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How could the number of the Palestinian refugees grow 10 times since 1948?
ANSDOI843
The initial number of the Arab Palestinian refugees was approximately 750,000 people. It was 65 years ago and at least half of them have by now died of old age. But by some mystery, the number of those who call themselves "Palestinian refugees" is today about 6 MILLION people.
How so?
Very simple. By the UN regulations and norms, the status of a refugee is not inherited. It means that if your father was a refugee, you already are not.
This law applies to ALL the refugees in the world: to more than 20 millions of Germans who became refugees after the WWII, to hundreds of thousands of Japanese, to 800,000 Jews who were robbed until their lingerie in Arab countries like Syria, Egypt, Lebanon-and then thrown out of these countries.
But this law does not apply to the "Palestinian refugees". For them , the UN applied another - and absolutely unique- "technique". By this technique, a "Palestinian refugee" is any person "whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948". This trick immediately converted into the " Palestinian refugees" all those hundreds of thousands of Arabs who emigrated to the Jewish Palestine from the neighboring Arab countries in 1935- 1948. If not for this trick, the initial number of the "Palestinian refugees" would be not 750,000, but hardly 200,000.
Then, the UN declared that the "Palestinian refugees", maybe for their special and outstanding merits before the mankind, can INHERIT the status - and pass it to their children, grandchildren, wives, husbands, brothers, cousins...
And now, 60 years later, we have 6 million of the so called "refugees" who are sure that the world must feed, teach, cure, dress and kiss them only because their grandparents fled Palestine 65 years ago.
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What percentage of the world's refugees is made of Palestinians?
Important Note:The first thing that should be made clear is that "refugee" in the Palestinian case has a different definition than in all other cases. Palestinians inherit refugee status, even if they never fled anywhere in their lives as long as an ancestor did; this is defined by UNRWA. For all other peoples, refugee status terminates when the people are settled; this is defined by UNHCR.Numbers:It is estimated that between 30,000 to 50,000 of the original Palestinian refugees (e.g. refugee under the normal international UNHCR definition) are alive today. As for the special Palestinian UNRWA definition, there are an estimated 5 million Palestinian refugees (including 50,000 original refugees).Since the UNHCR tries to settle refugees (and then take them off the list), the current numbers indicate those who are not yet settled. The UNHCR estimates that there are roughly 18-19 million refugees. UNHCR also estimates that there are roughly 32-33 million Internally Displaced Persons or IDPs. An IDP is a refugee who is still within the borders of his home-country as opposed to "normal" refugees who have fled their home-countries. The reason that the number of IDPs is nearly twice the number of refugees is because the UNHCR is not allowed to help IDPs resettle in the same way that they can help refugees.If we take the 50,000 number for the amount of actual Palestinians who are refugees and do not count IDPs, Palestinians make up 0.278% of the world's refugees.If we take the whole 5 million UNRWA Palestinian Refugee Count and the whole UNHCR Refugee and IDP count, Palestinians make up 8.929% of all the world's refugees.
How long have Palestinian troops been in Israel?
There have never been Palestinian troops in Israel since there is no such thing as a Palestinian Army. (The Palestinian Authority has a Police Force and a Paramilitary Wing, but no proper army.) The Israeli Army has patrolled the Palestinian Territories since 1967.
Who led the Israel through the Palestinian conflict?
There have been a vast number of Israeli leaders throughout the State's history. Since the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict has been a part of Israeli politics since the State's inception, all of those leaders led Israel through that mess.
What percentage does Christianity represent in the population of Lebanon?
There has not been a census in Lebanon for decades because of how politically contentious the subject is, but it is believed that between 40-44% of Lebanese citizens are Christians. However, since Lebanon has received over 1.9 million Syrian refugees and was already holding 400,000 Palestinian refugees, the percentage of Lebanese Christians in the general population is far lower than this.
What has become of many of the Palestinian who became refugee in 1948?
Simple Answer:Palestinian Arabs became refugees, subject to the jurisdiction of UNRWA. The majority of these populations ended up in UNRWA Refugee Camps in the surrounding nations, especially Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Arab-Occupied Palestinian Territories (after 1948). Because of the intransigence of Arab States, Palestinians have remained eternal non-citizens, often prohibited from working or improving their situation in their host countries.Complex Answer:Unique StatusBecause the 1948 conflict occurred before the 1951 Refugee Convention, the status of Palestinian Refugees is unique relative to all other refugees in all conflicts since 1951. There are two primary and important differences in Palestinian treatment because of this distinction. First, the Palestinians are subject to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) and not to UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). The mandate of UNRWA is to protect refugees pending a peaceful resolution in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, meaning that it will be eternally protecting the same people until the conflict is averted. The mandate of the UNHCR is to resettle refugees if returning them to their country of origin is not feasible, with the shortest intervening time. As a result, UNHCR refugees are usually settled within five years of posting their application, but UNRWA Palestinians are still refugees nearly seven decades later. Second, according to the 1951 Convention, refugee status is non-transferable, e.g. the children of a refugee do not become refugees unless they too are fleeing a conflict. Conversely, according to UNRWA, all descendants of Palestinian Refugees are Palestinian Refugees by law. This is why as time has gone on, the number of Palestinian Refugees has only increased, whereas it should decrease since the original refugees are passing away.General SituationPalestinian Refugees fleeing Israel ended up in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. In Lebanon and Syria, laws were immediately passed denying them access to citizenship and requiring them to live in Refugee Camps without work papers or documents. These laws have not been changed and the descendants of these original refugees inherited their refugee status. In Jordan, certain Palestinians were allowed to apply for citizenship, but the majority were not and they were forced to live in Refugee Camps. Those who did not become Jordanian citizens remain refugees and their children remain refugees to this day. Those who did become citizens have an identifier in their passports saying that they are Palestinian (which opens them up to discrimination). Palestinians in Egypt were mostly deported to Gaza and placed in Refugee Camps there, but the ones who stayed were integrated into Egyptian society as residents, but not citizens. They also had an identifier in their documents saying that they are Palestinian (which opens them up to discrimination). Conditions in Jordan and the West BankJordan annexed the whole West Bank on April 24, 1950 in a move that was condemned internationally (save for Great Britain, Iraq, and Pakistan which approved the act). All West Bank Palestinians became Jordanian citizens, but those already in UNRWA camps were not made into Jordanian citizens. Jordan made no overt acts to open up the refugee camps and fully integrate the Palestinian Jordanian refugees into Jordanian society, making the refugees reliant on UNRWA for assistance. Most Palestinian Jordanians made their lives as farmers as Jordan did not invest significantly in modifying the infrastructure of the area.Since many Palestinian-Jordanians had crossed from the West Bank to the East Bank during Jordan's annexation of the West Bank, they formed a large population within Jordan even after the Six-Day War brought the West Bank under Israeli Occupation. These Palestinians were rounded up and put into UNRWA Refugee camps in Jordan proper. This led to widespread discontent among the Palestinians in Jordan and the formation of a Palestinian pseudo-state on the western Jordanian border. Angered by their historic mistreatment under the Jordanians and the Jordanian failure to hold onto the West Bank, Palestinian Militants rose up against the Jordanian Government in 1970. King Hussein's response was to violently crush the uprising. The two sides fought a war from September 1970 to July 1971 called "Black September" or the "Jordanian Civil War". Estimates of the Palestinian dead are between 300 and 20,000, but typical estimates are around the 15,000 mark, making this event in Jordan nearly as deadly to Palestinians as the entire Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.Conditions in Egypt and the Gaza StripThere was no investment in the Gaza Strip during the All-Palestine Government period (1949-1959) and the infrastructure began to crumble. Additionally, since Egypt made no moves to grant Egyptian citizenship to the Palestinians, all Palestinian refugees (whether in camps or not) were dependent on UNRWA making a Palestinian Crisis in the area. In 1959, Egypt abolished the All-Palestine Government and brought the Gaza Strip under the United Arab Republic (which would later also include Syria). In this way, the Egyptians proceeded to effect a direct military occupation without actually annexing the region, meaning that Palestinians now were under direct Egyptian military occupation. The situation remained like this from 1959 until Israel's conquest of Gaza in 1967.In 1967 a small number of Palestinians fled to Egypt, but the majority remained under Israeli Occupation in the Gaza Strip. For those Palestinians who became residents of Egypt, a number of laws were passed in Egypt limiting the rights of Palestinian residents in Egypt. According to the new laws, they were denied residency and free-education rights. Those who were allowed to travel using a special Egyptian document for Palestinian refugees were required to enter Egypt every six months so as not to lose their residency rights. It is noteworthy that this document does not allow its holder to travel to other countries without a visa, except for Sudan. It also requires its holder to obtain a visa upon entry to Egypt on the return trip.Conditions under Israeli OccupationThis refers to Palestinians who fled in 1948, but remained in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip in 1967. Israel attempted some actions to try to open the camps and settle the UNRWA refugees in the general population, but this was decried by Arab States as the destruction of Arabs' homes and, as a result, Israel has desisted from trying to open up the refugee camps. The general situation of Palestinians under Israeli Occupation is well-known, resulting in numerous altercations between Palestinian civilians and Israeli military authorities, the Intifadas, and Palestinian terrorism.Conditions in Syria and LebanonIn both of these countries, the rights of Palestinians are virtually non-existent, with most being prohibited from leaving the camps or pursuing any careers in the country proper. In Lebanon, Palestinians have been targeted for violence on several occasions, both by Christian Falangists in the Tel az-Zaatar Massacre and Sabra and Shatila Massacres in the 1970s-1980s and by the Muslim-majority Lebanese Army in attacks on three Refugee camps in Lebanon: Nahr el-Bared, Tripoli, and Ain al-Hilweh in 2007. In Syria, the Syrian Palestinian Refugee population of 500,000 prior to the Civil War, a large number have fled to become "double refugees". While neighboring countries like Jordan have provisions to take care of Syrian Refugees, Syrian Palestinians are not entitled to those benefits. Several Syrian Palestinian Refugee Camps in Syria (like Yarmouk) have been the sites of intense campaigns between the Loyalists and Free Syrian Army. At least 3000 Syrian Palestinians have died, more than the last two Gazan Wars.
When did they start to allow refugees into nz?
Since the end of world war2.
What happened to the Palestinian Arabs who fled from the advancing Israeli forces in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli war?
Simple Answer:Palestinian Arabs became refugees, subject to the jurisdiction of UNRWA. The majority of these populations ended up in UNRWA Refugee Camps in the surrounding nations, especially Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Arab-Occupied Palestinian Territories (after 1948). Because of the intransigence of Arab States, Palestinians have remained eternal non-citizens, often prohibited from working or improving their situation in their host countries.Complex Answer:Unique StatusBecause the 1948 conflict occurred before the 1951 Refugee Convention, the status of Palestinian Refugees is unique relative to all other refugees in all conflicts since 1951. There are two primary and important differences in Palestinian treatment because of this distinction. First, the Palestinians are subject to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) and not to UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). The mandate of UNRWA is to protect refugees pending a peaceful resolution in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, meaning that it will be eternally protecting the same people until the conflict is averted. The mandate of the UNHCR is to resettle refugees if returning them to their country of origin is not feasible, with the shortest intervening time. As a result, UNHCR refugees are usually settled within five years of posting their application, but UNRWA Palestinians are still refugees nearly seven decades later. Second, according to the 1951 Convention, refugee status is non-transferable, e.g. the children of a refugee do not become refugees unless they too are fleeing a conflict. Conversely, according to UNRWA, all descendants of Palestinian Refugees are Palestinian Refugees by law. This is why as time has gone on, the number of Palestinian Refugees has only increased, whereas it should decrease since the original refugees are passing away.General SituationPalestinian Refugees fleeing Israel ended up in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. In Lebanon and Syria, laws were immediately passed denying them access to citizenship and requiring them to live in Refugee Camps without work papers or documents. These laws have not been changed and the descendants of these original refugees inherited their refugee status. In Jordan, certain Palestinians were allowed to apply for citizenship, but the majority were not and they were forced to live in Refugee Camps. Those who did not become Jordanian citizens remain refugees and their children remain refugees to this day. Those who did become citizens have an identifier in their passports saying that they are Palestinian (which opens them up to discrimination). Palestinians in Egypt were mostly deported to Gaza and placed in Refugee Camps there, but the ones who stayed were integrated into Egyptian society as residents, but not citizens. They also had an identifier in their documents saying that they are Palestinian (which opens them up to discrimination). Conditions in Jordan and the West BankJordan annexed the whole West Bank on April 24, 1950 in a move that was condemned internationally (save for Great Britain, Iraq, and Pakistan which approved the act). All West Bank Palestinians became Jordanian citizens, but those already in UNRWA camps were not made into Jordanian citizens. Jordan made no overt acts to open up the refugee camps and fully integrate the Palestinian Jordanian refugees into Jordanian society, making the refugees reliant on UNRWA for assistance. Most Palestinian Jordanians made their lives as farmers as Jordan did not invest significantly in modifying the infrastructure of the area.Since many Palestinian-Jordanians had crossed from the West Bank to the East Bank during Jordan's annexation of the West Bank, they formed a large population within Jordan even after the Six-Day War brought the West Bank under Israeli Occupation. These Palestinians were rounded up and put into UNRWA Refugee camps in Jordan proper. This led to widespread discontent among the Palestinians in Jordan and the formation of a Palestinian pseudo-state on the western Jordanian border. Angered by their historic mistreatment under the Jordanians and the Jordanian failure to hold onto the West Bank, Palestinian Militants rose up against the Jordanian Government in 1970. King Hussein's response was to violently crush the uprising. The two sides fought a war from September 1970 to July 1971 called "Black September" or the "Jordanian Civil War". Estimates of the Palestinian dead are between 300 and 20,000, but typical estimates are around the 15,000 mark, making this event in Jordan nearly as deadly to Palestinians as the entire Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.Conditions in Egypt and the Gaza StripThere was no investment in the Gaza Strip during the All-Palestine Government period (1949-1959) and the infrastructure began to crumble. Additionally, since Egypt made no moves to grant Egyptian citizenship to the Palestinians, all Palestinian refugees (whether in camps or not) were dependent on UNRWA making a Palestinian Crisis in the area. In 1959, Egypt abolished the All-Palestine Government and brought the Gaza Strip under the United Arab Republic (which would later also include Syria). In this way, the Egyptians proceeded to effect a direct military occupation without actually annexing the region, meaning that Palestinians now were under direct Egyptian military occupation. The situation remained like this from 1959 until Israel's conquest of Gaza in 1967.In 1967 a small number of Palestinians fled to Egypt, but the majority remained under Israeli Occupation in the Gaza Strip. For those Palestinians who became residents of Egypt, a number of laws were passed in Egypt limiting the rights of Palestinian residents in Egypt. According to the new laws, they were denied residency and free-education rights. Those who were allowed to travel using a special Egyptian document for Palestinian refugees were required to enter Egypt every six months so as not to lose their residency rights. It is noteworthy that this document does not allow its holder to travel to other countries without a visa, except for Sudan. It also requires its holder to obtain a visa upon entry to Egypt on the return trip.Conditions under Israeli OccupationThis refers to Palestinians who fled in 1948, but remained in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip in 1967. Israel attempted some actions to try to open the camps and settle the UNRWA refugees in the general population, but this was decried by Arab States as the destruction of Arabs' homes and, as a result, Israel has desisted from trying to open up the refugee camps. The general situation of Palestinians under Israeli Occupation is well-known, resulting in numerous altercations between Palestinian civilians and Israeli military authorities, the Intifadas, and Palestinian terrorism.Conditions in Syria and LebanonIn both of these countries, the rights of Palestinians are virtually non-existent, with most being prohibited from leaving the camps or pursuing any careers in the country proper. In Lebanon, Palestinians have been targeted for violence on several occasions, both by Christian Falangists in the Tel az-Zaatar Massacre and Sabra and Shatila Massacres in the 1970s-1980s and by the Muslim-majority Lebanese Army in attacks on three Refugee camps in Lebanon: Nahr el-Bared, Tripoli, and Ain al-Hilweh in 2007. In Syria, the Syrian Palestinian Refugee population of 500,000 prior to the Civil War, a large number have fled to become "double refugees". While neighboring countries like Jordan have provisions to take care of Syrian Refugees, Syrian Palestinians are not entitled to those benefits. Several Syrian Palestinian Refugee Camps in Syria (like Yarmouk) have been the sites of intense campaigns between the Loyalists and Free Syrian Army. At least 3000 Syrian Palestinians have died, more than the last two Gazan Wars.
What has the author Karen Duke written?
Karen Duke has written: 'Vietnamese refugees since 1982' -- subject(s): Refugees, Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975
Why are there so many refugees today?
Because the country has been at war since 2001.
Are Palestine Muslims?
Palestinians are not all Muslims. Palestinians are consisting of Palestinian christian and Palestinian Muslims but the percentage of Palestinian Christian has greatly diminished since the Israeli occupation especially during the Deir Yassin Massacre of 1948. As the stories of Palestinian Christian is not widely told, many people seem to forget their existence and take for granted that all Palestinian are Muslims and their plight has been forgotten.
What is the Palestinian conflict summarized?
There are three major Palestinian Conflicts:Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Palestinians were part of a group of Levantine Arabs who lived across all of the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan) who resisted when Jews, first from Europe and then from the Arab countries, bought land and gained the right to declare independence as a Jewish State. As a result, this brought them into direct conflict with the Jews and their allies (Bedouins, Druze, and Circassians) and many of them left the new State of Israel as refugees. Later, through Israel's response to the belligerence of other Arab countries, Israel conquered the Palestinian Territories, which had been under Arab military occupation. The Palestinians are now attempting to create a state, some through peaceful negotiation and others through terrorist activities like bombing civilians and attacking soldiers while in plain-clothes. Israel is responding both through negotiations and through increased military patrols.Arab-Palestinian Conflict: After the Palestinians left Israel, they became refugees among their "fellow" Arabs. The Lebanese, especially, treat the Palestinians barbarically, denying them working papers and the ability to make a real life for themselves. This creates perpetual statelessness for the Palestinian refugees. In Jordan, there was Black September which resulted in 15,000 Palestinian deaths (just 20% less than all of the Palestinians killed by Israel or Jews since 1900).Palestinian Civil War: Hamas and Fatah are two Palestinian political factions which have two very different ideas about what kind of government Palestine should have (Islamist - Hamas vs. Secular - Fatah) and what method is best to achieve a state (Belligerence and Terrorism - Hamas vs. Peaceful Negotiation - Fatah).See the Related Link for a short discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
What happened to the Palestinians in 1948?
They became refugees because they fled the former Mandate of Palestine either by their own choice or by forced exodus (this is still hotly debated). However, what is clear is that 720,000 Palestinian Arabs were displaced from their homes on account of the conflict and found themselves outside the borders of the State of Israel. Israel refused to allow them to return to their homes post-war.
