Palestinian Internal Refugees in the Galilee: From the Struggle to Survive to the New Narrative of Return (1948–2005)

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Humphries
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
The State ◽  
Community Activism ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right ◽  
State Of Israel

The ongoing denial of rights to homes and land for Palestinian refugees holding Israeli citizenship is one of the starkest examples of ethnic discrimination within the State of Israel. Internally displaced Palestinians in the Galilee are not recognised internationally as refugees, unlike family and friends forced beyond the borders. This essay examines the evolution of official and unofficial Israeli policy towards the internally displaced, and discusses the changing refugee focus, a focus moving from the basic struggle to survive to community activism and frames the issue of the internally displaced as part of the wider national campaign for the right of return.

Unfulfilled Promise: Palestinian Family Reunification and the Right of Return

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-39
Author(s):  
Nabila El-Ahmed ◽  
Nadia Abu-Zahra
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Family Reunification ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Successor State ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Right

This article argues that Israel substituted the Palestinian refugees' internationally recognized right of return with a family reunification program during its maneuvering over admission at the United Nations following the creation of the state in May 1948. Israel was granted UN membership in 1949 on the understanding that it would have to comply with legal international requirements to ensure the return of a substantial number of the 750,000 Palestinians dispossessed in the process of establishing the Zionist state, as well as citizenship there as a successor state. However, once the coveted UN membership had been obtained, and armistice agreements signed with neighboring countries, Israel parlayed this commitment into the much vaguer family reunification program, which it proceeded to apply with Kafkaesque absurdity over the next fifty years. As a result, Palestinians made refugees first in 1948, and later in 1967, continue to be deprived of their legally recognized right to return to their homes and their homeland, and the family reunification program remains the unfulfilled promise of the early years of Israeli statehood.

scholarly journals Humanitarian Dilemmas for the Palestinian Refugees & the Question of Return

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Smoum
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right ◽  
Palestinian Population ◽  
Palestinian Nationalism ◽  
Refugee Experience

This paper examines the situation of Palestinian refugees who have been living in Arab host countries as a result of the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. Although their right of return was recognized by the UN Commission on Human Rights, 7 million refugees and 450,000 internally displaced Palestinians continue to live under unfavourable conditions, constituting about seventy percent of the entire Palestinian population worldwide (10.1 million) (BADIL, n.d, para1). During the refugee experience, Palestinians have suffered from all kinds of human rights violations in different countries. However, they considered the denial of their right of return as the most significant source of grievance. The right of return has become a major political goal and mobilizing influence of Palestinian nationalism. In this paper, I will use Iraq as a case study to demonstrate the continued instability and discrimination that Palestinians face in host countries and difficulties for stable settlement in exile. The experience of Palestinian refugees in Iraq between 1948 and 2008 indicates that even in countries where Palestinian refugees had seemingly favourable conditions, changes in political climate and their lack of citizenship rights make life in exile a perilous experience. Recognizing the issue of return as a legal and political matter, I will argue in this paper that based on the Palestinian refugees’ experience in various Arab host countries, securing the right of return should also be seen as a viable humanitarian solution. In the case of Palestinian refugees from and in Iraq, the right of return should be considered an emergency measure.

The 1948 War

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Jerome Slater
Keyword(s):  
Arab Country ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Semitic Rhetoric ◽  
Modern Term

Israeli historians have shown that the 1948 war might have been averted had Israel explored a number of opportunities to reach agreements with the Palestinians, as well as with Egypt, the most important Arab country. Even during the Arab invasion, the Arab armies were small, uncoordinated, and lacking in the capability to destroy Israel; their primary intentions were to counter the territorial goals of their Arab rivals. Nonetheless, their bloodthirsty anti-Semitic rhetoric ensured that Israel would regard the attack as designed to annihilate it. Even before the invasion, the Zionists began the process of expelling some 700,000–750,000 Palestinians from the territories it intended to include in the state of Israel. These actions became known as the “Nakba” (Arabic for “catastrophe”), or in the modern term, “ethnic cleansing.” and they continue to haunt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially on the issue of “the right of return.”

scholarly journals Humanitarian Dilemmas for the Palestinian Refugees & the Question of Return

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Smoum
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right ◽  
Palestinian Population ◽  
Palestinian Nationalism ◽  
Refugee Experience

This paper examines the situation of Palestinian refugees who have been living in Arab host countries as a result of the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. Although their right of return was recognized by the UN Commission on Human Rights, 7 million refugees and 450,000 internally displaced Palestinians continue to live under unfavourable conditions, constituting about seventy percent of the entire Palestinian population worldwide (10.1 million) (BADIL, n.d, para1). During the refugee experience, Palestinians have suffered from all kinds of human rights violations in different countries. However, they considered the denial of their right of return as the most significant source of grievance. The right of return has become a major political goal and mobilizing influence of Palestinian nationalism. In this paper, I will use Iraq as a case study to demonstrate the continued instability and discrimination that Palestinians face in host countries and difficulties for stable settlement in exile. The experience of Palestinian refugees in Iraq between 1948 and 2008 indicates that even in countries where Palestinian refugees had seemingly favourable conditions, changes in political climate and their lack of citizenship rights make life in exile a perilous experience. Recognizing the issue of return as a legal and political matter, I will argue in this paper that based on the Palestinian refugees’ experience in various Arab host countries, securing the right of return should also be seen as a viable humanitarian solution. In the case of Palestinian refugees from and in Iraq, the right of return should be considered an emergency measure.

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.

Chronology

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Paul Karolyi
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Palestinian Territories ◽  
Pull Out ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right ◽  
The U.S

This is part 138 of a chronology begun by the Journal of Palestine Studies in Spring 1984, and covers events from 16 May to 15 August 2018 on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the diplomatic sphere, regionally and internationally. This quarter saw the start of the ongoing months-long Great March of Return, a protest demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel. These peaceful, large-scale protests along Gaza's border were met with stunning violence from Israeli forces. The bloodiest day, which fell on the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the U.S. embassy's move to Jerusalem, and the day before the seventieth anniversary of the Nakba, saw fifty-eight Palestinians dead at the hands of Israeli troops. The U.S. and Israel successfully blocked a formal investigation into these killings, in spite of multiple requests from U.N. members. As well, U.S. president Trump announced his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, after which tension and military attacks and counterattacks between Israel and Iranian forces in Syria mounted.

The Meaning and Liberal Justifications of Israel's Law of Return

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-602
Author(s):  
Dan Ernst
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Reasonable Expectation ◽  
Jewish Immigration ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Law Of Return ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Land Of Israel

The Article argues for a new assessment of the significance of Israel's Law of Return—that the Law of Return reflects not the sovereign prerogative of a state to control immigration, but the right of every Jew to settle in the Land of Israel. This understanding of the Law of Return explains why Section 4 proclaims that as far as the Law is concerned, the status of Jews born within the State of Israel is the same as those arriving to Israel from abroad. Resolving the anomaly of Section 4 dispels several misinterpretations of the Law of Return and the critiques of the Law which grow out of these misinterpretations. The Article also surveys and answers several liberal objections to Israel's policy of granting preference in immigration and naturalization based on ethno-national identity and presents an argument, for giving priority to Jewish immigration and naturalization based on the extra benefits (religious, political, and communal) that Jews receive from such immigration and naturalization. Finally, it is submitted that the State of Israel has an obligation of justice to admit Jews into the state as full citizens upon their demand, since this was a reasonable expectation of those in past generations who had contributed to the existence and maintenance of the state.

Palestinian Refugees in International Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albanese Francesca P ◽  
Takkenberg Lex
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
Durable Solutions ◽  
Second World

The Palestinian refugee question, resulting from the events surrounding the creation of the state of Israel seventy years ago, remains one of the largest and most protracted refugee crises of the post-Second World War era. Numbering over six million in the Middle East alone, Palestinian refugees’ status and treatment varies considerably according to the state or territory ‘hosting’ them, the UN agency assisting them, and political circumstances surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict these refugees are naturally associated with. Despite being foundational to both the experience of the Palestinian refugees and the resolution of their plight, international law has not been a decisive factor in discussions concerning their fate. This compelling new edition offers a clear and comprehensive analysis of various areas of international law (including refugee law, human rights law, humanitarian law, the law relating to stateless persons, principles related to internally displaced persons, as well as notions of international criminal law), and probes the relevance of their interplay to the provision of international protection for Palestinian refugees and their quest for durable solutions.

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