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In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Palestinian refugee is a refugee from Palestine created by the Palestinian Exodus, which Palestinians call the Nakba (Template:Lang-ar, meaning "disaster" or "catastrophe").

The United Nations definition of a "Palestinian refugee" is a person whose "normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict," and their descendants, regardless of whether they reside in areas designated as "refugee camps" or in established, permanent communities. The number of Palestinian refugees has grown from 711,000 in 1950 to over four million registered with the UN in 2002.

History

About two thirds of Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the territories which came under Israeli control after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This exodus continued during the war until after the armistice that ended it (see Palestinian Exodus.) These refugees were generally not permitted to return to their homes.

The number of refugees who fled or were expelled is controversial. Estimates range from a low-end figure of around 400,000 claimed by the Israeli government, to over 950,000 according to some Arab sources and human rights organizations . The official UN estimate is 711,000. By 1950, according to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the number of registered refugees was 914,000.. The U.N. Conciliation Commission attributed this discrepancy to, among other things, "duplication of ration cards, addition of persons who have been displaced from area other than Israel-held areas and of persons who, although not displaced, are destitute", and the UNWRA additionally attributed it to the fact that "all births are eagerly announced, the deaths wherever possible are passed over in silence", as well as the fact that "the birthrate is high in any case, a net addition of 30,000 names a year" (the UNWRA figures included descendants of the Palestinian refugees born after the Palestinian exodus up to June, 1951). By June, 1951 the UNWRA had reduced the number of registered refugees to 876,000 after "many false and duplicate registrations weeded out." .

However, this number is held to be exaggerated. Yehoshua Porath, a prominent Israeli scholar in the field of Palestinian history wrote in 1986:

"Most serious students of the history of Palestine would accept that the number of Arab refugees from Israel during and after 1948 claimed by Arab and UN sources—some 600,000 to 750,000—was exaggerated. It is very easy to refute that estimate and many have already done it."

During the period mid-1948-53 between 30,000 and 90,000 refugees (according to Benny Morris) made their way from their countries of exile to resettle in their former villages or in other parts of Israel, despite Israeli legal and military efforts to stop them (see Palestinian immigration (Israel)). At the Lausanne Conference of 1949, Israel offered to let in up to 75,000 more as part of a wider proposed deal with the surrounding Arab countries, but they rejected it, and Israel withdrew the proposal in 1950. Others emigrated to other countries, such as the US and Canada; most, however, remained in refugee camps in neighboring countries.

Current Palestinian refugee counts include:

• Jordan 1,827,877 refugees
• Gaza 986,034 refugees
• West Bank 699,817 refugees
• Syria 432,048 refugees
• Lebanon 404,170 refugees
• Saudi Arabia 240,000 refugees
• Egypt 70,245 refugees

The Israeli government passed the Absentee Property Law, which cleared the way for the confiscation of the property of refugees. The government also demolished many of the refugees' villages, and resettled many Arab homes in urban communities with Jewish refugees and immigrants.

The situation of the Palestinian Arab refugees is one of the world's largest and most enduring refugee problems. Discussions to allow them to return to their former homes within Israel, to receive compensation or be resettled in new locations have yet to reach a definite conclusion.

UNRWA definition of a "Palestinian refugee"

Whereas most refugees are the concern of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), most Palestinian refugees - those in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan - come under the older body UNRWA. On 11 December 1948, UN Resolution 194 was passed in order to protect the rights of Palestinian Arab refugees. Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949, set up UNRWA specifically to deal with the Palestinian problem. Palestinian refugees outside of UNRWA's area of operations do fall under UNHCR's mandate, however.

The term Palestinian refugee as used by UNRWA was never formally defined by the United Nations. The definition used in practice evolved independently of the UNHCR definition, which was established by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. UNRWA definition of refugee is as a person "whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict," though it is applied only to those who took refuge in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief. The UNRWA also registers as refugees descendants in the male line of Palestinian refugees, and persons in need of support who first became refugees as a result of the 1967 conflict. The UNRWA definition in practice is thus both more restrictive and more inclusive than the 1951 definition; for example it excludes persons taking refuge in countries other than Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, yet it includes descendants of refugees as well as the refugees themselves (though UNHCR also provides support for children of refugees in many cases).

Persons receiving relief support from UNRWA are explicitly excluded from the 1951 Convention, depriving them of some of the benefits of that convention such as some legal protections. However, a 2002 decision of UNHCR made it clear that the 1951 Convention applies at least to Palestinian refugees who need support but fail to fit the UNRWA working definition. UNRWA records show that there were a large number of false registrants: Today, only a 1/3 of those registering with the UNRWA as Palestinian Refugees are living in areas designated as refugee camps.

Critics of UNRWA say that the present definition give Palestinian refugees a favored status when compared with other refugee groups, which the UNHCR defines in terms of nationality as opposed to a relatively short number of years of residency. Writers and historians, such as Martha Gellhorn and Dr. Walter Pincer have also blamed UNRWA for distortion of statistics. Shmuel Katz writes:

The result has been the creation of a large, amorphous mass of names, some of them relating to real people, some of them purely fictitious or relating to persons, long since dead, a minority relating to people without a home as a result of their or their parents' leaving Palestine in 1948, the majority relating to people who, whatever their origins, are now living and working as ordinary citizens but continuing to draw rations and obtaining medical attention at the expense of the world's taxpayers -- all of them comfortably lumped together in official United Nations lists as Arab refugees and vehemently described as "victims of Jewish aggression."

The economic interest of the individual Arab in the perpetuation of the refugee problem and of his free keep is backed by the accumulating vested interest of UNRWA itself to keep itself in being and to expand. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is thought of as some Olympian, philanthropic body directed and operated by a band of dedicated humanitarians, devoted exclusively to the task of helping suffering refugees. The fact is that the organisation consists of some 11,000 officials of whom all but a handful are Arabs who are themselves inscribed on the rolls as "refugees." They perform the field work; they, that is, hand out the relief. The remaining handful consists of some 120 Americans and Europeans who man the organisation’s central offices. Since UNRWA itself is thus a source of livelihood for some 50,000 people, no one connected with it has the slightest interest in seeing its task end or in protesting the fraud and deception it has perpetuated for over twenty years. The myth continues to live and to thrive, feeding on itself.

A strict examination of the reports of UNRWA itself will show that the facts of the fraud are essentially not concealed, rendering the misrepresentation in definitions and figures all the more deliberate.

The right of return dispute

The Palestinian refugees claim the right of return, based on Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ("Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country") and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, paragraph 11, where the General Assembly:

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible...

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.

Many of them also argue that, by the UDHR, this right is an individual and not a collective one, and that it cannot therefore be restricted by any collective agreement between Palestinians and Israel. They also regard as a massive injustice the fact that Jews are allowed to emigrate to Israel under Israel's Law of Return, even if their ancestors have not lived in the area for 2000 years, while people who grew up in the area and whose immediate ancestors had lived there for many generations are forbidden from returning.

The Palestinian National Authority supports this right, although its extent has been a subject of negotiation at the various peace talks; Mahmoud Abbas promised in November 2004 to continue working towards it if elected president.

Critics of Resolution 194 begin by noting that General Assembly Resolutions are not binding, and asserting that they have no effect in International Law. They also note the resolution's provision regarding "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours." Returning home is predicated on wishing to live at peace, and they argue that there is no evidence that Palestinian refugees wish to live at peace with Israelis. Additionally, they point to the fact that all the Arab member states of the UN voted against resolution 194, precisely because they believed it did not create a right of return.

Other objections to the return of the refugees, with their descendants, to Israel include:

• Israel was founded as a Jewish state to provide refuge to Jews in light of the history of persecutions, regardless of their previous nationality. To allow all Palestinian Arabs and their descendants to return home, would mean that Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish state, given the majority of the population would be non-Jewish if all of the Arab refugees were to return. Those who regard Israel's founding as a Jewish state as illegitimate, by contrast, consider this possible consequence to be an advantage of the refugees' return. But some Israelis believe that the true intention of the refugees' return isn't only the destruction of the Jewish nature of the state but also for the purpose of eradicating and demolishing it entirely. Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1961 (interview with Zibicher Woche, September 1, 1961) said "If the Arabs will return to Israel - Israel will cease to exist in the world." The refugee committee in Homz, Syria in 1957 stated in its resolution that the solution should be based on the refugee's right to annihilate Israel. Thus the true intention of the claim for right of return, according to this approach, is essentially aimed at bringing about the entrance of an army (called refugees) for "blowing Israel from within after failing to obliterate it from outside"

• By various accounts, between 758,000 and 866,000 Mizrahi Jews were expelled, fled or emigrated from Arab Middle East and North Africa between 1945 and 1956. A Jewish study carried out in 2003 estimated the amount of the confiscated property at $1 billion. Approximately 600,000 of them were absorbed and naturalized by Israel. According to Benny Morris, "n the early years of statehood, Israeli leaders like David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett viewed the flight of Palestinians and the influx of Oriental Jews as simply a 'population exchange,' akin to those between Greece and Turkey in the 1920's or India and Pakistan in 1947." Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said and other Arab leaders viewed it the same way., as well as many others. Some Palestinian refugees never accepted that a "population exchange" had occurred, though others do accept that an irrevocable population exchange has occurred. More recently, the Elon Peace Plan of 2002 prescribes "the completion of the exchange of populations that began in 1948, as well as the full rehabilitation of the refugees and their absorption and naturalization in various countries." In addition, one notes the treatment of 12 million German refugees after World War 2. The idea of returning them to Poland and Czechoslovakia was rejected. The French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault said: "Poland's new frontier and the transfer of population are accomplished facts and it is no use thinking they can be reversed now."

• Arabs commonly respond that both Palestinian and Jewish refugees should be allowed return to their native countries, citing other population transfers which were reversed with various degrees of success, such as most of Stalin's population transfers (including, for instance, the Ingush and Kalmyks) and the exile of the Navajos in 1863 (see Long Walk.) In response, Steven Plaut shows some historical perspective on human migrations and conquests. One state where Jews' property was confiscated, Libya, has unilaterally invited them to return and receive compensation for their original property, on condition that they leave their property in Israel to Palestinians.. Libyan Jews' reaction to the offer of return has been negative; they view it as a stunt intended to improve Libya's standing in both the Western and Arab worlds, cite concerns about religious freedoms, and point out the lack of human rights and democracy in Libya that make such an offer highly unattractive. However, the compensation offer has attracted guarded interest.

• Some historians also maintain that the Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by Israel and therefore Israel has no responsibility over the issue. Shmuel Katz, in his book 'Battleground' writes "that the Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone. The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders, always with the same reassurance-that their departure would help in the war against Israel. The Arabs are the only declared refugees who became refugees not by the action of their enemies or because of well-grounded fear of their enemies, but by the initiative of their own leaders. For nearly a generation, those leaders have willfully kept as many people as they possibly could in degenerating squalor, preventing their rehabilitation, and holding out to all of them the hope of return and of "vengeance" on the Jews of Israel, to whom they have transferred the blame for their plight". Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister 1948-49, stated the following in his memoirs "Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return."

Treatment in Arab countries

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After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Arab governments claimed that their great concern was for the fellow Arab refugees and that Israel stood in the way of helping the refugees. Critics argue the Arab governments could easily have provided the refugees with new homes, just as Israel resettled Jewish immigrants and refugees from foreign countries. It was not done, nor did Arab states provide funds to improve the conditions in refugee camps. Many find the lack of Arab effort to relieve the refugee crisis as a way of using the Palestinians as political pawns, and/or to promote anti-Israel sentiment.

In 1957, the Refugee Conference at Homs, Syria, passed a resolution stating:

"Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on ensuring the refugees' right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason (Beirut al Massa, July 15, 1957)."

The Arab League issued instructions barring the Arab states from granting citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees (or their descendants) "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland".

Jordan is the only Arab country which historically gave citizenship rights to Palestinian refugees.

During Jordan's and Egypt's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively, no attempt was made to create a Palestinian state.

Jordan

After the 1967 Six-Day War, during which Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, Palestinian Arabs living there continued to have the right to apply for Jordanian passports and live in Jordan. Palestinian refugees actually living in Jordan were considered full Jordanian citizens as well. In July 1988, King Hussein of Jordan announced the severing of all legal and administrative ties with the West Bank. In practice, what this meant was that any Palestinian living on Jordanian soil would remain to be considered Jordanian. However, any person living in the West Bank would have no right to Jordanian citizenship.

Jordan still issues passports to Palestinians in the West Bank, but they are for travel purposes only and do not constitute an attestation of citizenship. Palestinians in the West Bank who had regular Jordanian passports were issued these temporary ones upon expiration of their old ones, and entry into Jordan by Palestinians is time-limited and considered for tourism purposes only. Any Jordanian citizen who is found carrying a Palestinian passport (of the sort issued by the Palestinian Authority and registered by Israel for validity) has his/her Jordanian citizenship revoked by Jordanian border agents.

More recently, Jordan has restricted entry of Palestinians from the West Bank into its territory, fearing that many Palestinians would try to take up temporary residence in Jordan during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. This has caused many hardships for Palestinians, especially since 2001 when Israel discontinued permission for Palestinians to travel through its Ben Gurion International Airport, and traveling to Jordan to fly out of Amman became the only outlet for West Bank Palestinians to travel.

Information from the Jordanian censuses which distinguishes between Palestinians and pre-1948 Arab-Israeli War Jordanians is not publicly available, and it is widely believed that Palestinians in Jordan (domiciled in Jordan and considered citizens) constitute the majority of the kingdom's population. However, in a 2002 television interview on a US network, King Abdullah II of Jordan claimed that "Jordanians of Palestinian Origin" are only 40-45% of the Jordanian population, and that an independent survey would be conducted to settle the matter.

Saudi Arabia

An estimated 500,000 Palestinians are living in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia as of December 2004. They are not allowed to hold or even apply for Saudi citizenship, as the new law passed by Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers in October 2004 ( which entitles expatriates of all nationalities who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship, with priority being given to holders of degrees in various scientific fields ) has one glaring exception: Palestinians will not be allowed to benefit from the new law because of Arab League instructions barring the Arab states from granting them citizenship in order "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland".

Lebanon

Lebanon barred Palestinian Arabs from 73 job categories including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. They are not allowed to own property. Unlike other foreigners in Lebanon, they are denied access to the Lebanese healthcare system. The Lebanese government refused to grant them work permits or permission to own land. The number of restrictions have been mounting since 1990. In June 2005, however, the government of Lebanon removed some work restrictions from a few Lebanese-born Palestinians, enabling them to apply for work permits and work in the private sector.

Kuwait

After the Gulf War of 1990-1991, Kuwait and other Gulf Arab monarchies expelled more than 400,000 Palestinian refugees) after the PLO allied itself with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait).

Egypt

During Egypt's occupation of the Gaza Strip, Egypt denied the Gaza Strip's residents citizenship rights and did not allow them to move to Egypt or anywhere outside of the Strip. From 1949-1967, The Gaza Strip was used by Egypt to launch 9,000 attacks on Israel from terrorist cells set up in refugee camps. Despite this, there had not been a rebellion, intifada, or jihad waged against Egypt. When the Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964, they had been more or less controlled by the Egyptian government, and their goal was to "liberate" Palestine in Israel's territory. They initially had no intention of claiming territories controlled by Jordan or Egypt prior to their goal of destroying of the State of Israel through armed struggle and replacing it with an "independent Palestinian state" between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt today abides by the instructions of the Arab League concerning Palestinians.

References

1. "Who is a Palestinian refugee?", UNRWA, retrieved August 1, 2006.
2. [http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp485.htm LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE QUESTION Ruth Lapidoth 1 September 2002]
3. ^ General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the Period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950
4. UNRWA
5. Report of the Director of the UNRWA, 28 September 1951
6. CIA Factbook
7. UNRWA: countires and areas (PDF)
8. UNRWA's Frequently Asked Questions under "Who is a Palestine refugee?" begins "For operational purposes, UNRWA has defined Palestine refugee as any person whose "normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." Palestine refugees eligible for UNRWA assistance, are mainly persons who fulfil the above definition and descendants of fathers fulfilling the definition."
9. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Note on the Applicability of Article 1D of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees to Palestinian refugees 10 October 2002
10. Katz, Shmuel, Battleground, Shapolsky Pub ISBN 0-9646886-3-8 , pp. 35-36
12. Katz, Shmuel, Battleground, Shapolsky Pub ISBN 0-9646886-3-8 , page 42
13. 850,000 fled Arab states: $1-billion in property confiscated, Jewish study finds
14. ^ Are Jews Who Fled Arab Lands to Israel Refugees, Too? by Samuel G. Freedman. The New York Times, October 11, 2003
15. ^ Why Jews Fled the Arab Countries by Ya'akov Meron (meforum.org)
16. The Palestinian Refugee Issue and the Demographic Aspect by Atalia Ben-Meir. Policy Paper No. 90, From the book Israel and a Palestinian State: Zero Sum Game?, 2001
17. Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries (JRAC) (AmericanSephardiFederation.org)
18. Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries by Jacqueline Shields (JVL)
19. Peace Plan proposed in 2002 by Israeli Cabinet Minister Benjamin Elon
20. Schechtman, The Refugees in the World (Now York, 1963), pp. 29-30.
21. Who Stole the Holy Land? by Steven Plaut. FrontPageMagazine. December 9, 2004
22. Libya Wants the Jews to Return "Home" April 14, 2004 (INN)
23. Libya Invites the Jews Who Fled To Come Home by Eric J. Greenberg April 30, 2004 The Forward
24. Libyan Jews claim £100m for seized wealth by Inigo Gilmore January 11, 2004 (The Telegraph)
25. Katz, Shmuel, Battleground, Shapolsky Pub ISBN 0-9646886-3-8 , page 13
26. Azm Haled al, The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, Beirut, 1973, pages 386-387
27. David Bamberger (1985, 1994). A Young Person's History of Israel. USA: Behrman House. p. 182. ISBN 0-87441-393-1. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
28. A Million Expatriates to Benefit From New Citizenship Law by P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News. October 21 , 2004. Accessed July 20, 2006
29. Transcript of interview with HM King Abdullah at the Charlie Rose Show. May 7, 2002
30. Poverty trap for Palestinian refugees By Alaa Shahine. 29 March 2004 (aljazeera)
31. Lebanon permits Palestinians to work June 29, 2005 (Arabicnews)
32. Mahmoud Abbas has apologized for the Palestinians' support of Saddam Hussein during the 1990 invasion of Kuwait 12 December, 2004 (BBC

See also

• Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948
• Palestinian Exodus (Nakba)
• Arab-Israeli conflict
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
• List of Palestinian refugee camps
• List of villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• Jewish refugees

External links

• Efraim Karsh: Benny Morris' Reign of Error, Revisited, Middle East Quarterly, Morris still blames Israel for the Palestinian refugee crisis.
• Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet
• Palestinian Rights Portal
• Palestinian Rights Portal
• United Nations: A Question of Palestine
• UN Resolution 194
• UN Resolution 302
• Israeli viewpoint
• The Palestinian Refugees
• CNN
• Washington Post
• Monde diplomatique: Statistics of the refugees
• PLO position
• Palestinian Arab viewpoint
• Jewish refugees
• American ViewpointA
• American ViewpointB
• Newspaper Analysis of Refugee Situation
• Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
• Article on Refugee Status in Freeman Center for Strategic Studies
• The Feasibility of the Right to Return
• FAQ from the Al-Awda Foundation

• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Palestinian people