MSRI/Sponsorship of Palestinian Children, and
Deir Yassin Remembered Malaysia

Press Release

Some Thoughts on the Occasion of the Naqba Commemoration 2007 Regarding the Situation of the Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East and the situation in Iraq

On the 9th of April, the world media commemorated the 4th Anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. On the same date there is also another noteworthy commemoration, it is the 59th year of the attack of two terrorist groups – the Stern Gang and Irgun – on the little Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, just outside of Jerusalem in 1948, in which many villagers were killed and village annihilated. This attack symbolizes the beginning of the suffering of the Palestinian people, because it was used by Zionist military forces to frighten, demoralize and defeat the Palestinians, who fled in panic and fear of suffering the same fate as the villagers of Deir Yassin.

Today we are commemorating the Naqba, the catastrophe, for the 59th time. On this day in 1948, Palestine was cut asunder by a decision of the United Nations and thus the suffering was made ‘legal’ and acceptable in the eyes of the bigger part of the western world. That decision resulted in the new state of Israel, and at the same time the loss of a viable Palestinian state, with today approximately five million Palestinian refugees, the biggest refugee group in the world.

Watching the news on TV nowadays, many experience a sense of déjà vu; we see pictures which are strangely familiar, pictures of the tent cities of Iraqi refugees. In 1948, after the partition of Palestine, and also after the 1967 war, similar tent cities had sprung up in various parts of the Middle East to house the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. These tent cities were put up and managed by a special body created by the United Nations, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near East), which is supposed to provide minimal education, healthcare, social services and emergency aid with ever dwindling resources to over 4.3 million refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. However, the many thousands of Palestinian refugees who are not registered with UNRAW do not receive any relief and support from them.

During the first few weeks and months of the American attack on Iraq in 2003 it was reported that there were hardly any Iraqi refugees fleeing the war zone. The reason was that Iraqis did not want to leave because they were afraid that they would not be able to return, that they would become like the Palestinian refugees. Today the situation in Iraq has become such that there are 1.9 million internally displaced people and about 2 million Iraqis who have fled to neighbouring countries like Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, mainly countries which already have large Palestinian refugee populations, and which are stretched to the limit to share their limited resources with ever growing refugee populations.

A few days ago, on 17 April, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres has called for an international humanitarian conference on the situation of refugees and internally displaced Iraqis and said: “The humanitarian dimension of the problem can no longer be overlooked … almost 4 million Iraqis are watching us today. Their needs are as obvious as the moral imperative to help.”

Will the situation in Iraq also become an issue like the Palestine issue: a country, a people destroyed by the interests and greed of Western powers? With a UN effort to thinly cloak the injustice, suffering and untold misery wrought on a people with the mantle of ‘humanitarian aid’? Will the humanitarian dimension of the Iraqi tragedy also remain unchanged for many decades?

The fact in the Palestinian case remains that the international community through a UN decision (without the consent of the parties most affected by the decision) has created ‘facts on the ground’ which have brought untold suffering to the Palestinian people, and then has failed them for 60 years. The Palestinian refugee crisis today also represents the single most severe failure of the institution of the United Nations. Until this day there are no durable solutions for displaced Palestinians in sight. The rights under international law and legal norms applying to other refugees have not been applied to the Palestinian refugees. Their entitlement to compensation or restitution has not been addressed. Their right to protection while living under continued military occupation has not been enforced; while the silent annexation of Al Quds and the rest of the West Bank continues unchecked, and the construction of the Apartheid Wall – even though declared illegal by the International Court – soon will reach completion.

For the millions of Palestinian refugees, internally displaced Palestinians, Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Palestinians living under siege and isolated from the world in Gaza, today marks 59 years of living hell. The world community needs to account for the injustice done to the Palestinian people. We have to make our voices heard by our own governments, who in turn have to make it clear to the UN that there cannot be peace in the Middle East without justice for the Palestinian people. Civil society through all organs has to put political and economic pressure on Israel and the USA – like it did on Apartheid South-Africa and her supporting countries. It were about time, after almost 60 years, that the Right of Return guaranteed to the Palestinian people by UN resolution is taken seriously and the Palestinian refugees were free to go wherever they want like all other citizens of the world too.

24th April 2007

Deir Yassin Remembered Malaysia

Malaysian Social Research Institute;
MSRI/Sponsorship for Palestinian Children