THE timing could not have been worse. Germans, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, are already being called heartless over the government's refusal to offer Greeks debt relief. And now, Merkel is facing criticism over her treatment of a young refugee who is threatened with deportation. At a forum for young people, Merkel told a Palestinian teenage girl, Reem, that not all migrants can stay in Germany and that "some will have to go home". In a video, Reem tells Merkel that her family was told they would have to return to a camp in Lebanon imminently. "I would like to go to university," says Reem, in fluent German. "It's really very hard to watch how other people can enjoy life and you yourself can't. I don't know what my future will bring.” Merkel replied, "politics can be tough", adding: "You are an extremely nice person but you also know that there are thousands and thousands of people in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon." Germany could not manage if all wanted to move there, she said. As the girl sobs, Merkel goes over to her to comfort her. Of course, we all would have liked a happier ending, for Merkel to take Reem in her arms and say 'you can stay' but that did not happen in the video that has gone viral and whose many tweets were highly critical of the chancellor. But Merkel could not make the girl an exception. The number of refugees arriving in Germany rises by the month — already this year the number of asylum applications, at 450,000, is more than twice the total for the whole of 2014. The trouble is that the girl had friends around her, all of whom are making plans for the future. Reem's problem is that she and thousands of children like her have become used to life in Germany. One of the real tragedies of this case is not that a person is not allowed to live in Europe but that it has taken German authorities four years to decide whether asylum is being granted or not, and in that time people like Reem grow up, make friends and develop feelings of belonging. The biggest tragedy, however, is what has forced Palestinians into refugees, starting from the 1948 Palestinian exodus as they fled Israeli occupation. We must condemn the Israeli slaughter of thousands of Palestinians and the thievery of their land in the years since. The West creates chaos and misery by giving tacit and overt support to the Israeli regime and then absolves itself of the consequences of people fleeing war and occupation. Germany and the rest of Europe are in a real dilemma: German towns and cities are straining to find appropriate accommodation for the large numbers of refugees entering the country. At the same time, xenophobic attitudes are taking root as the refugee crisis is drumming up support for the far right in Europe rapidly. We are already looking at a Front Nationale victory in 2017, and the nationalist "Europe for the Europeans" is spreading. The right-wing Pegida group has marched against what it calls the Islamisation of Germany, and the country's newest political party, Alternative for Germany, has called for tighter immigration control. Europeans will vote for the people who can turn refugees back. Merkel would not have wanted to be caught on camera telling a young, intelligent but helpless, weeping refugee that she might not be able to stay in Germany, at a meeting entitled, of all things, “The Good Life in Germany”. But the track record on that isn't particularly promising.
