Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Other crises overshadow plight of Palestinians displaced by war
JERASH CAMP, Jordan — The plight of Palestinians uprooted by Israeli-Arab wars 50 years ago is one of the world’s longest-running refugee crises, but the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency said they are no longer the world’s focus.
Pierre Kraehenbuehl said regional conflicts, including civil war in Syria, are displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and others, and he believes those conflicts have become much more pressing than a displacement that has affected five generations of Palestinians.
“We are dealing here with a community that has essentially reached a crisis of existential nature,” Kraehenbuehl said.
Abdullah Abu Massoud, 77, was born in a Bedouin encampment in what is now Israel. His family fled Israeli forces during the war over Israel’s creation, walking to Egyptian-run Gaza. More than 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted at the time.
In his 20s, Abu Massoud married Bassama, an Egyptian, and settled in Gaza.
Bassama, 72, said that after Israel’s capture of the territory in 1967, Gaza residents began talking of leaving, fearful of what Israeli rule might mean. Israel was offering transportation to Jordan, Bassama said.
In April 1968, the Abu Massouds and other displaced Palestinians from Gaza boarded a truck to Jordan’s border. From there, they rode buses to an area near the town of Jerash where the U.N. Relief and Works Agency was setting up a tent camp.
Under U.S. proposals in previous Israeli-Palestinian talks, a Palestinian state created from lands Israel captured in 1967 would welcome families like the Abu Massouds. In addition, an agreed-upon number of refugees would be allowed to return to Israel and others could opt to stay in their host countries.
But disagreements remained, and talks failed. Palestinians wanted Israel to accept moral responsibility for the plight of refugees. Israel feared this would lead to a large-scale return to Israel and dilute its Jewish majority.
There have been no serious negotiations since gaps widened with the 2009 election of Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister. Continued Israeli settlement expansion made a partition deal more difficult.
Today, 5.3 million Palestinians and their descendants are registered with the U.N. agency in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, making them eligible for health and education services. Some in Netanyahu’s government accuse the U.N. and others of perpetuating the refugee problem artificially. U.N. officials say refugee status is typically handed down through the generations in protracted conflicts.
A 29-year-old grandson of Bassama and Abdullah, Alaa Abu Awad, has never set foot in historic Palestine, the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. But he clings to an idealized image of Gaza to help him deal with his statelessness. He has tacked a Palestinian flag to the wall of his shop in Jerash camp.
“It’s the flag of my homeland,” said Abu Awad.
Most Palestinians in Jordan received citizenship as descendants of refugees from the neighboring West Bank, which was under Jordanian control for two decades, until 1967. The offspring of those who arrived from Gaza — more than 150,000 — are still temporary residents. They can’t own property and are barred from government jobs.
This has curtailed opportunities.
Abu Awad dropped out of school because there was no payoff for an education. As a tailor, he struggles to feed his family. Business has slowed because of rising prices and unemployment. He fears he’ll spend his life in the camp.
Circumstances vary for displaced Palestinians like the Abu Massouds.
Fewer than 30 percent live in U.N. camps. Many are poor. Others became successful; Palestinians helped drive economies in Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In Lebanon, refugees cannot access public health or schools and are barred from most skilled professions.
Syria once welcomed Palestinians, but about 400,000 of the nation’s 560,000 Palestinians were displaced in the civil war.
Most of the 2.2 million U.N.-registered Palestinians in Jordan have citizenship, arguably ending their refugee status. Others say Jordan did this as a temporary protection measure.
In Palestinian-run areas of the West Bank and Gaza, descendants of refugees have the same rights as others. Pinned down by poverty, many remain in camps, which have been hotbeds of unrest against Israel and resentment against the Palestinian ruling elite.
Life in Jerash has changed the women.
Unlike Bassama’s generation, the younger women wear face veils, signaling that a more fundamentalist version of Islam is taking root. The women say being covered head to toe also offers protection in the crowded camp.
Privacy is rare. In the Abu Massoud home, Bassama typically sits on a floor cushion, overseeing young female relatives as they cook and clean.
She accepts her refugee life as fate. She did her best to provide a home for their seven children, all now married.
Bassama has no hope of return and expects to be buried in the camp’s rundown cemetery.
“Gaza is gone. Palestine is gone,” she said. “It’s over. For 50 years, they are saying, peace, peace. We are tired of the words.”