Refugee Policy: Bhutanese > Palestinians? Why?

The announced change in refugee policy is a flawed but seemingly honest attempt to fix glitches. The main problem is that, as Showler notes, there can be real refugees from supposedly "safe countries" - the nature of the appeal system will be crucial to be sure to prevent sending people back to face persecution & death. And the trickiness of refugee policy is illustrated by the different treatment afforded two groups in identical circumstances, the Bhutanese in Nepal, & the Palestinians in Iraq. Their situations are identical, living in borderlands, as persecuted by current host countries, not able to return home. Yet we're letting 1000s of Bhutanese in, which is great, but we only let a handful of Palestinians in back in 2006, and since, nothing. Yet we have frequently pledged, given our history and comparative advantages, that we would be foremost among those letting Palestinian refugees settle in Canada.

This is perhaps the single most helpful thing we can do for Israel, and for peace in the Middle East, by reducing the demographic pressure on Israel. Yet, for some reason, we'll let Bhutanese in, but not Palestinians. It makes no sense. Even the most crazed Likudniks, or should I say, ESPECIALLY the most crazed Likudniks, have always favoured resettlement of the Palestinians in places like Canada. The Left always claims solidarity with the poor and dispossessed, and Palestinians in particular. So this should unite Right & Left, Likudniks & anti-Israelis, and everyone in between. So why aren't we treating Iraqi Palestinians the same as the Bhutanese? Why aren't we letting the persecuted Iraqi Palestinians into Canada? I don't get it.