AJ+ (a subsidiary of Al Jazeera) put out a three minute video about the Arabs in Latin America. It is untranslated, but you can make most of it out.
If we Americans ignore the Arabs of Latin America, the Arabs in the Middle East do not.
The video estimates 20 million Arabs in Latin America. I would place it a bit higher, if one considers that many Lebanese Maronites consider themselves Phoenician, and will not list themselves as Arabic on a census.
Posted on YouTube: April 2, 2019
Note: The team, CD Palestino was founded in 1920. The reference to 1948 refers to what the Palestinians call the Naqbe.
Chile has been taking in Palestinians since the 19th century. The vast majority were Christians from Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Bethlehem, and Beit Safafa.
Many were fleeing the anti-Christian persecutions of the Ottoman Turks (before 1917), and later some fled the Muslim-Jewish fighting during the Mandate. A few came after the Six Day War in 1967.
However, there were a few Muslims among them: some either converted to Christianity or married Christian women who raised the kids to be Christian. Roughly 99% of the Palestinians in Chile, Chilestinians, are Christian.
These Palestinians have often become elites in Chile, and they wield political power above their numbers.
Chile has a major league soccer (futbol) team called CD (Sports Club) Palestino, which represents the Palestinian community to the world. It is followed not only in Chile, but in Palestine.
There are some who claim that Palestinian identity did not exist until 1967, however …
1920 – CD (Sports Club) Palestino was formed 1938 – Club Palestino (a social club) was opened. This is no minor local club, but is a major cultural force.
Posted on YouTube: February 23, 2017
At the time of this writing, Gaza is brimming over with about 1.8 million people. Gaza is under an Israel blockade, and the situation has become unliveable.
Israel has even offered to pay the flight fare for those Gazan Arabs willing to emigrate from Gaza, but Israel can find no willing countries to take them.
Israeli authorities are willing to allow Gaza Strip residents who want to emigrate to fly out via Israel if a country is found to accept them, a senior government official said on Monday. According to the official, Israel would even pay for the flight. The official added that the government had asked a few countries, including some in the Middle East, whether they would be willing to accept Palestinians from Gaza, and was turned down.
Well, Israel should know better.
It will take more than a free flight to get countries to accept the Arabs.
But if Israel is willing to give the Gazans some money – say $100,000 US per person – then Chile might be willing to take in some Gazans, or some Palestinians from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).
The general idea is good; but it will cost more than paying the fare of a few Palestinians willing to leave Gaza.
Chile could easily absorb 100,000 Palestinians – whether from Gaza, or Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), does not matter.
But it will cost more than a free airline ticket.
Now, Chile could not possibly take in all the Palestinians. But 100,000 would be doable, and it would be a good start. At $100,000 US per person, it would be $10 Billion. It would not be cheap.
It appears that Israeli academics are becoming very interested in the Arabs of Latin America, with particular attention to the migration of Palestinians to Chile.
The discussions are in English, though the speakers have noticable Hebrew accents.
I wonder if they go any information from this site. Hmm?!
It is a very good history of the Palestinian community in Chile.
