Syria’s Stateless Palestinians

In 1948, Syria received one hundred thousand Palestinian refugees denied their right to return to their homes and lands in Palestine – a right asserted by UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Over the subsequent decades, Syria facilitated their integration into the country. On the eve of the Syrian war, the community of Palestinian refugees in Syria was half a million strong. It is estimated that at least one in every five Palestinians has fled the country already, with the overwhelming majority arriving in Europe as refugees yet again. What can the Palestinians’ statelessness and repeated devastation of their communities tell us about human rights law and related international legal regimes that regulate the protection of refugees and displaced persons? When do refugees become recognized as refugees, and when does their status afford them protection? Under what circumstances are Palestinian rights, especially the right of return, recognized and supported, what enabled Israel to ignore their claims, and what impact will the continued displacement of communities have on the fight for the Palestinian cause? The participants will bring their unique expertise and diverse disciplinary background to discuss the current displacements of Palestinian refugees. The workshop and discussion mark the recent publication of Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities by former ICI Fellow Anaheed Al-Hardan.Syria’s Stateless Palestinians, workshop, ICI Berlin, 14 October 2016 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e161014

Decolonization, West Asia, Global South

Anaheed Al-Hardan, ‘Decolonization, West Asia, Global South’, talk presented at the symposium Middle of Where, East of What?: New Geographies of Conflict, ICI Berlin, 14 July 2016, video recording, mp4, 06:54 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e160714_2

Introduction

Anaheed Al-Hardan, Introduction to the lecture David Landy, Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel: Translation, Appropriation and Solidarity, ICI Berlin, 1 March 2012, video recording, mp4, 03:48 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e120301_5

Twice a Refugee

In 1948, Syria received one hundred thousand Palestinian refugees denied their right to return to their homes and lands in Palestine – a right asserted by UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Over the subsequent decades, Syria facilitated their integration into the country. On the eve of the Syrian war, the community of Palestinian refugees in Syria was half a million strong. It is estimated that at least one in every five Palestinians has fled the country already, with the overwhelming majority arriving in Europe as refugees yet again. What can the Palestinians’ statelessness and repeated devastation of their communities tell us about human rights law and related international legal regimes that regulate the protection of refugees and displaced persons? When do refugees become recognized as refugees, and when does their status afford them protection? Under what circumstances are Palestinian rights, especially the right of return, recognized and supported, what enabled Israel to ignore their claims, and what impact will the continued displacement of communities have on the fight for the Palestinian cause? The participants will bring their unique expertise and diverse disciplinary background to discuss the current displacements of Palestinian refugees. The workshop and discussion mark the recent publication of Palestinians in Syria: Nakba Memories of Shattered Communities by former ICI Fellow Anaheed Al-Hardan.‘Twice a Refugee’, discussion presented at the workshop Syria’s Stateless Palestinians, ICI Berlin, 14 October 2016 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e161014-1

What Future Now?:The Palestinian Refugees and the Arab Uprisings

During times of turmoil and upheaval in the Arab world, the political vulnerability of Palestinian refugee communities is exacerbated in myriad ways. Precedents were set in Lebanon, Kuwait, Libya and Iraq, and the Arab uprisings have been no exception. The wars first in Libya and later in Syria have now opened new chapters for the Palestinian refugee communities in both countries. This podium discussion asked, where were the Arab uprisings after two years of revolutions, wars and ongoing upheaval? How have Palestinian refugees been impacted by these uprisings? Today, with approximately five million refugees registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Palestinian refugees comprise the world’s largest refugee population. They continue to be unable to exercise the right – provided for in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 – to return to their homes and lands in the state of Israel. Most continue to live in Arab states or under Israeli occupation, while a small minority are internally displaced within the state of Israel. What is the future now for Palestinian refugees in view of the uprisings and the Palestinians’ six-decade-old unresolved statelessness?What Future Now?: The Palestinian Refugees and the Arab Uprisings, discussion, ICI Berlin, 15 March 2013 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e130315

Memories of Palestine :The 1948 Nakba

The year 1948 is marked as the year of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, in Palestinian and wider Arab popular memory discourses. The Nakba saw the conquest of Palestine and the establishment of the state of Israel through the expulsion of more than half of historic Palestine’s population, and the destruction of Palestinians’ cultural, social and political institutions in the conquered territories. Once a rallying cry for the pan-Arab liberation movements of the 1950s and 1960s, the Nakba has today been relegated to a secondary place in the Palestinian Authority’s state-building project, despite the Palestinians’ ongoing colonized and stateless reality. This workshop examined the new meanings and significations of the past/present Nakba for Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon and the &#8216;internal&#8217; refugees within the state of Israel, as narrated through their memories of an unresolved past in an unresolved present. It raised questions around the absence of the Nakba from the literature on loss and trauma, the articulation of Nakba memories by internal refugee women as a form of resistance, and the Nakba itself as a site of competing and shifting significations and meanings.Memories of Palestine: The 1948 Nakba, workshop, ICI Berlin, 14 March 2013 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e130314