'Cruel' comment from German Chancellor Merkel makes Palestinian girl cry

The remark further made the Palestinian girl cry and Angela was forced to head over to her and comfort her.

The German Chancellor has been criticised for telling a Palestinian girl that her family might be deported because: ‘You can’t all come.’ The German Chancellor made the comments in a school during a discussion titled ‘Living in Germany’.

The Palestinian girl named Reem surprised Angela Merkel when she told the German Chancellor that her family had been waiting for a total of four years to obtain permanent residency in Germany. She also revealed that her family might be deported from Germany as her father could not continue his welding work on a temporary permit.

“It’s really difficult to see that others are really able to enjoy their lives and you yourself can’t enjoy it with them,” The Palestinian girl named Reem told the Chancellor. She also explained to her how her dreams and hopes of studying in Germany with her friends would be crushed if she, along with her family, would be deported. Reem also stated that she had been studying for four years at the Paul-Friedrich-Scheel school in Rostock since the past four years and was fluent in English, German and had also learnt a little bit of Swedish.

“I understand, and yet I have to… politics is sometimes hard,” Merkel, visibly caught off-balance in a session that was supposed to focus on “living well in Germany”, blustered in response. “Of course you are an extremely nice person…”

The German Chancellor then said the following, which made Reem cry:-

“You know, in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon there are thousands and thousands [of people]. If we now say ‘you can all come,’ and ‘you can all come from Africa,’ and ‘you can all come,’ we just can’t manage that,” she said.

The comments from the German Chancellor evoked a strong response on social media.