The Biden administration is reportedly considering whether to grant “certain Palestinian refugees” asylum in the United States, internal government documents reveal.
First reported by CBS News, multiple federal agencies within the administration are weighing options for “resettling Palestinians from Gaza” within the US as the Israel-Hamas war continues. As the outlet notes, “one of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with US ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt.” Another option is “getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives.”
In both cases, the refugees would need to have immediate family members who are American citizens or legal residents. Refugees would also have to pass eligibility, medical, and security screenings to qualify. This process would also require Palestinians to name their persecutor in order to be granted legitimate asylum status, creating a potentially awkward diplomatic satiation for US-allied Israel.
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The resettlement plan would require participation from Egypt, which thus far has refused to accept Palestinian refugees and has reinforced the Rafah border crossing with a formidable wall.
According to polls conducted in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, 97.6 percent of Gaza residents harbor some level of hatred for the United States, and as much as three-quarters of the population have a mostly favorable view of Hamas.
The Biden administration’s plans also hearken back to a policy proposal circulated within the Israeli government in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack. As Valuetainment reported at the time, leaked internal documents from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry exposed a classified proposal to forcibly and permanently relocate 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, followed by a mass exporting of migrants to Europe and North America. Under this framework, American influence would be leveraged to encourage other nations to take in Palestinians, granting Israel “international legitimacy” and allowing for other nations’ “permissive immigration policies” to work in the country’s favor.
This would have been accompanied by an aggressive marketing campaign to persuade the Palestinian people that the loss of land was a form of divine punishment from God for supporting Hamas.
At the time, Israel denied that the plan was anything other than a “concept paper” never intended for public viewing. However, a short time later, a pair of Israeli lawmakers published a Wall Street Journal op-ed repeating these same talking points and emphasizing that the West has a “moral imperative” to accommodate the refugees.
Related: Top Israeli Lawmakers Urge the West to “Welcome” Gaza Refugees as a “Moral Duty”
When reached for comment by CBS, the White House stated in part that the US “categorically rejects any actions leading to the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza. The best path forward is to achieve a sustainable cease-fire through a hostage deal that will stabilize the situation and pave the way to a two-state solution.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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