side of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait in 1990, it is hard to blame any regime.

The refusal of the Arab countries to play host to the ex-prisoners is seen by many Palestinians and Arabs as yet another sign that the Arab heads of state and governments do not really care about the Palestinians, which largely may be true. It also exposes the big difference between the Arabs' public support for the Palestinians and their true actions, or rather inaction, to help them.

Egyptian-American author Dr. Sam Yousef commented:

"Arabs are really a disgrace to humanity and Islam!

"Tunisia and Jordan refuse to receive any of the released deported prisoners stuck in Egypt, and Algeria has not responded yet, while Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan will each receive 45 prisoners."

Nizam Mahdawi, a former Palestinian correspondent for several Arab satellite channels, also expressed outrage with the Arab countries for refusing to host the ex-prisoners:

"Algeria gave initial approval to receive a number of prisoners from a specific faction [belonging to the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], while Tunisia refused to receive any of the released prisoners.

"The Algerian regime raised the slogan of solidarity with Palestine and affirmed that it is its cause and that it will not abandon the Palestinians, but now it agrees to receive prisoners from a specific faction only. Yet, it has not received anyone so far.

"As for Tunisia, its president, Kais Saied, used the Palestinian cause as a slogan for his election campaign, but today he refuses to receive the released prisoners.

"A nation that is unable to receive its heroes! If the rejection was out of fear of Israel and America, Turkey and Pakistan agreed to receive them without fearing anyone. This is a lack of courage [on the part of the Arabs].

"We are in the stage where the masks are being removed."

The Palestinian social media account Al-Quds Yantafeth ("Jerusalem Erupts") pointed out that many of the ex-prisoners remain stranded in Egypt:

"The prisoners who were released and deported from Palestine and now stuck in hotels in Cairo. They are still wearing their prison clothes and have not changed them.

"There is no Arab country willing to accept them, not even those countries that were crying over the Gaza Strip, the Gazans and Palestine [during the Israel-Hamas war], and even keyboard heroes are unable to pressure their governments to accept the prisoners."

The Arab countries' refusal to receive the ex-prisoners should not come as a surprise to those familiar with the problematic relationship between the Palestinians and their Arab brethren. It is not uncommon to hear from many Palestinians how they have always felt betrayed by the Arab countries.

Most of the Arab states did almost nothing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the war, which was triggered by the October 7 massacre of Israelis.

Their refusal came about partly because those countries despise Hamas and, unsurprisingly, consider it a threat to their national security.

The refusal to take in Palestinian prisoners probably arises from the fact that these countries actually do not care about the Palestinians and even consider them an ungrateful people and troublemakers. Many Arabs also seem to have lost faith in the Palestinians' ability to implement reform and end rampant financial and administrative corruption in their governing bodies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Many Arabs have evidently not forgotten how the Palestinians sided with Iraq's then dictator Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait was one of many wealthy Arab countries that used to provide the Palestinians with millions of dollars in aid every year. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, most of the Palestinians there took Hussein's side, not Kuwait's. When the Iraqi occupiers were driven out of Kuwait in 1991, roughly 400,000 Palestinians who had lived and worked in the emirate found themselves abruptly deported.

In the past few decades, many Arab states, despite repeated pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars, have significantly reduced financial aid to the Palestinians. According to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Finance Ministry, the PA's funding from Arab countries dropped from $265.5 million in 2019 to $40 million in 2020. The biggest cut was from Saudi Arabia, which reduced its $174.7 million aid to the PA in 2019 to only $32 million in 2020 -- a decrease of 81.4%.

The Arab countries' refusal to accept the released Palestinian prisoners also shows what a mistake it would be to rely on these countries to assist in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the post-war era.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has become the source of almost all Sunni Islamic extremism and terrorism, and is currently represented in more than 70 countries. Its ideology is being spread throughout the Middle East and Asia by Qatar's Al-Jazeera broadcasting empire, as well as in Europe and the United States. The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

"Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Ironically, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in what must be one of the few matters about which they agree, recently banned Al-Jazeera from operating in their jurisdictions.

It would be extremely helpful if the US were officially to designate the Muslim Brotherhood, in addition to Hamas, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. It is the root from which so many of the Islamic terrorist organizations grow.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, an observant American Muslim, testified in 2018 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security:

"The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. Help us modern-minded, secular, liberal Muslims marginalize their influence by declaring what they are: a terrorist organization.

"Unfortunately, much of the conversation about the Brotherhood has been obstructed, muted, marginalized, deferred, minimized by the Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers or their allies here in the West....

"In point of fact, nothing would be more pro-Muslim than the marginalization of the Muslim Brotherhood and its direct affiliates. Making the Muslim Brotherhood radioactive would allow the light to shine upon the most potent antagonists in Muslim communities: those who reject political Islamist groups and believe in liberty and the separation of mosque and state...

"So my final recommendations, Chairman, is to, one, designate the MB a foreign terrorist organizations beginning in Egypt, and then on a country-country basis in Libya, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, and Yemen. Call on American Muslim leaders to take a position on the Muslim Brotherhood and its overarching theo-political ideology.

"I ask my fellow Muslims: Will they be the side of freedom, liberty, and modernity, or will they be on the side of tyranny of the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey's AKP, the Iranian Khomeinists, or Pakistan's Jamaat e-Islami?

"Develop foreign policy mechanisms to disincentivize Qatari and Turkish Government facilitation of the Brotherhood and ultimately think about suspending Turkey from NATO....

"And please stop engaging Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups in government, media, and NGOs, and recognize their Islamist terrorist sympathies."

Such a designation would also make it far more difficult for the countries that support the Muslim Brotherhood, especially Turkey and Qatar, to keep on doing so. The Muslim Brotherhood has already been declared a terrorist organization by the governments of Austria, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Many of these Arabs understand that Hamas and many other Palestinians have no intention of abandoning the fight against Israel, a move that will result in more violence, bloodshed and destruction. That is also probably why no Arab country is going to invest one dollar in the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas remains in power and as long as Palestinian children are indoctrinated to murder Jews.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.