When Is a Refugee Not a Refugee?
6th February 2025
President Trump’s suggestion that the population of Gaza should leave while Gaza is turned into “a middle eastern Riviera” has provoked the predictable outcry from Palestinian advocates around the world of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ More interesting was the statement from the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, who said Gazans wanted to return to their homes in Gaza and rebuild “because this is where they belong and they love to live there.”
But hold on. According to the UN, nearly 80% of the population of Gaza are refugees. Now, I may have a wrong idea of what a refugee is, but I assume that it is somebody who, by definition, is not living in the place that they belong. Whereas somebody who is living in the place that they belong is not a refugee.
So how is it that Gazans can be both refugees and not refugees? It is because, unlike any other displaced people in the world, the residents of Gaza inherit refugee status. There are hardly any people left alive from the original population displaced during the war with Israel in 1948, yet millions of Palestinian Arabs have, under a UN mandate, the right of return to places in Israel.
To maintain that the population of Gaza, and the West Bank, and some in Jordan, are both refugees and not refugees at the same time can only prolong any settlement in the Middle East and bring endless strife. If it is the case that Gazans wish to stay “where they belong” then they will have to do something about Hamas, because nobody is going to invest in a place run by armed terrorists.
Preserving this ‘inherited refugee status’ was the chief function of UNRWA.