Palestinian refugees UN based analysis

A Palestinian friend sent me this…

Palestine’s refugees

Published Tuesday 22/06/2010 (updated) 25/06/2010 13:51

Palestinian refugees receive food from a United Nations distribution point in the
southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on 21 August 2008. [MaanImages/Hatem Omar]

Madrid – IRIN – The United Nations’ humanitarian news and analysis service released a report on Palestinain refugees on Tuesday, one day after the world marked the International Day of the Refugee.

The following are facts and figures about the current and historical situation of Palestinian refugees starting in 1948.

Fast facts

The total number of displaced Palestinians worldwide is 7.1 million, including:
– 6.6 million refugees, and 427,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs)
– 67 percent of all Palestinians worldwide are refugees or IDPs
– 4,766,670 refugees registered with UNRWA
– UNRWA definition of Palestinian refugees: “People whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.” As a rule, those displaced after 1948 do not qualify for UNRWA assistance
– More than one million refugees whose displacement dates back to 1947-1948 are not registered with UNRWA
– 340,016 Palestinians are registered with UNHCR

Timeline

– 29 November 1947: By approving Resolution 181, the UN General Assembly adopted a plan to partition the 1923-48 British Mandate of Palestine.
– November 1947-July 1949: War in the British Mandate of Palestine led to the flight of over 720,000 Palestinians, according to the UN. Non-UN estimates for the number of refugees displaced in 1948 range from 400,000 to almost one million.
– 9 April 1948: The Deir Yassin massacre just outside Jerusalem in which over 100 Palestinians were killed, shocked civilian Palestinian populations throughout the British Mandate of Palestine
– 11 December 1948: By issuing Resolution 194, the UN General Assembly recognized the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes. To date, this resolution has not been implemented.
– 14 May 1948 – July 1949: Hours after British withdrawal from the British Mandate of Palestine on 14 May 1948, the state of Israel was declared on 78 percent of that territory. Following the Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded Israel.
– July 1949: Israel reached armistice agreements with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.
– 1 May 1950: UNRWA began its field operations.
– 5-10 June 1967: War broke out between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan. As a result of the conflict, an additional 100,000-300,000 Palestinians became displaced.
– 1967-present day: Estimates vary greatly on the annual rate of new displacements, but Palestinian sources cite up to 20,000 newly displaced persons per year.

Reasons for new displacement include Israel’s construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the revocation of residency rights and house demolitions.

Country by country: Where do the Palestinians live

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians live in the Middle East. UNRWA operates in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory. There are also sizeable numbers of refugees living in Iraq, Egypt and outside the Middle East.

Jordan
– Around 1.9 Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA
– Unlike any other host country, Jordan granted Palestinian refugees full citizenship rights, except for 120,000 people who originally came from the Gaza Strip
– There are 10 official and three unofficial refugee camps in Jordan
Click here for more information on UNRWA’s operations in Jordan

Lebanon
– Around 425,000 Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA
– There are 12 official refugee camps
– Given their condition as stateless, Palestinians in Lebanon are denied many basic rights basic rights. For instance, they are barred from around 20 professions and have no access to public social services. Even access to health and educational services is limited, often rendering registered refugees heavily dependent on UNRWA.
– Around 3,000 Palestinians in Lebanon are not registered with UNRWA and have no other form of identity documents. They are barred from practically every form of assistance, and survive thanks to NGOs.
Click here for more information on UNRWA’s operations in Lebanon.

Syria
Around 427,000 Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA.
There are nine official and three unofficial camps.
Palestinians enjoy the same rights as the Syrian population, barring citizenship rights.
Click here here for more information on UNRWA’s operations in Syria.

Gaza
– An estimated 1.1 million Palestinians out of Gaza’s 1.5 million population are UNRWA-registered refugees.
– There are eight UNRWA-administered camps in the Gaza Strip.
– As a result of Israel’s occupation since 1967 and an ongoing blockade on the Gaza Strip, the population suffers severe economic problems.
UNRWA’s activities in the Gaza Strip have been severely restricted by the blockade.
– Military conflict, including Israel’s 23-day military offensive starting 27 December 2008, has led to the frequent destruction of homes and other infrastructure in Gaza, much of which has not been rebuilt because of the blockade.
Click here for more information on UNRWA’s operations in Gaza.

West Bank
– 779,000 Palestinians are registered with UNRWA.
– There are 19 overcrowded and poorly serviced camps.
– The ongoing occupation and military checkpoints and closures implemented by the Israeli army put a huge strain on the West Bank economy.
Click here for more information on UNRWA’s operations in the West Bank.

Israel
– Palestinians whose forbears were displaced in 1948 but remained within the borders of what is now Israel are estimated to number 335,204.
– They have the right to Israeli citizenship but are denied the right to return to their home towns or villages.

Egypt
– Palestinians fled to Egypt during the 1948, 1956 and 1967 wars.
– It is estimated that there are up to 50,000 Palestinians in Egypt.
– However, they do not have permanent residency rights, nor can they register as refugees.
– There is no UNRWA presence in Egypt.

Iraq
– Up until May 2006, UNHCR estimated that 34,000 Palestinians lived in Iraq. Today, only 11,544 UNHCR-registered Palestinian refugees remain.
– Palestinians have been targeted and scores have been killed by militant groups since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. As such, many Palestinians who were living in Iraq have suffered forced displacement twice: once from their original homes, and then from their host country.
– Most fleeing Palestinians have sought refuge in neighboring Syria and Jordan.

UNRWA versus UNHCR

Such is the scale and uniqueness of the Palestinian refugee problem that the UN has one agency for Palestinian refugees alone and another for all other refugees across the world.

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established by the UN General Assembly on 8 December 1949 “to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees.”

UNRWA began operations on 1 May 1950 and because no solution to the Palestine refugee problem has been forthcoming, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate, most recently extending it until 30 June 2011.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was established on 14 December 1950 to help Europeans displaced by World War II. It is mandated to “to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide.”

The BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights describes the situation of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) as “the largest and longest-standing case of displaced persons in the world today.”

Source: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=293757

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Pro-Palestinian artwork

Salam.

I’m no artist, but I’m experimenting with some images to design pro-Palestinian awareness leaflets. I’m going to put my stuff here and if you know of any other good places for such art, please let me know. Feel free to link to your own ideas.

I’ll start off this this video:
(anti-zionist video) – Abdel Malik Ali

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSrWziKfgRA

 Welocme to the Gaza strip(lwtc247)

 

Welcome to Palestine: Map of Palestine(lwtc247)

Israel History X

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooTKpGGlU3Q]

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Nakbah day. How many more?

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Many who are not directly affected by the theft of Palestinian lives, homes, land, future and hope, tend to focus our attention on the Palestinian (akbah) only on anniverseries. But for the Palestinians, EVERY day is a Nakbah day. Thankfully the Zionist game is being exposed like never before.

Here follows a press statement from COMPLETE, an umbrella organisation of NGO’s whose members reject Zionism and who do are active in trying to end its necromatic manefestations.

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Statement begins:

Today, the 15^th of May marked the anniversary of an-Nakbah or the catastrophy in Arabic. It refers to the colossal human tragedy that unfolded in Palestine on 15^th of May 1948. Sixty one years ago, on this day, some 800,000 Palestinians, fearing for their lives fled from their homes and seeked refuge in neighbouring Arab countries. It was the culmination of the systematic usurpation of Palestinian land during the period of the British mandate by Jewish settlers since the 1920’s that climaxed with the Israel declaration of ‘independence’ on 14^th May 1948. Now after sixty one years, those Palestinians or their surviving children and children’s children, numbering over five million people are still languishing in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Gaza strip in abject conditions and almost at the brink of oblivion.

 

Sixty one years on, today Palestine  still remains under occupation. Despite repeated calls by the United Nations under countless UN Resolutions for Israel to honour the rights of the Palestinians to a statehood, Israel has remained obnoxious. The longstanding occupation now has led to other more demeaning and sinister moves by the Zionist regime to carve up more land by building Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian lands and constructing the notorious wall that snakes through the West Bank from north to south, disrupting daily movements of the Palestinian people and blocking access to schools, farms and water sources. Against every sense of justice and international laws and convention, Israel has been laying siege on the densely populated Gaza strip since 2006, turning it into the biggest terrestrial prison on earth and collectively punishing the population of Gaza for putting up resistance against the occupation, an act that is sanctioned even by the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. The siege was than followed by a massive military strike against a deprived population that lasted for 22 days, killing no less more than 1,000 people, half of these women and children, with the aim of breaking the spirit of the Palestinian people, only to find them surviving the nightmarish ordeal and coming out stronger.

 

These episodes only prove one thing i.e. no power can put down a national aspiration for freedom. The Palestinian people will continue to remain steadfast in their struggle to liberate their land and restore their dignity in the face of the most oppressive regime the world has ever known. They have put up sixty one years of honourable struggle to regain their freedom and they are showing no signs of letting up.

 

COMPLETE Malaysia would like to call upon men and women of conscience to contemplate on this longstanding suffering of fellow human beings who have been continuously denied of a homeland, freedom and dignity. It is a great shame for the whole of humanity to allow such gross violations of human rights going unchecked for over half a century. It is the paradox of the century that the Palestinians lost their freedom and the right to a homeland the same year the Universal declaration of Human rights was endorsed by the United Nations in 1948.

 

COMPLETE Malaysia therefore calls on governments of the world, civil societies and individuals of conscience to exhaust all efforts, be it diplomatic, legal and economic, to condemn Israel’s racist acts of dehumanizing the Palestinian people. It has become incumbent on every person to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and stand firmly by their side as they thrive hard to earn the freedom and regain their honour and dignity.

 

COMPLETE Malaysia will continue to raise awareness on the Palestinian issue by holding events with the objectives of dissemination of information and bringing understanding to members of the public. It is hoped that our humble effort will receive the warm support of every Malaysian regardless of creed and ethnic background, to do what is right in the name of humanity. COMPLETE Malaysia holds the view that the Palestinian issue is not one of religious or mere territorial dispute, but it is one of oppression and subjugation of one nation unto another that was left to linger for far too long. Therefore we hope every Malaysian will join us in unison when we say ‘Enough is Enough’ in the face of the Zionist Regime of Israel and demand a stop to their barbaric acts of debasement and annihilation of the Palestinian Nation.  

 

Adnan Tahir

Chairman

COMPLETE Malaysia

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15th May, a day of remembrance of Nakbah.

The tragedy of an-Nakbah or catastrophe officially unfolded on the 15th May of 1948 with the birth of the illegitimate state of Israel. It was the culmination of the systematic usurpation of Palestinian land by Jewish settlers since the 1920’s and ended with the mass exodus of more than 800,000 Palestinians vacating their homes and land to save dear life. Sixty one years have past to date, and these displaced Palestinians or their children and children’s children are still living in refugee camps across the middle east, longing to return to their homes in historic Palestine.

 

It all started with the notorious Balfour Declaration passed in the British House of Commons in 1917, giving the rights to the people of Jewish descent to migrate and populate the British mandated territory of Palestine. It marked the success of the International Zionist movement started and led by Teodor Hertzl in 1897, which after much consultation settled for Palestine for the Jewish National Home. They came and settled in Palestine, buying over land or taking over from absentee landlords. Thanks to the great Mufti of Palestine, al-Haj Amin Husaini, a religious edict was passed by the council of muslim scholars which forbade Palestinians from selling their lands to Jewish settlers. Things came to a head after the Second World War, when displaced jews of Europe as a consequent of Hitlers pogrom, or the Holocaust, flocked to Palestine in their hundreds of thousands. They formed armed groups like Haganah and Irgun, terrorizing Palestinians by conducting raids and massacres in their villages. To resolve the situation in Palestine, the United Nation formed the UNSCOP (United Nation Special Committee on Palestine) to preside over the issue, and they came up with the Partition Plan, whereby historic Palestine was divided into Arab and Jewish territory. Fifty five percent of Palestinian territory was carved up for the Jewish immigrants from Europe. The Partition Plan was tabled in the United Nations General Assembly in 1947 and was passed as the Resolution 181 with majority votes. As Arab and Islamic countries have yet to become members of the United Nation, as they were still under the colonial yoke, the outcome of the vote was a forgone conclusion. What’s worst was the Palestinian people, the rightful owner of the land was ignored as if they were non existent.

 

Nineteen years later, the zionist State of Israel annexed the remaining 23% of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the East Jarusalem (Baitul Maqdis), what’s left of the Arab territories from the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Right to this day, every single inch of these remaining territory has been under occupation. Despite of repeated calls by the United Nations to withdraw to the Green Line of 1967, as stipulated by the UN Resolution 242 and 338 Israel remain defiant. The longstanding occupation now has lead to other more demeaning and sinister moves by the Zionist regime to carve up more land by buiding jewish-only settlements on Palestinian lands, constructing the notorious wall that snakes through the West Bank from north to south, disrupting daily movements of the Palestinian people and blocking access to schools, farms and water sources. Against every sense of justice and international laws and convention, Israel has been laying siege on the densely populated Gaza strip since 2006, turning it into the biggest terrestrial prison on earth. The population of Gaza was collectively punished for putting up a resistance against the occupation, an act that is sanctioned even by the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. The siege was than followed by a massive military strike against a deprived population that lasted for 22 days with the aim of breaking the spirit of the Palestinian people. But the Palestinian people survived the terrible ordeal and came out stronger.

 

These episodes only prove one thing i.e. no power can put down a national aspiration for freedom. The Palestinian people will continue to remain steadfast in their struggle to liberate their land and restore their dignity in the face of the most oppressive regime the world has ever known. They have put up sixty one years of honourable fight to regain their freedom and they are showing no signs of letting up.

 

PACE (Palestine Centre of Excellence, Malaysia) proudly stood by the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian people deserve a standing ovation for such an increadible feat.

 

Assoc Prof Dr Hafidzi Mohd Noor

Director

PACE

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An ingenious example of speech and politics

One of my friends usually sends me great e-mails. Here’s the latest:

An ingenious example of speech and politics occurred recently in the United Nations Assembly and made the world community smile.

The Palestinian Representative’s Speech at the UN:

‘Before beginning my talk I want to tell you something about Moses. When he struck the rock and it brought forth water, he thought, ‘What a good opportunity to have a bath!’

He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water. When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished.
An Israeli had stolen them.’

The Israeli  representative jumped up furiously and shouted, ‘What are you talking about? The Israelis weren’t there then.’

The Palestinian representative smiled and said:
‘And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech.’

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UPDATE:

We endorse the The Petition to Investigate War Crimes in Gaza Petition to of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court.

Read the The Petition to Investigate War Crimes in Gaza Petition

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Sarah Palin the Zzzzzionist.

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WOULD THE NON-ZIONIST PLEASE PUT UP THEIR HAND.

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F-awnings here, pledges there, its predictability does get boring sometimes, but to stay stumm would be nothing other than a crime.:

“Chabad envoy to Alaska: Palin staunch friend of Jews[Ed: read: Zionst movement]” – full article here. at haaretz.com

Amongst many other examples one could give, this is what Palin, McCain, Obama and Biden and all the other scumbags like necrofetish Bliar support without question:

1) Massacre in Beit Hanoun (8 November 2006) c/o Electronic Intifada .
2) US Officers planned the Beit Hanoun Massacre (WARNING: Contains some TRUELY HORRIFIC images) c/o http://sabbah.biz

 

Update: Had to include this… The army of Zion decrees fishing is a terrorist activity (Well, on the sea, it does get a bit boring what with the lack of little girls heads to empty ones bullet magazine into – right?)

-Palin

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