The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East has sparked debates in the West about accepting Palestinian refugees.
Progressives and democrats in the United States, for example, have recently called for their government to take in some of the expected 1 million refugees from Gaza.
However, this call, amplified by some democrat politicians, was immediately shut down by Republicans due to risk of terrorism and crimes.
Critics of accepting Palestinian refugees point to Denmark’s experience in 1992 when they admitted 321 Palestinian refugees.
A recent report revealed that by 2019, 64% of them had been convicted of crimes, with 34% of their children also having criminal records.
The issue of accepting refugees from Gaza has also arisen in Great Britain, with Scotland taking the lead by offering to become the first country in the United Kingdom to accept such refugees.
Nigel Farage, a former member of the European Parliament for the UK Independent Party and now a broadcaster, strongly criticized the plan to accept refugees on social media, stating, “Enough is enough! Denmark took in 321 Palestinian refugees in 1992,” while expressing concerns about potential reliance on welfare.
Danish MEP Peter Kofod discussed this issue on GB News, highlighting that most of of the 321 Palestinian refugees admitted by Denmark in 1992 had acquired criminal records.
He described the situation as “a complete disaster in Denmark” and believed it was a detrimental decision for the country’s future.
According to a report from Denmark’s acting Minister for Foreigners and Integration, Kaare Dybvad Bek, 204 of the Palestinians admitted to Denmark under the so-called Palestinian Act between 1992 and 2019 were convicted of crimes, either receiving prison sentences or fines.
In the same period, 176 of them received public support, with the majority receiving disability pensions. Out of the 321 stateless Palestinians, 270 were residing in Denmark by the end of 2019.
Danish Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek acknowledges past shortcomings in granting permanent residence permits, stating, “There is no doubt that in Denmark, we have been too lax in the past about who has been granted permanent residence permits. Some of those who came here are not integrated, and these numbers also attest to that fact. It’s depressing when such a large portion of a specific group is convicted of crimes or dependent on public support. But unfortunately, these are not new statistics. Nevertheless, it doesn’t make it any less frustrating when past decisions haunt today’s society.”
Regarding the situation of stateless Palestinians’ children in Denmark, it is somewhat improved but still concerning.
Among the 999 children residing in Denmark, 337 have been convicted of crimes, with 132 receiving prison sentences. Last year, 372 of the children received public benefits, and more than half of them were student grant recipients.
Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek emphasizes that he cannot change past decisions, stating, “I am not a ‘time machine’ and cannot travel back to 1992 to make a different decision. What we can do is learn from the past. We can have strict rules for who is granted permanent residence in Denmark. The government, together with several other parties, has ensured this in recent years, including stricter requirements for self-sufficiency, employment, and tougher criteria for criminality. With these reforms, many of those who were previously granted residence permits would not meet the requirements we have today.”
Andreas Steenberg, the spokesperson on foreigners and integration for the Radical Left, believes that it was “blatantly obvious” that it was wrong policy not to impose requirements on refugees while granting them rights. An integration law was introduced only in 1999. He stated, “Until the end of the 1990s, the attitude was that integration would happen on its own, which, as it turns out, it doesn’t. The refugees who arrived in the 1980s and 1990s were affected by the lack of interest in their integration. This group has also suffered from it. What’s important now is to get the descendants’ integration going.”
Steenberg notes that two-thirds of the stateless Palestinians’ children do not receive public support today.
Of those who do, as mentioned, the majority are student grant recipients.
He emphasized the importance of pursuing education for future employment opportunities, stating, “They should ideally be pursuing an education so that they can get a job later. If people get an education in Denmark, their employment rates afterward are close to those of ethnic Danes. So, I don’t see it as a problem that the stateless Palestinians’ children receive student grants. On the contrary, we now have an integration policy with rights and duties, to use a Social Democratic expression. Rights come with duties if you want to stay in Denmark. This means behaving properly and either getting an education or finding a job.”
The stateless Palestinians were initially rejected by the Refugee Board, and the then-Minister of Justice, Hans Engell (K), refused to grant them humanitarian residence permits. However, after spending just over five months in Blågårds Church, they were granted residence permits in March 1992. The special law for their admission was passed by the Social Democrats, the Radical Left, and the Socialist People’s Party, against the then-right-wing government and the Progress Party.
Today, Hans Engell expresses regret regarding the Palestinian Act but highlights that the opposition at that time was primarily due to the use of a special law. He explained, “We opposed the special law because the Palestinian individuals in question had no legal basis for residence in Denmark.”
The Daily Netizen 