UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees: A history within history

Refugee Survey Quarterly

Volumn 28, Issue 2-3, 2010, Pages 229-252

  Bocco, Riccardo ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FORCED MIGRATION; REFUGEE; UNITED NATIONS;

PALESTINE;

EID: 77952469110     PISSN: 10204067     EISSN: 1471695X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/rsq/hdq001     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. See Michael Chiller Glaus, Tackling the Intractable. Palestinian Refugees and the Search for Middle East Peace, Bern, Peter Lang, 2007, 352.
2. See Dominique Vidal and Joseph Algazy, Le pêché originel d'Israël. L'expulsion des Palestiniens revisitée par les 'nouveaux historiens' israéliens, Paris, Editions de l'Atelier, 1998.
3. See the contribution of J. Peters and O. Gal in this volume.
4. Interpreted by the refugees as a legitimization of their right of return, paragraph 11 of this resolution resolves that: "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours 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 loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or the authorities responsible". See UNGA res. 194 (III), December 1948.
5. See the contribution of M. Dumper in this volume.
6. R. Khalidi, "Truth, justice and reconciliation: Elements of a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue", in Gh. Karmi and E. Cottran (eds.), The Palestinian Exodus, 1948-1998, London, Ithaca Press, 1999, 239.
7. See UNRWA, UNRWA figures as of 31 December 2008, Public Information Office, Gaza, March 2009
8. Among the most important works, is worthwhile to mention: Edward Buehrig, The United Nations and the Palestinian Refugees, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1971, a work that has privileged a legal and international relations perspective
9. Milton Viorst, Reaching for the Olive Branch: UNRWA and Peace in the Middle East, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989
10. "Palestinian Refugees and non-Refugees in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip", Special Issue of Journal of Refugee Studies, 2(1) 1989, both published on the 40th anniversary of the Agency
11. Benjamin N. Schiff, Refugees into the Third Generation. UN Aid to the Palestinians, Syracuse University Press, 1995, which is to date probably the most thorough account of UNRWA in a political economy perspective.
12. Finally, the more recent work of Robert Bowker (Palestinian Refugees. Mythology, Identity and the Search for Peace, Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003) is a very interesting account of the Agency by a former Australian ambassador in the Middle East and senior official of UNRWA in Gaza and Jerusalem.
13. UNGA res. 302 (IV), 8 Dec. 1949, para. 7.
14. While the AFSC, the Quakers' organization, had been active mainly in Gaza, the ICRC and the LRCS had been catering to the needs of the displaced in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
15. The term "reintegration" was meant to include both the notions of "repatriation" and "resettlement"
16. For an example of refugees residing outside UNRWA's areas of operation, see the contribution of O. Al Abed in this volume on the critical situation of the Palestinians in Egypt.
17. On the evolution of UNRWA's mandate, see the contribution of L. Bartholomeusz in this volume.
18. Headed by G. Clapp, former director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Economic Survey Mission (ESM) never envisaged studying plans of repatriation because of their political character. The ESM recommendations are also a good example of the economic development approach fostered by the United States in the early 1950s and the attempt to transfer to the Middle East a successful model applied in the mid-West of the United States.
19. See also the pioneering work of Paul W.T. Kingston (Britain and the Politics of Modernization in the Middle East 1945-1958, Cambridge University Press, 1996) detailing the diverging development strategies pursued by the British and the (American) Point IV administration in the Middle East during the 1950s.
20. During the 1950s and part of the Cold War era, the main interest of Western donor countries through UNRWA's socio-economic assistance was to insure political stability in the region and to prevent the spread of communist ideology among refugee communities
21. The contribution of B. Goddard in this volume gives a historical perspective and a comparative juridical analysis of UNHCR and UNRWA's mandates. The contributions of M. Kagan and N. Morris point at future perspectives for the Agency's role in refugee protection.
22. See: UNRWA, UNRWA figures as of 31 December 2008, Public Information Office, Gaza, March 2009
23. On the domestic level and to face economic hardship, the government was bound to negotiate a new 'social pact' with its subjects to avoid political unrest. Actually, in the early 1990s, the external rent derived from international aid (Arab and Western) and Jordanian migrant workers' remittances had seriously dried up.
24. This literally means a "swap of national home and/or national belonging" and the end of irredentism for the Jordanians of Palestinian origin. The "ethno-national" question was but one face of the coin. The other was the emergence of new forms of social inequalities and divisions, mainly produced by the externally fostered economic reforms and cutting across geographical areas of residence in the Kingdom, political ideologies and affiliations.
25. Furthermore, Jordan has hosted and hosts important groups of the Palestinian elite. Socially speaking, intermarriage between Jordanians and Palestinians has become a widespread practice; politically, most Jordanians of Palestinian origin have been socialized in the kingdom; economically, they have shared in the country's system.
26. For the political domestic changes in Jordan during the 1990s, the resurgence of the Transjordanian nationalist movement and the effects of the Peace process, see: A. Abou Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians and the Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process, Washington, United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999
27. R. Storaci, Le dinamiche palestinesi nella politica giordana. Prospettive per la stabilità di un Pivotal State, Roma, Centro Militare di Studi Strategici, 2002
28. A. Susser, Jordan. Case-study of a Pivotal State, Washington, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2002.
29. See the contribution of R. Farah in this volume.
30. During the first two decades of its existence, an important number of the Agency's international staff were former military and colonial administrations' civil servants, mainly from the UK and the United States. For several decades, UNRWA's bureaucratic culture has been shaped in relative isolation from the other United Nations sister organizations, the most notable exception being the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) whose cooperation with UNRWA in the education and health sectors dates to the late 1950s. The last decade has witnessed important changes, in particular in terms of staff secondment from other United Nations agencies, the UNHCR seemingly playing a pivotal role for the replacement of a number of directors at the field and HQ levels. During the mandate of the present Commissioner-General, Karin Abu Zayd, and under increased pressure from a number of international donors, UNRWA has been innovative, exploring new forms of management and external collaborations in its different sectors of activity.
31. It is important to remember that UNRWA Headquarters were originally based in Beirut then split between Amman and Vienna after the beginning of the Lebanese civil war. In 1996, following the start of the Palestinian autonomy in Gaza, the then new Commissioner-General, Peter Hansen, decided to relocate the Vienna offices back to the region. It is during this move that the Agency "lost" most of its professional old staff. Currently, the headquarters is divided between Amman, Gaza and Jerusalem.
32. The term "Palestine" in the acronym of the United Nations Agency refers to the areas formerly under British Mandate (also known as "historic Palestine"), which included the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the territories that became the State of Israel. Until 1952, UNRWA catered also to the needs of the Jewish communities displaced during the 1948 war. In this paper, the term "Palestinian refugees" mainly refers to the Arab population of Palestine displaced during the 1948 conflict.
33. For full details of eligibility instructions, see in the Appendixes to this volume: UNRWA. Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions (CERI), 2006.
34. See also: L. Takkenberg, The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998, ch. 2.
35. See: UNRWA, UNRWA figures as of 31 December 2008, Public Information Office, Gaza, March 2009
36. See: S. Tamari, Palestinian Refugee Negotiations. From Madrid to Oslo II, Washington, Institute of Palestine Studies, 1996
37. PLO, The Palestinian Refugees Factfile, Jerusalem/Ramallah, Department of Refugee Affairs, April 2000
38. It should also be noted that, in Arabic, Palestinians refer to the 1948 refugees and their descendants as laji'un, while the term nazihûn is used for the 1967 displaced along with their descendants. In the latter case, the two categories can overlap because an important number of refugees were displaced a second time during the 1967 war.
39. Many relevant scientific contributions on the Palestinian refugee issue, written by Palestinian, Israeli and international researchers, can be found in Journal of Palestine Studies (Washington) and Etudes Palestiniennes (Paris) published by the Institute of Palestine Studies (IPS)
40. See also: Elia Zureik, Palestinian Refugees and the Peace Process, Washington, IPS, 1996
41. Salim Tamari and Elia Zureik (eds.), Reinterpreting the Historical Record: The Uses of Palestinian Refugee Archives for Social Science Research and Policy Analysis, Jerusalem, Institute of Jerusalem Studies, 2001.
42. Some of the published and most of the unpublished literature related to the refugee negotiations is available on the Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet, also known as FOFOGNET (http://prrn.mcgill.ca/uptodate/uptopdate_fofognet.htm) (last visited 20th September 2009), originally established to link members of a Canadian academic advisory group to the gavel-holder of the Refugee Working Group of the multilateral Middle East Peace Process in the early 1990s.
43. See Nigel Roberts, "Hard lessons from Oslo: foreign aid and the mistakes of the 1990s", M. Keating, A. Le More and R. Lowe (eds.), Aid, Diplomacy and Facts on the Ground, London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2005, 17-26.
44. For a more recent analysis of the issue, see: Benoît Challand, "Les mutations du leadership palestinien (1993-2007)", A contrario, 5(2) 2008, 52-75
45. For Palestinians in the diaspora, being the holder of another citizenship may be conflicting. After Black September, in Jordan there has been a tacit agreement that Palestinians would not raise the issue of representation.
46. Beside detailed mechanisms for rehabilitating and compensating refugees aimed at rendering return less attractive, the agreement stipulated no official limitation for immigration in Palestine but no refugee return to Israel
47. See: http://www.mideastweb.org/beilinabumazen1.htm.
48. BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights was officially established in January 1998
49. See: http://www.badil.org (last visited 15th September 2009).
50. See in particular the contributions of Susan Akram and Ingrid Gassner Jaradat in Naseer Aruri (ed.), The Palestinian Refugees. The Right of Return, London, Pluto Press, 2001.
51. Al 'Awda. The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, founded in April 2000 in New York has several branches in North America, Europe and Palestine with a network of related associations.
52. See: http://www.al-awda.org (last visited 15th September 2009).
53. Jalal Al-Husseini and Riccardo Bocco, "Les négociations israélo-palestiniennes de juillet 2000 à Camp David: reflets du Processus d'Oslo", Relations Internationales, no. 136, hiver 2008, 51-72.
54. Besides the regular OCHA reports available on the website of the United Nations Agency (http://www.ochaopt.org) (last visited 16th September 2009)
55. see: UNCTAD, The Palestinian War-Torn Economy: Aid, Development and State Formation, Geneva, UNCTAD/GDS/APP, 2006
56. See the Report of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process: Alvaro De Soto, End of Mission Report, May 2007
57. Anne Le More, International Assistance to the Palestinian After Oslo. Political Guilt, Wasted Money, London, Routledge, 2008
58. Riccardo Bocco et Wassila Mansouri, "Aide internationale et processus de paix: le cas palestinien (1994-2006)", in: R. Bocco and D. Meier (eds.), La Palestine et les conflits du Moyen-Orient, special issue of A contrario, 5(2) 2008, 6-22.
59. M. Chiller Glaus (2007, op. cit.) gives a thourough account of all the plans: from the Abu Sitta's and the Citizenship/Residency Approach, to the Geneva Initiative, including the H. Agha and R. Malley proposal for return into swapped areas, the Y. Peled and N. Rouhana's transitional justice approach, the Gush Shalom or the Ayalon-Nusseibeh's proposal, and the bi-national State project. See also the contribution of M. Dumper in this volume.
60. Concerning the recent evolutions of the Palestinian internal debate on the right of return, see: Jalal Al-Husseini, "Visions palestiniennes du Droit au retour sept ans aprèsledébut de la seconde Intifada (2000-2007)", R. Bocco & D. Meier (eds.), La Palestine et les conflits du Moyen-Orient, special issue of A contrario, 5(2) 2008, 37-51.
61. See Karma Nabulsi, Palestinian Registers: Laying Foundations and Setting Directions. Report of the Civitas Project, Oxford, Nuffield College, 2006.
62. On 7-8 June, 2004, under the auspices of the Swiss government UNRWA organized in Geneva a conference titled "Meeting the Humanitarian Needs of Palestine Refugees in the Near East: Building partnership in support of UNRWA". The conference gathered up to 120 international donor countries and largely contributed to setting the agenda for the Agency's 2005-2009 Medium Term Plan (http://www.un.org/unrwa/genevaconference/select.html) (last visited 17th September 2009).
63. See UNRWA, Medium Term Plan 2005-2009, Public Information Office, UNRWA Headquarters
64. See the contribution of R. Terbeck in this volume.
65. UNRWA, Medium Term Strategy 2010-2015, Public Information Office, UNRWA Headquarters
66. See the contribution of D. Chatty in this volume on refugee youth.
67. See the contribution of M. Rosenfeld in this volume.
68. See the contributions of Jalal al-Husseini and R. Bocco in this volume.
69. See the contribution of T. Rempel in this volume.
70. See the contribution of H. Rueff and A. Viaro in this volume.
71. The European Union had already begun to use this terminology at the beginning of the Oslo Process
72. See European Commission Shepherd of the Social and Economic Infrastructure Development Theme, Report to the Refugee Working Group of the Middle East Peace Process ("Bristol Report"), Oxford, Office for International Policy Services and Refugee Studies Centre, 1994
73. See the contribution of S. Hanafi and Ph. Misselwitz in this volume.
74. A. Monsutti, "Afghan Migratory Strategies and the Three Solutions to the Refugee Problem", Refugee Survey Quarterly 27(1), 2008, 58-73
75. "Itinérances transnationales: un éclairage sur les réseaux migratoires afghans", Critique Internationale no. 44, 2009, 83-104.
76. G. Chatelard, "Un système en reconfiguration. L'émigration des Irakiens de la guerre du Golfe à la guerre d'Irak (1990-2003)", in H. Jaber et F. Métral (dir.), Mondes en mouvements. Migrants et migrations au Moyen-Orient au tournant du XXIème siècle, Beyrouth, Ifpo, 2005, 113-55
77. G. Chatelard & K. Doraï,"La présence irakienne en Syrie et en Jordanie. Dynamiques sociales et spatiales, et modes de gestion par les pays d'accueil", Maghreb-Machrek, no. 199, 2009, 43-60.
78. See Sari Hanafi, Entre deux mondes: les hommes d'affaires palestiniens de la diaspora et la construction de l'entité palestinienne, Le Caire, CEDEJ, 1997
79. Are Hovdenak, Jon Pedersen, Dag H. Tuastad & Elia Zureik, Constructing Order: Palestinian Adaptations to Refugee Life, Oslo, FAFO, Report No. 236, 1997.
80. See Julie Peteet, "Problematizing a Palestinian Diaspora", International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol 39, 2007, 627-46
81. Helena Lindholm-Schulz. The Palestinian Diaspora. Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland, London, Routledge, 2003
82. S. Hanafi, "The Sociology of Return: Palestinian Social Capital, Transnational Kinship and the Refugee Repatriation Process", in E. Benvenisti, Ch. Gans, S. Hanafi (eds.), Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Berlin, Springer, 2007
83. S. Hanafi (ed.), Crossing Borders, Shifting Boundaries, Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo Papers in Social Science, 29(1), 2008.
84. See J. Al-Husseini and A. Signoles, "Construction nationale, territorialité et diasporisation: le cas palestinien", Maghreb-Machrek, no. 199, 2009, 23-42
85. S. Hanafi, "La diaspora palestinienne à l'heure de l'Intifada. Droit au retour et logiques de réseaux", in A. Dieckhoff and R. Leveau (eds.), Israéliens et Palestiniens: la guerre en partage, Paris, Balland, 2003, 259-81.
86. See Rex Brynen, The Past as Prelude? Negotiating the Palestinian Refugee Issue, London, Chatham House, Briefing Paper MEP/PR BP 08/01, June 2008
87. In chronological order, it seems worthwhile to mention J. Ginat and B. Perkins (eds.), The Palestinian Refugees: Old Problems, New Solutions, Brighton, Sussex Academic Press, 2001
88. A. M. Lesch and I. S. Lustick (eds.), Exile and Return: Predicaments of Palestinian and Jews, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005
89. M. Dumper (ed.), Palestinian Refugee Repatriation: Global Perspectives, London, Routledge, 2006
90. R. Brynen and R. Rifa'i (eds.), The Absorption of Palestinian Refugees, London, I. B. Tauris, 2006
91. M. Dumper, The future for Palestinian Refugees. Toward Equity and Peace, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 2007
92. E. Benvenisti, Ch. Gans, S. Hanafi (eds.), Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Berlin, Springer, 2007.
93. Morocco and its 'Equity and Conciliation Commission' set up after the accession to the throne by Mohammad VI seems to be quite an exception in the Arab world. In the Algerian case, the Reconciliation Law promulgated by President Bouteflika seems to be a rather "imposed" policy of reconciliation.
94. See for example D. S. Halpérin (ed.), To live together: Shaping New Attitudes to Peace through Education. Paris and Geneva, UNESCO and IBE, 1997
95. S. Adwan and D. Bar-On, Histoire de l'Autre, Paris, Liana Levi & Bethlehem, Peace Research Institute in the Middle East, 2003.
96. J. Hilal and I. Pappé (eds.), Parlare con il nemico. Narrazioni palestinesi e israeliane a confronto, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2003
97. D. E. Zammit, H. al Treiki and I. Pappé (eds.), Human Rights and the Forgotten Histories of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, special issue of the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, vol. 8, no. 2, 2004
98. E. Kaufman, W. Salem and J. Verhoeven (eds.), Bridging the Divide: Peacebuilding in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 2006
99. P. Scham, W. Salem and B. Pogrund (eds.), Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue, Walnut Creek (USA), Left Coast Press, 2005
100. R. Rotberg (ed.), Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History's Double Helix, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2006
101. R. Dudai, "A model for Dealing with the Past in the Israeli-Palestinian Context", The International Journal of Transitional Justice, 1, 2007, 249-67.
102. See Baruch Kimmerling, The Invention and Decline of Israeliness, State, Society and the Military, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001
103. See William Ossipow (ed.), Israël et l'Autre, Genève, Editions Labor & Fides, 2005, 10-2.