Plan to admit Palestinian refugees to the US should be met with a resounding ‘no’

“Bomb!” said the Syrian man seated across from me on the bus in rural England.

As a refugee resettlement volunteer, my task that day was to help him learn the bus route he would take for his English language classes at the local community college, to start his family’s new life far from Damascus. His single word and explosive hand gesture conveyed the reason he and some 20,000 Syrian victims had sought safety under the UK’s Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme.

And now? There’s Gaza, with more than 75 percent of its population displaced and a growing humanitarian crisis in the wake of Israel’s military operations. Yet last week’s call by nearly 70 Democratic lawmakers to admit certain Palestinian refugees to the United States should be met with a resounding “no.”

Their letter, proposing a P-2 designation for vulnerable Palestinian relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, follows the Biden administration’s own recent consideration to welcome Palestinian refugees from war-torn Gaza. Its supporters ensure those eligible would be subject to a rigorous vetting process, not unlike those detailed in the accounts of U.S.-bound Syrian refugees.

The proposed White House plan would represent a significant departure from longstanding policy, which has so far failed to welcome large numbers of Palestinians. Of the more than 400,000 refugees resettled in the U.S., less than 600 have been Palestinian. Only 56, or 0.09 percent of refugees resettled in fiscal 2023 were Palestinian.

One reason: no amount of vetting can reliably undo years of intentional indoctrination and radicalization.

In 2020, an EU Parliament resolution railed against hate speech and violence present in Palestinian school textbooks. Educational material provided to Palestinian children has been replete with incitements to violence against Jews.

A follow-on EU-funded audit of more than 150 textbooks revealed dehumanizing descriptions of Jews, although it also acknowledged partial adherence to UNESCO standards on human rights. In one example, a social studies text exalted terrorist Dalal al-Mughrabi, whose 1978 Coastal Road bus hijacking killed 35 Israelis, including 13 children.

This radicalization manifests in Gaza’s perceptions of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Two-thirds of the Palestinian public continues to support the brutal attack, according to recent polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. A disconcerting 90 percent of Palestinians further believe that Hamas committed no atrocities on Oct. 7.

Under U.S. law, refugees must prove they are “persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” A Palestinian refugee may accordingly name either Hamas or Israel as persecutor. The latter presents a challenge to the U.S. in its continued support of Israel in its war against Hamas.

The potential to import dangerous ideology is an additional problem in the context of rising antisemitism within the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in the weeks immediately following the Oct. 7 attack, many of which were linked to the war in Israel and Gaza. FBI director Christopher Wray called it “historic.” While Jews comprise less than 3 percent of the American population, they are victims of roughly 60 percent of all religious-based hate crimes.

Together, troubling statistics and Palestinians’ documented immersion in a culture of hatred suggests that few to none of those who undergo screening should be eligible for admission.  

A welcome to Gazan refugees will exacerbate existing socio-political tensions and give a face to the often antisemitic Palestinian protest movement now sweeping the nation.

The Biden administration cannot on one hand denounce antisemitism, while on the other, consider importing the same ideologies that espouse it. Lawmakers may be obligated to the needs of their constituents, but the president must consider the inherent risks of admission to the beleaguered families of U.S. citizens. Mass admission of Palestinians into the U.S. should be an easy “no.”

Alyssa Blakemore is a freelance writer and former Syrian refugee resettlement volunteer.