Palestinian Refugees

Israel expelled 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, and another 180,000 in 1967, in clear violation of international law. They have never been allowed to return to their homes or been compensated for lost property. Many live as second-class citizens in squalid refugee camps around the Middle East. Israel refuses to admit responsibility for the refugee problem.

• Global Exchange, "The Palestinian Diaspora: A History of Dispossession"
  "There are now at least 6 million Palestinian refugees, some of whom have been waiting more than 50 years to return home. The forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 is a core injury at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute."
• Amnesty International, "Right to Return: The Case of the Palestinians"
  "The right to return to one's own country is a key human rights principle enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amnesty International advocates the right to return regardless of the circumstances in which people have been exiled."
• Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, "Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return: An International Law Analysis," Badil Information and Discussion Brief No. 8, January 2001
  "Historically speaking, the right of return had achieved customary status in international law by 1948 and hence was legally binding upon all states. UN Resolution 194 relating to Palestinian refugees simply reaffirmed this international legal principle."
• Sari Hanafi, "Opening the Debate on the Right of Return," Middle East Report, No. 222, Spring 2002
  "Israeli discourse on Palestinian return psychologizes the conflict: there are a lot of writings about Israeli anxieties and about the Palestinian hater. The major concern is demography: how returnees would disorder the colonial legacy of expulsions."
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, "UNRWA and Palestine Refugees . . . 50 Years"
  (UN photo exhibit providing a vivid introduction to the origin of the Palestinian refugee problem and daily life in refugee camps. UNRWA is the main provider of basic public services such as education and health care to 4 million refugees across the Middle East.)
• Rosemary Sayigh, "Dis/Solving the 'Refugee Problem,'" Middle East Report, No. 207, Summer 1998
  "Israeli power, U.S. backing, Palestinian weakness, Arab complicity -- these are the basic ingredients for a coercive settlement of the 'refugee problem' based not on refugees' rights but on their disappearance."