Who Are the Palestinian Refugees and How Were They Created?

Who are the Palestinian refugees?

Palestinians are the world's largest, stateless community, and as of 2024, there are approximately 6 million Palestinian "refugees." The definition of "Palestinian refugees" according to the United Nations are those people whose "normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1, 1946, and may 15, 1948, who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." However, are they truly refugees? Consider the following.

How the Palestininan refugees were created

• Palestinian refugees were created by the War of Annihilation that Arab countries launched against the new State of Israel in 1947.
• Jews returned to the Land of Israel in peace. In 1947 the UN voted to partition the area then known as the Mandate of Palestine into two nations: one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish community accepted this plan. The Arab world rejected it—and five Arab countries launched a war to destroy the newborn State of Israel.
• This war—Israel's War of Independence—is what created the Palestinian refugees.
• Between 550,000-700,000 Palestinian Arabs were displaced from their homes during Israel's War of Independence. Most left voluntarily or at the urging of invading Arab armies. More than two-thirds of these refugees settled in the original area of the British Mandate for Palestine (Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza). Historian Benny Morris wrote that most of the Arab refugees, "fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders)."
• Only a small fraction of Palestinians were expelled by Israeli troops, who acted in response to immediate military considerations. There was no official Israeli policy of expulsion.
• Historian Benny Morris writes, "The refugee problem was born of war, not by design, Jewish or Arab. It was largely a byproduct of Jewish and Arab fears and of the protracted, bitter fighting that characterized the first Israeli-Arab war; in smaller part it was the deliberate creation of Jewish and Arab military commanders and politicians."
• Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas publicly admitted that the Arabs in his hometown of Safed were not expelled by Israeil troops, but "emigrated" on their own.

Who has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee problem?

• The Arab world has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee problem. Among all Arab countries, only Jordan has offered Palestinians the rights of citizenship. Many others have passed discriminatory laws, preventing Palestinians from buying land and from entering certain professions, like law and medicine.In 1959, the Arab League adopted Resolution 1457, which stated: "The Arab countries will not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries." The Arab world discriminates against Palestinians, yet the world does not outcry againstArab apartheid
• The UN and international organizations have perpetuated the Palestinian refugee problem. Palestinians are the only population in the world that the UN refuses to resettle. Instead, it passes their refugee status on to children and grandchildren. As a result, the original Palestinian refugee population of a few hundred thousand has grown to more than 6 million today. There unique status is "the single biggest stumbling block to achieving peace.

Israel absorbed all Jewish refugees forced to flee their homes in Arab countries.

An estimated 850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries in the years following the establishment of a Jewish State. Israel fully integrated these Jewish refugees into its society, while the Arab World exploited and oppressed the Palestinian refugees.

The real number of Palestinian refugees is quite different than what's stated.

An infant in 1948 would be over 75 years old today, and adults would be elderly. "The percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza over the age of 65 is 3.15 percent. If we include Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, the figure could be as high (on average) as 4.48 percent. That means if there were 40,000 refugees in 1948 and they were all still alive, there would be only 12,600 to 17,912 refugees today. Even if you use the exaggerated number of 750,000 refugees, there would be at most 33,585."

Additional Resources

• Mahmoud Abbas Contradicts the Palestinian Narrative on Refugees(video)
• Middle East’s Most Overlooked Refugees(article)
• Why Are Palestinian Refugees Different from All Other Refugees?(2018 article)
• Palestinian Refugees: History and Overview(article)
• Palestinian Refugees: Human Rights Denied(video)
• Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees?(video)
• Myths and Facts about Palestinian Refugees(article)
• The Truth about the Refugees: Israel-Palestinian Conflict(video)
• The Middle East's Greatest Untold Story(article)