"President Trump suggested that Jordan and Egypt should receive a large number of Gazans, either temporarily or permanently."
From experience, when a tragic event in the lives of Palestinians is labeled as "temporary,” it often becomes permanent.
Since the first Palestinian refugee camp was established in 1948, camps have been a key feature of Palestinian life, not just as shelters for people displaced from their homes and supported by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), but also as symbols of the broader refugee issue that has grown to encompass all Palestinians. This includes those holding the blue cards issued by UNRWA and Palestinians everywhere, both within and outside Palestine.
Even those who remained in the Palestinian towns and villages occupied in 1948 that the State of Israel was established over are effectively refugees. They are not treated as equals who enjoy the same rights and responsibilities, and their status as the indigenous inhabitants of the land has always been denied. That has been the case since they numbered only in the thousands, and it remains true today, when they number in the millions.
When the establishment of the Israeli state was announced, many sought refuge in the nearest places to them. Most moved to the West Bank and Gaza, followed by Lebanon and Syria, and to a lesser extent, Egypt. Those who fled to the West Bank were not initially seen as foreign, but their settlement in camps set up by UNRWA meant they had a negative status that distinguished them from their local compatriots.
With the unification of the West and East Banks, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan became home to several camps. While full Jordanian citizenship was granted to all, fostering a sense of unity, it did not entirely foster a shared sense of belonging.
Outside the Kingdom, which was founded on the union of the two Banks (West and East) and successfully united two peoples and two entities, refugee camps and their inhabitants are scattered across the region, particularly in Lebanon and Syria. However, unlike their counterparts in Jordan, refugees in these two neighboring countries did not receive the same rights and obligations as local citizens. This deepened refugees’ sense of displacement in their places of residence, uniting all Palestinians, regardless of where they were and their status in the host country.
This chronic state of exile and the dispersion of Palestinians across the entire globe provided them. The regimes of the countries they resided in granted Palestinians opportunities to excel in various fields. In many countries, Palestinian refugees became heads of state, party leaders, prime ministers, and other prominent positions of lesser rank.
Yet, deep inside, Palestinians always felt like refugees. They have never had a document affirming their original national identity, and their ancestors were subjects of various jurisdictions, none of them associated with a recognized Palestinian state. All they had were references to their place of birth.
Displacement is an existential state- a sentiment that remains in the soul regardless of one’s privileges and accomplishments. It is this deep-rooted sense of being that drove the refugees, all Palestinians to seek revolution. The sparks of their revolutions were lit from the very regions that offered them the most opportunities and wealth: the Arab Gulf states. After the first revolutionary statement was released, the flames of revolution spread like wildfire, consuming hearts and minds alike.
United by their shared sense of displacement, Palestinians rushed to join the revolution without regard for the costs that this would entail. If you go over the records of the martyrs, the wounded, and the disabled- which numbers in the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the coarse blood-soaked revolutionary journey- you will find that they were almost all either students about to graduate from school and university, or skilled professionals across various fields. After closer examination of their economic conditions, you rarely find a poor person who had been driven to join the revolution out of financial problems or in exchange for substance.
This sense of displacement has consumed the Palestinian psyche, growing even stronger with every failed attempt. Failure often produced more displacement and exile. Instead of delving into a historical overview of these failures and their consequences, let us instead examine the current state of affairs. The most illustrative example comes from Palestinian territory, with the clearest failure being that of the Oslo Accords.
The Palestinians living in their homeland felt, at a certain moment, that a new horizon had opened. They promised themselves a state and independence. This hope came from the revolution, led by Yasser Arafat, that took him to Gaza and then the West Bank. At the time, resolving the question of Jerusalem seemed like only a matter of time.
However, the experiment ultimately failed, and all Palestinians were again united by a shared sense of displacement, no matter where they were: whether in camps, villages, or cities; in Gaza or the West Bank; inside or outside the homeland. In both sentiment and fact, all Palestinians remain refugees.
There is no escape from this condition unless the grip of displacement is broken, with Palestinians granted equality with all other peoples of the world: the ability to carry an identity card and passport issued by their own state. Only then will the forced sense of exile that all Palestinians experience be replaced with shared citizenship in a normal ordinary state.
Finally, I ask President Trump: Can the Palestinian cause be addressed with new displacement and new camps?
