August 21, 2012
Posted on YouTube: September 2, 2011
The opening two minutes, you have to pay if you want to see more
La Calera is a city in the center of Chile, where Palestinians are a major part of the population. They recently accepted a lot of Palestinian immigrants who were stranded without papers between Iraq and Syria. These people had been stuck in a no man’s land for 4 years.
Many nations accepted a portion of them. But Chile, which already has a large in influential Palestinian population made it almost a national celebration.
The video is from a documentary about their recent arrival in Chile and the problems they faced.
One chief problem is this: These new immigrants are Muslim, while Palestinian-Chileans (Chilestinos) are over 99% Christians. Even the charities which help them will be Catholic or Eastern Christian.
But this is a good starting point to see just how powerful, respectable, and influential that the Palestinians in Chile are. Many are now third and fourth generation Chilean. Most are middle class. Many are elite.
When Chile accepted these immigrants it was national news in Chile. National news.
This is a list of the top four countries to take them in:
USA: 1,125 Palestinian refugees from Iraq (almost all from al Waleed camp).
Canada: 198 Palestinian refugees from Iraq.
Brazil: 117 Palestinian refugees from Iraq (from Ruweished camp).
Chile: 116 Palestinian refugees from Iraq.
(Source)
Note: Actually, the USA took in 1350, according to this CS Monitor Article (Source)
Also, other sources list 117 refugees to Chile, which considering that Chile has ONLY 17 million people is a large amount of refugees. More per capita than the USA; but Chile actually respects Palestinians, now.
The US took in 10x as many as Chile did. But We Americans have have 20x the population of Chile. So Chile – relatively speaking – took in twice as much as we did.
Did you even know about this? I bet you were never informed that America took in Palestinian refugees. Of course not; it was mostly kept quiet.
But the Chileans celebrated this.
Can you imagine this happening in the USA?
Well, we accepted about 10 times as many of these stranded Palestinians, but you never heard about it.
In Chile, Palestinians are accepted. They got clout. The Palestinian community is elite.
Chile’s President greeted them.
Did George Bush greet the Palestinians to America?
May 12, 2017 – Edited: Had to remove a dead video.
January 2, 2024 – Edited: Made minor improvements.