Humza Yousaf's politicians logic won't help Gazan refugees

As our First Minister succumbs to the politician's syllogism, what is missing is the voice of Palestinian refugees. Helping them closer to home is the answer, not forced migration to Europe

Scotland’s First Minister has insisted that the nation is ready to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza and accused London of ‘dog whistle language’. But what is missing as Holyrood and Westminster argue is what policy is best for refugees fleeing a warzone. Amid the politicking, what is being lost is advocacy for a coherent approach to refugee aid

Politician’s logic

British political anoraks will all be familiar with Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s sit-com ‘Yes Minister’, whose satire was so real as to at times be indistinguishable from reality. But one recurring theme still seems pertinent, namely the ever-present dangers of the politician's syllogism.

The logical fallacy goes something like this:

We must do something.

This is something.

Therefore, we must do this.

Doing the wrong this is worse than doing nothing, this is certainly the case of when good intentions skipping hand-in-hand with a political desire to signal virtue slaps up against cold reality.

As the terrible human price becomes increasingly visible in the war Hamas started, it is vital that policy makers focus on crafting a humanitarian framework for refugees which will actually work. And work by placing the wishes of those fleeing the conflict at the fore alongside a careful consideration on how to ensure aid goes the furthest.

When we push aside the politician’s fallacy of ‘we must do something’ and instead focus on ‘what is the best thing to be done’, we quickly discover the answers are very different from the position advocated by our First Minister.

How to help refugees

Arif Husain is Chief Economist and Director of the Food Security Analysis and Trends Service at United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). He is very much an expert worth listening to when politicians are deciding how best to help those caught up in conflict.

Mr Husain explains that all too often well-meaning European policy makers end up promoting forced migration. Displaced people should be assisted in safe locations closer to their places of origin to “reduce onward migration flows as a survival strategy” and prevent suffering and death along the migration routes.

And he is correct, especially if we ask refugees themselves about what they actually want. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) study of 2017 into the Syrian migrant crisis confirmed what many of us already knew, that refugees desperately wish to be closer to - as opposed to furthest away from - home. Mr Husain explains,

“Understanding the dynamics of migration is crucial to improve protection and assistance to displaced people. ‘Our study shows that when people move, their objective is to go to the closest place to their house’, he said. ‘They are displaced in their countries at least three times before they decide to [leave the country]’.”

None of this is particularly surprising, not least since the trauma of having to flee your home and seek refuge abroad is bad enough. Those compelled to undertake this tragic journey will want safe harbour in places where the language, culture, habits and traditions are more familiar. None of this is hard to work out, and should be at the fore of our considerations when crafting policy frameworks to help refugees needing to flee Gaza.

I put it to our First Minister that he really ought to spend less time thinking like a politician whose party is haemorrhaging support at the polls and instead think like a refugee. When we are making policies and regulations – we have to think like a refugee.

What do they want? They want to be closer to home, so finding a place of stability in the levant as opposed to Europe. You need to take account of a holistic approach, a uniformity of benefits for the people in question and this doesn’t mean only European countries. Pity our First Minister, eager to flag up the old dividing lines of ‘virtuous Holyrood’ versus ‘nasty regressive Tory Westminster’ isn’t interested in any of this.

Forced migration from Gaza to to Europe creates bottlenecks in resources, displacement further from home magnifies the disruption - often at the expense of the refugees. None of this is humane or sensible.

So what is to be done? European (including our First Minister here in Scotland) ought to be applying tremendous diplomatic pressure to the stable Arab countries in the region. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar (to name a few) are stable countries, they are also wealthy enough to do more.

And this is not lost on the citizens living in these Arab countries either, for example the Saudi Makkah newspaper published a cartoon criticising Riyadh for it’s less than friendly approach to Arab refugees…

It is sixteen times more cost effective to house a refugee from Syria (or Gaza) in Jordan or Lebanon than in Europe. Arab neighbours are best placed to help Gazan refugees, the focus should be on diplomatic efforts to make them do more. If our political leaders focus their energies thusly, it means existing aid can go further, resources helping more people in need. Why this isn’t at the forefront of our thinking on this issue is beyond me.

Too many politicians in Europe and here in Scotland seem to be akin to a vinyl record player - whose needle is stuck repeating the same line of song. ‘We must do something and this is something, so we must do it’, insists our First Minister as he lunges away from a moribund party conference, appalling polling and a huge 20 per-cent swing in Rutherglen away from his party.

Meanwhile what is being lost in all of this virtuous posturing is a policy which will actually best serve refugees. They, and we, all deserve more serious thinking.

A few days ago (18th October) I was invited on to GBNews to discuss my views on Mr Yousaf’s political syllogism and the Gazan refugee crisis . I hope you find my interview below engaging and perhaps a little illuminating. We really should put refugees first, and if we do, we quickly realise forced migration to Europe from Palestine is not the answer. It isn’t what the refugees want nor is it cost effective.

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