Britain and the Arab-Israel Conflict: Questioning the Motives Behind Continued Aid to 1967 Palestinian Refugees

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Author(s):  
Muhamad Hasrul Bin Zakariah
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
National Archive ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Suez Crisis ◽  
Middle East Politics ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
The Cold War

British involvement in Middle East politics can be traced to long before the First World War when its economic and strategic interests appeared to be the main reason for the involvement. The emergence of the newly created Israeli state, following the Balfour Declaration, marked the beginning of the Palestinian refugee crisis. Between 1948 and 1956, historical liability and obligation forced the British to be involved in providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian refugees. British involvement in the Suez Crisis later in 1956, was a tragedy for British influence in the Middle East. Many scholars concluded that the 1956 campaign marked “the end of British empire in the Middle East” and the beginning of the cold war, American-Soviet rivalry that left Britain marginalised. Even prominent Middle East scholars such as Michael Ben Oren, in his book Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of Modern Middle East, did not give attention to the British role and involvement in the 1967 crisis. However, the British efforts to regain Arab trust whilst preserving its economic and strategic interests in the Middle East persuaded Britain to remain involved with the Palestinian refugee crisis. None of these scholars have tried to analyse the motives behind continued British involvement in humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees – the crisis which lingers long after the end of the British Empire in the Middle East. This paper discusses this topic with a focus on refugees from the 1967 war and attempts to explain the reasons for continuation of British aid from an historical perspective. This research was based on historical document analysis and the extraction of archival sources from The National Archive (TNA) in London.

Palestinian Refugees and Their Legal Status: Rights, Politics, and Implications for a Just Solution

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Akram
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Real Solution ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Refugee Problem

The Palestinian refugee problem is one of the longest-lasting refugee crises in the world——now exceeding fifty-three years——without a real solution in sight. Although at its core a political problem, the Palestinian refugee crisis is also a problem of legal distortion: Palestinian refugees fall into a legal lacuna that sets them outside minimal international protections available for all other refugee groups in the world. This paper provides background to the legal anomaly that sets Palestinian refugees apart; discusses the legal, practical, and political implications of that status; and proposes a framework and mechanisms aimed at promoting a rights-based solution for the Palestinian refugee problem.

17. Europe in the Middle East

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Hollis
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Third ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter examines the evolution of European approaches to the Middle East. Realism would downplay the relevance of institutions such as the European Union and the limits to cooperation. Yet medium powers such as Europe can shape outcomes in international relations and there are Middle Eastern states that have looked to Europe to supply this balancing effect. The chapter discusses four discernible phases in the story of European involvement in the Middle East in the last hundred years. The first is the era of European imperialism in the Middle East; the second coincides with the Cold War, which witnessed the rivalry between the Western powers for commercial gain; the third period saw the EU member states set about devising a common foreign and security policy toward their neighbours in the Mediterranean; and the fourth covers the Arab Spring and the refugee crisis.

Envoi

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vike Martina Plock
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Edith Wharton ◽  
Jean Rhys ◽  
Suez Crisis ◽  
The Cold War

It is 1956, the height of the Cold War. The year will end in the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Uprising. Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf have both been dead for a while, Jean Rhys is all but forgotten and Rosamond Lehmann’s career as a novelist is on the wane....

Memories for the Return? Remembering the Nakba by the First Generation of Palestinian Refugees in Syria

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Oslo Accords ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Way

The 1948 Nakba has, in light of the 1993 Oslo Accords and Palestinian refugee activists' mobilisation around the right of return, taken on a new-found centrality and importance in Palestinian refugee communities. Closely-related to this, members of the ‘Generation of Palestine’, the only individuals who can recollect Nakba memories, have come to be seen as the guardians of memories that are eventually to reclaim the homeland. These historical, social and political realities are deeply rooted in the ways in which the few remaining members of the generation of Palestine recollect 1948. Moreover, as members of communities that were destroyed in Palestine, and whose common and temporal and spatial frameworks were non-linearly constituted anew in Syria, one of the multiples meanings of the Nakba today can be found in the way the refugee communities perceive and define this generation.

Nasser's Gamble

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Arab Spring

This book draws on declassified documents from six countries and original material in Arabic, German, Hebrew, and Russian to present a new understanding of Egypt's disastrous five-year intervention in Yemen, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser later referred to as “my Vietnam.” The book argues that Nasser's attempt to export the Egyptian revolution to Yemen played a decisive role in destabilizing Egypt's relations with the Cold War powers, tarnishing its image in the Arab world, ruining its economy, and driving its rulers to instigate the fatal series of missteps that led to war with Israel in 1967. Viewing the Six Day War as an unintended consequence of the Saudi–Egyptian struggle over Yemen, the book demonstrates that the most important Cold War conflict in the Middle East was not the clash between Israel and its neighbors. It was the inter-Arab struggle between monarchies and republics over power and legitimacy. Egypt's defeat in the “Arab Cold War” set the stage for the rise of Saudi Arabia and political Islam. Bold and provocative, this book brings to life a critical phase in the modern history of the Middle East. Its compelling analysis of Egypt's fall from power in the 1960s offers new insights into the decline of Arab nationalism, exposing the deep historical roots of the Arab Spring of 2011.

Hegemonic Disarray—American Internationalisms and World Disorder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Order ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
At Home

The end of the Cold War left the USA as uncontested hegemon and shaper of the globalization and international order. Yet the international order has been unintentionally but repeatedly shaken by American interventionism and affronts to both allies and rivals. This is particularly the case in the Middle East as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the nuclear negotiations with Iran show. Therefore, the once unquestioned authority and power of the USA have been challenged at home as well as abroad. By bringing disorder rather than order to the world, US behavior in these conflicts has also caused domestic exhaustion and division. This, in turn, has led to a more restrained and as of late isolationist foreign policy from the USA, leaving the role as shaper of the international order increasingly to others.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document