INTRODUCTION
We don't even know how many there really are of us. We have suffered from the absence of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). We have never received any assistance. And we were deprived of every civil right enjoyed by Iraqis. Why are we so neglected? (Palestinian Refugee, Iraq) (Nabulsi 2006: 100)
As the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein collapsed with the American-led invasion in May 2003, Palestinian refugees in the country increasingly became targets and victims of revenge attacks, extra-judicial killings, torture, kidnapping, mass evictions and displacement, as well as political and economic discrimination (see, among others, BADIL 2007; IMC 2007; Sinjab 2007; UNAMI 2007). Targeted by various sectarian militias as a distinct group - popularly viewed as having received beneficial treatment by the Hussein regime - thousands of Palestinian refugees fled towards Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan. With no country of their own to return to, they found themselves in a vicious legal and existential state of uncertainty. For the most part holders of Iraqi refugee travel documents, the majority were not granted access to either state, thus living in makeshift camps in no-man's lands between the countries. (1) As a spokesperson from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated regarding these camps in May 2007: 'The conditions are absolutely dire, they are places where people are dying. No man, woman or child should be living in that environment' (OCHA 2007a).
The current plight of Palestinian refugees in Iraq highlights, in its severest manifestation, the confluence of forced migration and statelessness that can lead to a devastating political, legal and, even, existential limbo. This reality is compounded by the distinct manner in which the international refugee regime - comprising international refugee and human rights law as well as mandated United Nations organizations - has approached the provision of protection and assistance for Palestinian refugees. With the assistance mandate of UNRWA geographically limited, (2) Palestinian refugees in Arab host states beyond the Agency's area of operations are faced with distinctly different assistance and protection challenges than those under its mandate. In what can be termed, for the purposes of this study, the 'Arab periphery', they have faced and continue to face a dangerous combination of effective gaps in international protection and assistance. As such, this thesis aims to trace the political and legal ripple effects of the Nakbah - the mass displacement of Palestinians from historic Palestine beginning in 1948 - for those refugees who found refuge in Arab states outside the bounds of international attempts at their assistance and protection. It will present a legal and political analysis of 'protection gaps' - in short, the lack of international and national protection that should, in principle, be guaranteed to all refugees - for Palestinian refugees in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Kuwait, all with considerable current or past Palestinian populations.
Section 1 will lay out the conditions informing the legal and political challenges facing Palestinian refugees in the Arab periphery. I will discuss the particular link between the Palestinians' statelessness and their status as refugees, before situating their experiences within a context of regional migration.
Section 2 will contrast the international, regional and national protection and assistance standards these communities of Palestinian refugees should, in principle, be entitled to with an examination of their legal status and rights. The section will assess the effective protection gaps engendered by host state policies and legislation directly affecting the refugees' internationally and regionally recognized refugee and human rights.
Section 3 will seek to place this legal context within a comparative Arab state political framework. I will explore the relation between the foreign policy agendas of these autocratic states and their domestic policies, which are aimed at controlling and, often, marginalizing Palestinian refugees. I will argue for a layered and intertwined political and legal analysis, with particular emphasis on the impact of autocratic governance on human rights and the role of foreign policy in host state treatment of Palestinians.
It will become clear that the Palestinians' statelessness - as individual refugees and as a collective political body - presents a unifying analytical thread necessary to understand their unique position within the Arab world. Compounding their statelessness, Palestinian refugees face a troubling gap in regional and international protection, which has made them highly susceptible to various political alliances and developments within and among host states. These factors have allowed for - if not facilitated - the unrestrained actions of these states toward the Palestinian refugees in their midst. As a simultaneously disenfranchised yet politically acknowledged population, Palestinian refugees have borne the human cost of the host states' political interests and policies.
Note:
(1) Jordan currently hosts Al-Ruwaished camp while Syria hosts Al-Hol camp. Two camps - Al-Waleed and Al-Tanf - have been identified along the Syrian-Iraqi border (Wilkes 2007). A number of Palestinian refugees in Al-Ruwaished camp have been granted asylum in Brazil as part of the 'solidarity resettlement programmes' proposed in the 2004 Mexico Plan of Action (OCHA 2007b).
(2) UNRWA, pursuant to UN General Assembly Resolution 302(IV) of 8 December 1949, is mandated to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.