Text | Nan Nan
Editor|Nannan
This partition of Palestine and its consequences
If one of the themes of the post-1948 model was embattled Israel, followed by the hostility of its Arab neighbors, the third was the plight of a large number of Arabs.
Refugees, the birth of violence in Israel led to the massive displacement of the Arab population, who were either expelled by the Zionist army before May 15, 1948, or expelled by the Israeli army after that date, or fled for fear of violence by these armies.
Many wealthy merchants and major city celebrities from Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem fled to Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, while the middle class tended to move to all-Arab towns like Nablus and Nazareth.
Farmers in most Arab countries ended up in refugee camps.
More than 400 Arab villages disappeared, and Arab life in the coastal cities almost collapsed. The center of Palestinian life shifted to Arab towns in the eastern hills of the region, west of the Jordan River and later known as the West Bank.
As with everything else in the Arab-Israeli conflict, population data is hotly contested. At the outbreak of the war, nearly 1.4 million Arabs were living in Palestine.
It is estimated that between 520,000 and 1,000,000 Arabs were displaced from their original homes, villages and communities between December 1947 and January 1949; There is general consensus, however, that the actual number is more than 600,000 and is likely to exceed 700,000.
Some 276,000 people moved to the West Bank; By 1949, more than half of the Arab population of prewar Palestine lived in the West Bank (from 400,000 in 1947 to more than 700,000).
Between 160,000 and 190,000 people fled to the Gaza Strip. More than one in five Palestinian Arabs left Palestine entirely. About 100,000 of them went to Lebanon, 100,000 to Jordan, 75,000 to 90,000 to Syria, 7,000 to 10,000 to Egypt, and 4,000 to Iraq.
Deadline "Palestinian"
Henceforth, the term Palestine will be used to refer to the Arabs of the former Mandate Palestine (excluding Israel). While the Arabs of Palestine have created and developed a Palestinian identity for about 200 years, the idea of Palestinians forming a distinct nation is relatively new.
The Arabs living in Palestine never had an independent state. Before the establishment of Israel, the term Palestinian was used by Jews and foreigners to describe the inhabitants of Palestine until the turn of the 20th century.
As the Arab world was in the midst of the Renaissance, popularizing the concepts of Arab unity and nationalism amid the decline of the Ottoman Empire, most people considered themselves part of a larger Arab or Muslim community. Since before World War I, the term Palestinian has been widely used by Palestinian Arabs to denote the nationalist concept of the Palestinian people.
But after 1948, and especially after 1967 for Palestinians, the word meant not only a place of origin, but more importantly, a feeling of sharing the past and future in the form of a Palestinian state.
A different history of Palestinian Arabs - Palestinian citizens of Israel
At the time of Israel's founding, approximately 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel. This group made up about one-eighth of all Palestinians and by 1952 accounted for about the same percentage of Israel's population. Most of them live in villages in the western Galilee.
With most of their land confiscated, the Arabs were forced to abandon agriculture and become unskilled wage laborers working in Jewish industrial and construction companies. As citizens of the State of Israel, they theoretically enjoyed equal religious and civil rights with Jews.
In reality, however, until 1966 they lived under military jurisdiction, which imposed severe restrictions on their political choices and freedom of action. Most of them are politically silent, and many acquiesce to the reality of Israel ruling according to Zionist ideology.
Many are also trying to improve their situation by participating in elections, education and economic integration.
Israel seeks to prevent Palestinians from forming a cohesive national consciousness by dealing with various minorities such as the Druze, Circassians and Bedouins; obstructing the work of Muslim religious organizations; arrest and harass individuals suspected of nationalist sentiments; and focus on education as a means of creating a new Israeli Arab identity.
By the late 60s of the 20th century, with the decline of agriculture and the collapse of social customs associated with events such as choosing relatives and marriage, the old patrilineal clan system almost collapsed. For nearly 20 years after Israel's founding, Israel's Palestinian citizens were cut off from other Arabs.
Palestinians in the West Bank (and Jordan).
The Jordanian monarchy saw an opportunity to expand Jordanian territory and integrate Palestinians into its population during the events of 1948-49, creating a new inclusive Jordanian nation. Through a series of political and social policies, Jordan has sought to consolidate its control over the political future of the Palestinians and to become their spokesperson.
It provided education and, in 1949, offered citizenship to Palestinians; In fact, the majority of all Palestinians have become Jordanian citizens.
However, tensions between former Jordanian citizens and better-educated and more skilled newcomers soon emerged. Wealthy Palestinians live in towns on the east and west banks of the Jordan River, vying for positions within the government, while Arab farmers crowd U.N. refugee camps.
Palestinians make up about two thirds of Jordan's population. Half of Jordan's House of Representatives is reserved for West Bank representatives, but this measure and similar attempts to integrate the West Bank with the east of the Jordan River are due to major social, economic, educational, and political differences among individual residents.
Jordanian Palestinians, with the exception of prominent families favored by the Jordanian monarchy, tended to support Egyptian President Jamal Abdul Nasser's radical pan-Arab and anti-Israel policies, rather than Jordan's more cautious and conciliatory stance.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
During the 20 years that the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control (1948-67), it was nothing more than a reservation. Egyptian rule was usually autocratic. Palestinians living in the area are deprived of their citizenship, which makes them stateless (i.e., they do not have the citizenship of any state), and they have little real control over local administration.
However, they were allowed to attend Egyptian universities and sometimes elected local officials.
In 1948, Amin Al-Husseini announced the establishment of an all-Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip. But because it was completely dependent on Egypt, it was short-lived. The failure of this venture, as well as al-Ḥusaynī's lack of credibility due to his work with the Axis powers during World War II, largely weakened Palestinian-Arab nationalism in the 1950s.
At 25 miles (40 km) long and 4–5 miles (6–8 km) wide, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions in the world, with more than four-fifths of the population in cities.
Poverty and social misery characterize life in the region.
high unemployment; Many Palestinians live in refugee camps and rely mainly on United Nations assistance. Much of the farmland they used to cultivate is now inaccessible and little or no industry is allowed, but commerce has flourished as Gaza has become a duty-free port for Egyptians.
While some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were able to leave the territory and get an education and find work elsewhere, most had no choice but to remain in the area despite its lack of natural resources and jobs.
UNRWA camps
In December 1949, the United Nations General Assembly established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to assist Palestine refugees.
In May 1950, UNRWA established 53 refugee "camps" on both sides of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria to help it count the 650,000 or more Arab refugees in need. Refugees in makeshift camps initially lived in tents, but after 1958 these tents were replaced by small houses of concrete blocks with iron roofs.
The conditions are extremely harsh; Often several families have to share a tent, and exposure to extreme winter and summer temperatures can cause more suffering. The loss of homes and income lowered morale.
Despite rent-free accommodation and basic services such as water, health care and education (UNRWA operated primary and secondary schools in the camps, teaching more than 40,000 students by 1951), poverty and misery were widespread. Little work was done, despite UNRWA's attempts to integrate Palestinians into the depressed economy of the "host country".
Palestinians who continue to live in refugee camps feel a greater sense of alienation and confusion than the more fortunate people who have found jobs and housing and integrated into the national economy of the countries in which they live. Although the camp strengthened family and village ties, their demoralized inhabitants were cut off from mainstream Palestinian political activity in the 1950s.
Mandate for Palestinians outside Palestine
Palestinians have found jobs in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf states, but only a few have been able to become citizens of those countries. They are often victims of discrimination and are closely monitored by their respective Governments aimed at restricting their political activities.
The revival of Palestinian identity
The events of 1948 (also known to Palestinians as al-nakbah, "catastrophe") and the experience of exile shaped the political and cultural activities of the next generation of Palestinians. The central task of reconstruction falls to Palestinians living outside Israel — including communities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and new Palestinian communities outside the former British Mandate.
Palestinians living in the territory of the State of Israel remain in an ambiguously isolated situation and are viewed with suspicion by Israelis and other Palestinians.
Although four fifths of the Palestinians remain in the former British Mandate. By the mid-60s of the 20th century, despite Israel's efforts to prevent the emergence of a new Palestinian identity, young, well-educated leaders had emerged, replacing discredited traditional local and tribal leaders.
The role of the camp
Palestinian refugee camps vary from country to country, but they have a common development – the emergence of a "diaspora consciousness". Over time, this consciousness developed into a new national identity and revitalized social system, leading to the creation of more complex social and political structures by the 1960s.
New Palestinian leaders emerged in UNRWA-established schools and universities in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Western Europe and the United States. Palestinians living in UNRWA-run camps felt isolated, politically powerless, disoriented, anguish and resentful.
They remained unassimilated and developed a new sense of identity based on the Pan-Arabism inspired by Nasser, cultivating memories of the lost paradise (Palestine) and the emerging pan-Islamic movement.
The role of Palestinians other than the former Mandate Palestine
By the late 1960s, there was a population of educated and mobile Palestinians, less than half of whom lived in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. They work in oil companies, civil servants, and educational institutions in most Arab countries in the Middle East.
Having successfully resisted efforts by Amin Husseini, Jordan and Egypt to control and advocate for them, they joined the process of reshaping Palestinian consciousness and institutions.
The Palestinians thus entered a new phase in their struggle for statehood.
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